Trip Date: September 3, 2019
Find this SpotI have been fortunate enough to get invited each year to a cabin Mark rents in Lake Tahoe, on the West side, between Homewood and Tahoma, just up from Chambers Landing. It is a great part of the lake; close enough to Tahoe City and all it has to offer, but otherwise very quiet and mellow. As with most of the Lake, it is a huge landing place for folks from San Francisco.
My mom and her twin used to frequent the Tahoma Lodge in the 1940’s and ‘50’s. When the families got bigger in the 1960’s, there would be huge multi-family camping trips to Sugar Pine Point State Park. My brother Mike and Edna began to stay at the Tahoma Lodge in the 1970’s and organized many family trips up there. We have camped at Sugar Pine and Bliss a number of times and even a private campground over the years.
More recently, Morgan and Nick got married in Tahoe City which brought everyone up to that end of the lake, but the West side has served our family well for decades. There is even a story of my mom’s mom, taking the train in the 19 teens, from San Francisco to Truckee and then the stage coach to stay at Lake Tahoe. I am not sure who she was with or where she stayed, but I bet Mike knows, or hopefully someone is left alive that recalls the details. So, as usual, my tiny brain was full of memories of past trips and family lore as I cruised down highway 89 from Truckee, into Tahoe City.
As has become customary in the past trips to stay with Mark, I stopped at the Save Mart to shop and pick up a few last minute impulse needs. I recall the first time I was invited up to Tahoe by Mark a few years back. We had reconnected after going to high school together and I was super excited to see him and his crew of Dave, Frank, and Dean. I bought a huge Salmon fillet and planned to BBQ it for everyone. However, my excitement got the better of me and several huge whiskey drinks on an empty stomach put me in a standing coma.
I recall standing on the deck, unable to speak or move but watching Frank and Mark interact with some people they/we knew who were walking by. I knew all the people they were talking about but could not participate. I have a very foggy recollection of standing in the kitchen against a wall, unable to navigate away from it. Finally the lads lay me down to sleep on my cot on the deck. Thank the gods for not puking inside the house, although I did saturate the brand new cot my mother-in-law had just given me for my birthday. The maiden voyage was an inauspicious one.
I recall lighting the fire for the BBQ, and I recall handling the Salmon, although I am not sure if it got cooked or just incinerated or left for the bears across my chest on the deck. I was so hung over the next day and part of the next. It may have been a huge lesson for me, because I don’t remember (of course I don’t) being hung over since. I was so embarrassed and disappointed in myself, wasting that time with these guys from my past that I rarely see, and mostly haven’t seen since. Them having to take care of me and clean up after me and worry about me. Just ridiculous; such an incredible waste.
In any event, I have been invited back, so for that I am very appreciative, and I have maintained since. So back at the store for ice and unmentionables, I was stoked to be heading to the cabin on a spectacular mid-week day. I found Mark on the deck and we proceeded to get caught up and unpacked, and settled in. Although about as easy a drive up as you could ask for, I had been gathering materials for the property for a few days and loading the truck. I met my brother Dennis for breakfast that morning, and so it was great to kick back and relax on the deck in the afternoon sun and the fresh Tahoe air.
We snacked on cheese, lunch meat, good bread, chips, and delicious tomatoes from Mark’s garden. Eventually Mark BBQd a steak as we watched the Giants and began to party a little more as the night continued. I think I made it to midnight, which is like an all-nighter for me, and then poured myself into my bed-bed. Sleep was not outstanding, but it didn’t matter. We were at the Lake with no agenda; no to-do list.
It seemed like we should make it to the lake, but it was a tad overcast and cool. It wasn’t warm enough to swim really or to hang out at the beach, so we just lounged on the deck. I was hunting for a camping coffee pot to replace the old aluminum one I had been suing that Mike gave me years ago, and a can of bee spray and some batteries would be useful as well. So I managed to haul myself into town for a look about. I first tried Swigard’s True Value Hardware store and was surprised to find a cool screen window kit for the shitter. They sent me up the road to Tahoe Dave’s who sent me to Pass-It-On Thrift shop who sent me back down the other side of the street to Any Mountain, Alpenglow Sports, and eventually completing the circuit at Save Mart; none of which had an old fashioned percolating coffee pot.
It was actually fun to be out walking in town, going in the shops and talking to people, and of course people watching. Oh the tourists!!! I made a great purchase of a wooden handled ladle for the sawdust in the shitter at the 2nd hand store, so I felt accomplished. I headed back to the cabin with the batteries Mark needed, ready for cocktails, food and the arrival of Dave. I was disappointed to have bought the wrong size batteries for Mark, but hey man, my brain ain’t what it used to be. Dave’s arrival picked up the energy and our celebration began in earnest. I had marinated 2 pork tenderloins in beer and brought up an onion, red bell pepper and brown mushrooms. I had baked potatoes at home and melted cheese on top so they just needed to be reheated.
