Overland Camping Roadtrip Blog
Travel Day 45:
Total km driven to date: 8557km
Total km walked to date: 345.48km
Toiyabe National Forest – Tahoe Nat Forest
223km drive
8.49km on foot
Today the plan was to head up to Tahoe to check it out, which will mean back across the Sierra’s for a 3rd time, hopefully the last time this trip! I’m also happy to report that Axel is back to his usual self, yesterday was just an off day, his nose is still sore but no worse for wear. Leaving camp we quickly dropped down the last 2000ft into the valley floor and back onto US-395 heading north. We followed the Walker River and it must be good fishing judging by how many people were fishing along it. The road winds along until you come out of the mountains and into ranch land with the Sierras on your left hand side. The road took us back into Nevada up and through Carson Valley where we turned off and up the steep climb into Tahoe. I know its Saturday but it was an absolute zoo up in Tahoe, people EVERYWHERE. The Nevada side of South Lake Tahoe the city has a whole bunch of casinos and huge fancy hotels with a very Whistler vibe to it, but the town spans the state line and the california side is completely different, very much like Big Bear, with old rustic shops and cabins in the pines.
We headed up US-50 along the East side of the lake and while it is beautiful it is everything I hate, I didn’t even stop for pictures because there was so many people, every beach had signs saying “Beach full” every campsite had signs saying “Campsite full” and it was like a traffic jam driving through a windy road in the forest because every mile there was another beach with wall to wall cars parked on the shoulder. The lake itself is a nice turquoise blue and huge but just filled with boats of all shapes and sizes. I knew there was going to be no camping around there just based on the number of people in town so we continued north along US-50 eventually getting to the ski town of Truckee. The loose plan is to keep heading north staying in the Sierras for a few more days so I hopped on US-89 and found a campsite in the woods north of Truckee. Not a bad spot but no comparison to the past few days, we will keep heading north tomorrow with the eventual plan of cutting west and heading down through Redding CA and towards the coast to check out the Redwoods and then head up the Pacific Coast Highway.
