Round
lake is located about 3 miles from the Big Meadow trailhead on highway
89 (South of Lake Tahoe). I have visited this lake many times but the
hike seems to get better every time. My friend Leo and I took off on
this trip knowing that we were going to encounter some snow...
of course we didn't expect quite as much as we received. You can see
from this first picture there wasn't much snow on the ground... yet.
The
trail actually starts on the other side of the highway, make sure you
watch for traffic (you can't move that fast with a heavy pack on). The
trail starts out pretty steep but it eventually levels off and after
about a half mile you reach Big Meadow. It really is a neat meadow with
a stream winding its way through one corner of it. It was towards the
end of the meadow that the wind picked up and it started to snow quite
hard. This picture was taken at the very beginning of the meadow.
Trail conditions were changing rather fast. There were only a few inches of snow on the ground at this section of trail but the breaks in the snow seemed to be getting shorter.
Once
we got the tent set up we knew that we had better get ready for some
serious winter conditions. As you can see from the trees in this picture
the wind had really picked up now and was making the snow stick on the
windward side of the trees. This picture was actually taken from a hastily
made cooking shelter so we could at least eat out of the wind.
That
night we were snowed on like mad. We had to clear the snow off the tent
a few times that evening and by morning we decided it would be best
to try to get out before things got any worse. We both knew it was going
to be a long hike across some fresh powder without snowshoes. This is
a picture of Leo with snow not quite to his knees yet. During the worst
stretches it was only slightly above knee height. The tricky part was
the navigation aspect. It was snowing nearly horizontal through the
open sections because of the fierce winds so looking for trail blazes
was not really an option because of the limited visibility. We took
this opportunity to brush up on our map and compass skills and navigate
back to my truck.
When we got to Big Meadow I just had to take a picture of Leo with the meadow in the background. It is amazing how much a couple feet of snow changes the way things look. Luckily we were able to calculate what bearing we should use to cross the meadow. The only tricky part was when we reached the stream that crosses the far corner. Luckily we found it before we were in it. I was hoping to find the bridge and cross the stream on that but the bridge was difficult to locate because of the snow. Crossing streams is always a little tricky in snow but we were able to cross without any problems.
After
making it across the meadow we were left with only a short scramble
to the trailhead. Except for some traction problems toward the very
last stretch it went surprisingly well. This picture is of Leo rejoicing
in our excellent orienteering skills. I guess we weren't as rusty as
we thought we were. Of course there was one more adventure left for
us...
Digging out the truck!