I felt like the Galloping Gourmet as I scampered back and forth from the barby on the deck to the oven and dishes in the kitchen. It all came out gloriously, although the pork could have come off a minute or 2 earlier. With full bellies and the Giants prevailing, there was much rejoicing. I was heading out in the morning up to the property and I wanted to get some work done, so I was pretty mellow, again retiring shortly after midnight. I understand the boys partied into the wee hours. With coffee and a shower, I was ready to roll at a reasonable hour, but I lingered until Mark emerged from his den to say goodbye. It was a great visit with 2 old friends.
I stopped at the Mountain Hardware and Sports in Truckee, which turned out to be an awesome place. It was packed with all things hardware store, camping, and Tahoe/Truckee like items for fun outdoor living. I found my coffee pot and paint strainers, but I forgot a dam gas container for the stove – probably because I was distracted by the pizza oven, fire pits, deck chairs, hammocks, and other fun stuff. On up highway 89, past Sagehen campground where I stayed with Mike and Edna after skiing with Kenny at Sugar Bowl, past a horrible accident with upside down car in Sierraville. Past the Golden Shower Saloon in Loyalton where the boys did their best to fit in with the locals. Past Kier’s place that was so much in need of a sign. The traveling was good and easy.
I had not traveled 395 for a while, having come 32/36/139 the last few times up, so it was pretty interesting to see that country again. The weather was pretty unsettled resulting in some very impressive cloud formations. I was a tad disappointed to see so many cows along the road, and out on Termo-Grasshopper Rd., as I approached the property. We had watched a truck literally unload a trailer full of cows right on Termo-Grasshopper the last trip up, so it wasn’t surprising they were there, but now there were 200 head, mostly scattered along Bailey Creek, and eventually spilling out onto the road. I was stoked to get off the pavement and get around back, pull up to the cemetery and see the gate still up and nothing thrashed or vandalized. I closed the gate behind me and breathed an audible huge sigh of pleasure as the shitter came into view and I crested the summit and saw the deck. All our building materials were still intact and covered and ready for the next push.
I enjoyed a celebratory beverage at the top before I couldn’t help myself any longer and took off the tarp and heavy objects weighing it down to uncover the glass doors from Winters I got for free. There was at least a gallon of water on the tarp so we definitely got some rain in between visits. I could tell from the road too; it was packed fairly firmly and not a trace of dust was raised as I came up the road. The sage was sweet as could be and it had greened up substantially from the last visit earlier in the month. I noticed too we had vegetation starting to grow back in the road. In less than 3 months, the vegetation was recovering from the thrashing it took to build the road. Even the rocks and boulders alongside the road looked nice with all the dirt and dust knocked off of them.
As is often the case, I get myself all worked up and get ahead of myself a bit, sometimes regretting my haste. The last day of our work party at the end of August, I was so excited at what we accomplished, especially the last day without Bob to guide and steady the rocky boat, with Mike, and Kristen, and I struggling mightily to finish laying the deck surface. The next morning, just before Haley and Brett left, I couldn’t help but grab my chainsaw, and whack off the top foot or so of the 4×6 posts on the deck to get a better sense of the height and slope of the roof. We were very happy with the result, but later, it dawned on me that one of the driving factors of the West wall and therefore the roof was these doors that I was so proud of and excited about.
I was certain they were 8 or more feet tall as my faulty recollection had it when I loaded them in the truck bed with the tailgate down. So, I was overjoyed to lay my tape (got another tape measure, Rhino) from end to end and read 7’. I had to get my glasses and do it again for confirmation, and relief. Holy Toledo, we avoided another one. With that, I unstrapped the tie downs on the truck and unloaded the 2×4’s, plywood, and 2 – 250 gallon water tanks for the shitter. Then I drove down the road to the shitter and unloaded and stacked the 50 or so “T” posts onto our bone yard pile, which was growing into quite a concern. We were looking like we had our shit together.
By now I was thrashed. The Harvey cabin was catching up to me, and the drive, and the shopping, and excitement. The breeze was pretty stout and steady, so cooking was out of the question, especially since I had forgotten to get a gas canister for the stove. Oh well. My magnificent wifey had surprised me with a large bottle of Rasputin for the trip, and this would be my hearty dinner this eve. I propped myself onto the sweet Mahogany bench Mike brought up and watched the shadows play on the Madeline Plain and the lightning in the clouds above the South Warners. The sunset was outrageous, and dusk has always been sweet. It was quite a show, while I lasted.
