We finally made it up to Lake Tahoe after having lived in CA for the past decade. Joe had always wanted to check out the place, but for some reason I’ve always felt there’s something better than going to a lake. For me, lakes are for fishing, swimming and, subsequently, contracting some kind of brain-eating amoeba. However, the hike along the Rubicon trail changed my mind about lakes. This place is gorgeous! The water is so clear with varied shades of blue that it rivals Turkey’s beautiful turquoise coast.

The easy to moderate Rubicon trail between Vikingsholm and Calawee Cove beach is about 5.4 miles one way. We would normally hike out-and-back, but in the interest of time we opted to hike one way and meet up with friends at the Calawee Cove parking lot. In hindsight, we could have easily done the round trip.

After the initial descent down to the Emerald Bay Beach, the relatively flat trail hugged the lake for the first half of the hike.

As the trail brought us higher up, we were immediately reminded of the time we spent exploring the Fethiye coastline.

The second half of the trail brought us away from the lake.

An interesting side trail is the Lighthouse trail, which branches off the Rubicon trail at a certain point, but the two trails rejoin at Calawee Cove. One way to hike the Rubicon out-and-back, is to stay on the Rubicon trail to Calawee Cove, and loop back on the Lighthouse trail.

I wish we had done the round trip, but we’ve got a few more hikes to do in the next few days, so all’s good.

• California
• Hiking
• Travel
• USA