Hello from a relaxing day at home, 3 day weekends are awesome. I think I need more of them. After a few weeks of insanity, we needed a change of scenery and took off on a day trip to Squaw Valley yesterday for a little hiking, photography, and relaxing. This is actually a great time to go with warm temps, still a little snow to play in and gorgeous sunny weather, and it’s just under a 2-hour drive for us. We parked at the village and rode the cable car to the upper camp at 8,000 ft. elevation.
Which is a fun, 8 minute trip to the top in a wobbly car with astounding views all around.
I love that it’s September and there’s still snow patches around, talk about a change from the 100 degree heat in our area!
Once at the top, I had fun watching the other cars leave while taking in the views from the deck.
The high camp also has a roller skating rink at the top with a gorgeous view of the lake.
And a huge swimming pool that was apparently freezing and only kids enjoyed.
But we were there for the hiking trails and there are quite a few ranging from 1 to 8 miles around and up to the high camp. We went with a 4-mile loop trail that toured vacant snow ski lifts, snow patches, and flowing streams.
For late summer, the colorful flowers were beautiful.
After about 2 hours, we were wiped – how sad is that? But hiking up and down hill at 8,000 elevation is exhausting! And I’m really feeling it in my butt this morning.
So it was great to get back to the high camp and enjoy the impressive views of Lake Tahoe before riding the cable car back to the village.
We arrived in the village just in time for a wine tasting festival with live music. But wine tasting doesn’t mix after being tired from a hike and needing to make a 2-hour drive home. Bummer!
Everywhere in Squaw seems to be very dog friendly, they’re allowed on the cable cars, all over the hiking trails, hanging out in the village, and shops, and restaurants. It was so cute, but I’m glad I didn’t bring my neurotic chihuahua who wouldn’t have appreciated the crowds as much. :-)
Instead of wine tasting, we stopped in at a grill for dinner and a beer.
I got a wonderful pineapple teriyaki veggie burger with splurge fries.
It had a wonderful, moist texture and disappeared fast since I was starved! The Pure Bars and trail mix I packed for the hike didn’t last long!
It was a perfectly long day that we’re resting from today while catching up on house projects and laundry. How’s your long weekend going?
What a gorgeous day! Stunning pics.
Do you have a lot of vacation time? Maybe you could request a few three-day weekends to alleviate some of the work stress?
Thanks on the pics. I don’t have a lot of vacation time currently thanks to furlough days we had to take awhile back, but it’s slowly building back up.
pineapple teriyaki veggie burger and that O.J. or is that really beer? in the pic above it…look amazing
ALL of these pics are truly breathtaking!
the sky is so blue it looks fake! and so clear.
Your pics have come SUCH a long way, Christine. Wow, I am just blown away.
I want to get up to Tahoe so badly. It’s been 5-6 yrs for me! Whoops!
Heh, it’s beer – Blue Moon with a little orange and very good. :-)
Thanks on the photos, it was so much fun snapping them and I’m having a blast with LR3.
You should totally take Skylar to Tahoe, she’d have a blast snow tubing!
How gorgeous is the west coast??!!! Gosh! It’s dumping buckets of rain here today so I finished painting my kitchen!
Awe, sorry about your weather! :-( But it dumps plenty in during winter – for days in a row, gotta enjoy the sunshine while we have it. :-)
Ohh! It looks heavenly! Those hikes are so necesary for peace of mind I have found. I feeler pulled to the mountains again after seeing those pictures. Glad you had the opportunity to surround yourself with such beauty. Food does always taste better when you’ve worked hard and are so hungry for it ;)
That teriyaki veggie burger topped with pineapple looks delicious! While I have not been to Squaw Valley, I am sure the restaurant is similar to many hiking/outdoor communities, in that they are very vegan/vegetarian friendly. Yeah! I went to Mammoth recently and they had a whole section for vegan. ;)
And Vegas had a whole section to Vegan, too. Its nice to see restaurants taking a step up.
I think one three-day weekend per month would be a good ratio, personally.
I had a great Sat and Sun but started panicking Mon about everything I need to get done. Ick, gotta break that kind of habit!