I don’t believe it was 9 o’clock when I said goodnight to Kristen and fell back onto my sweet, warm, spacious, comfortable, bed bed. Sleep did not come swiftly, but I was super comfortable, super happy, and super exhausted, so when it came, it came big and hard and long. I slept like a stone. No moos and no Night Hawks, and only one pee trip, but I woke up enough to clear my eyes and focus my vision to look at the stars for a few minutes. It must have been late/early because the common constellations I typically recognize seemed to be out of place, sideways, or upside down. It would make my brain hurt to think about, so I just got back in bed, zipped up the tent, and sawed logs for a few more hours. Still, the morning came too early.
I don’t recall hearing the Night Hawks at all, but at first light I was up. It was cool and calm and very still, as almost every morning has been up here. I was excited to get to it and without gas for the stove and no interest in tending to a fire; I just went down to the shitter where I would focus my efforts of the day. By the time I walked the 20 meters to the shitter, I was exhausted. This day would be a struggle.
Mother Nature called upon me, which quite frankly is an odd sentiment. Why would taking a dump be the answer to Mother Nature’s Call? Is that what she is really asking for? Taking a crap on Mother Nature is “answering the call”? Seems very odd. Anyway, the improvements in the shitter worked tremendously and I got a kick out of being able to walk down the road a piece, up the little trail, open the split glass door, and step inside to do my business. TP roll, Redwood sawdust, wooden handled ladle, baby wipes, hand cleaner, air freshener, good lord, this was stylish.
I had a plan to stick to today after not getting much done yesterday afternoon. My body felt much better after eating, hydrating, and sleeping a lot, but it was not meant to be. I walked around the shitter several times like a dog going in circles before it finally lies down. I knew what I wanted to get done; I just didn’t want to do it. I fiddled with the foam to seal the roof, and that didn’t go well. I fiddled with the toilet seat hinge and didn’t have the right screws. I screwed in the cool welders’ tool toilet paper holder and split the 2×4. I poured the redwood sawdust from the garbage can to the cool burlap sack but it just blew all over in the wind. I did successfully drive in a nail from the outside to hang my cool wooden handled ladle for the sawdust without incident. But that was the first and last of the smooth operations.
I tried my best to put the weatherproof paper on the shitter, but the wind was winning the struggle. Then, I realized I didn’t have enough paper to cover it. Then I realized how difficult and tedious it was using the old and roughly weathered cedar shingles from the Iron Mountain Ski Resort. Then I found out how tedious it was to nail 4, 5, 6 nails in each shingle. Then I rested. I wrestled with the ladders, swept the inside of the shitter, (Dennis would be proud), sprayed more foam from the outside, filled gaps, got the cabinet on the back up on concrete blocks, decided to put the water tanks on the back/West side, carried all the cinder blocks from the truck and leveled a nice pad for the tanks, only to realize now the tanks were higher than the back of the roof where the gutter would come off. Fuck me. I knew I was licked but I just couldn’t accept it.
I managed to get the front of the shitter shingled and looking OK. I will add a trim of short, thicker shingles up top around the roof to hide the foam mess and sharpen the whole deal up a bit. I made sure the 55 gallon tank for the sink would fit under the roof and fooled with some support for the sink and routing the drain hose out from the sink, especially now since the water tanks are on the other side. My brain hurt and finally froze up. I needed to eat and rest and regroup in a big way. I trudged back up the road and made a delicious lunch of pasta, the veggie/mushroom mix and tenderloin from last night’s BBQ, and a beer, but mostly about a gallon of water. I slumped on the bench out of the sun and wind and kept on eye on the body snatchers down below. They were on our side of the road, but had not tredded up the hill. We were all still getting along.
On one of my trips back to the kitchen, I noticed a column of smoke to the South. It looked close, but not too big or dark, but it certainly was a forest fire. I moved my chairs to keep an eye on it and would periodically put the glasses on it to see if I could actually see flames in the column of smoke. It seemed to settle down, shrink, lighten in color and then flare up into a much larger, darker column. This seemed to happen 3 or 4 times as the wind blew the smoke East, but the fire seemed to be burning West. I couldn’t smell the smoke and we weren’t nearly close enough to get ashes, but it was very worrisome nonetheless.
I thought about calling Dale, as he was tucked up in the valley and he probably could not see it. I thought about calling Tim as again his property was up against the base of the hills and I wasn’t sure if he knew. Being up on top, we have a great vantage point to see just about anything coming from any direction, but the column never really seemed to be growing that significantly and seemed far enough away, that I decided not to call the neighbors. I did however call 911 just to make sure those folks new about it and they surely did. So, I simply kept an eye on it and listened to the planes coming and going for a while as I finished my lunch.
After I ate and rested and drank tons of water, I felt better, but not good. I talked to K on the phone and decided to pack it in for a quick nap. My tent was warm but not hot, and the breeze kept it very comfortable. I could see the column of smoke was now much smaller and just about white – no fuel being consumed, so I was able to clear my mind of that concern. I slept for a couple hours it seemed, until about 5. I was in quite a quandary over whether to get up and be awake for a while, maybe try to get something done this evening, or just try to sleep through the night.
Erectness won out, but barely. I tried to make myself do something on the outhouse, but it wasn’t happening. I fooled around and futzed here and there. I laid out a string perimeter where I thought we could add onto the deck; the annex we are calling it, and then I realized I should just accept my fate. I just didn’t have it in me. I was struggling up here and K was struggling at home, so I packed it in. I gathered my tools, bedding and clothes from the tent, organized the things I was leaving behind, wind/weatherproofed things as best I could, loaded up the cab with water and snacks, and headed down the road. I had a good time in Tahoe and had brought another load of materials. I clarified my vision of what needed to be done on the shitter and how to do it. I had a fantastic night, and so it would be. I wasn’t happy or energized to be going home, but I was satisfied.
As I got down to the gate, I noticed a truck parked alongside the cemetery. I assumed it was one of the cow folks so I was happy to meet another neighbor or worker. As I stopped in front of the track they had thrashed through the sage along the cemetery fence line, out came a short stocky fellow to greet me. Much to my surprise, English was not his first language. He asked/gestured if this was my property, indicating it was, he returned to his truck and came back with a 5 gallon bucket and forcefully set it upon the earth. “Take”, “you take”, “yours” he said. “Honey, from the bees”. Now I noticed his outfit and the bees around his head, and now mine. This was no cow poke, this was another Russian bee guy.
At our home in Carmichael, we have had Ion, a Russian bee guy, trying to establish healthy bee hives for several years. They seem to do well for a year or 2, and then crash, over and over the cycle repeats, until just the other day, Ion came by to pick everything up, choosing a new avenue for success. Now, way out here, I have Ivan the Russian bee guy leaving boxes on our property. I told him the 5 gallon bucket of honey was way too much, so he traded the bucket for a 1 lb. jar. He explained that he has left his bees on our neighbor Tim’s property before and there would be no problems. I think he said the boxes would be removed in a month or so. In any event, communication was rough, bees aren’t bad, Ivan seemed OK, and I was geared up for the long ride home. We exchanged phone numbers, and he gave me Tim’s phone number which I did not have, so that was a huge plus.
We were happy to part ways. He got back to his bees and I got on down the road, our triangle road which now had cows on it! Stupid cows. Maybe a half dozen or so had gone by seemingly using it just to get from Tim’s property along Bailey Creek over to South Grasshopper Road. They seem to use the roads a lot. Back to Termo Grasshopper there were now a dozen or so cows on our side of the road, just along the road, not up on the slop at all. Oh well, like the hunters and meth heads; if they all stay down below, we can all get along.
I figured I would surprise Kristen and not tell her I was coming home for a while, but she called at about Ravendale and she guessed I was on my way. Now it felt like the right decision. She was happy and I was happy. As I was approaching Viewland on Highway 395, I was assaulted by a massive cloud that appeared to be over the Plumas National Forest, above Milford and Janesville. It was massive and dark orange/rust color. At first I thought it just might be a trippy sunset, but as I got closer and got a better view of it, it was definitely sunset but with the addition of a million tons of wildfire smoke particulates. It took up the entire southern hemisphere, and seemed to have rain coming out of its far Eastern tail. It definitely looked and felt apocalyptic.
I was headed right for it, and although it seemed fairly high up in the forest, that eastern slope is super steep, around Janesville Grade and Thompson Peak and Milford Grade and Cottonwood Peak, and Black Mountain Lookout. If the Lookout wasn’t engulfed in flames, it was otherwise useless, as the smoke and clouds eliminated any visibility up there. I knew 395 was right under that steep eastern slope, so I was quite relieved to squirt by it without incident, looking straight up at that cloud overhead seemed like something out of Independence Day.
I was groggy most of the way home, but I had plenty of snacks and water to get me through. After skirting the 50,000 acre Walker Fire, the undivided highway down to Hallelujah Junction was horrifying. I just couldn’t get over how little it would take to drift a little into oncoming traffic for a horrific head-on collision. By the time I got into Reno it was dark, and although I-80 has a nice concrete barricade separating the directions of traffic, people driving with their high beams on and/or the new super bright headlights, and/or the poorly adjusted lamps were equally annoying and dangerous. Fighting the blinding lights from oncoming traffic kept me awake and annoyed all the way into Sacramento when finally I could get over in the slow lane and out of the blinding beams (or was that the spaceship?)
I didn’t have to stop for gas or to pee so I was home about 10:30, just about 4 hours drive time on 395/80 without stops. It was very reasonable and I was stoked to be home, and I am sure my wife was too.
Find this SpotLake Tahoe to Hart Hill Photo Gallery
