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MUSIC >>Dave Santina: Hi, welcome to Wild Nevada.

I'm Dave Santina.

>>Chris Orr: And I'm Chris Orr.

We're starting out here in Reno, but we're leavin' the city behind because we're headed up to Tahoe to do some hiking on the Tahoe Rim Trail.

Tahoe Rim Trail is listed as one of the Top Ten Challenges in the state of Nevada.

>>Dave: We're gonna begin at Tahoe Meadows and then, uh, hike all the way up to Marlette Peak for the night where we're gonna camp out.

Tomorrow, we'll finish the hike by heading to Spooner Summit.

>>Chris: Well, we've got our tents.

Should we get goin'?

>>Dave: Oh, yeah.

MUSIC >>Dave: From Reno, we take U.S.

Highway 395 South to Highway 431, also known as the Mt.

Rose Highway.

Traveling about 20 miles on 431, we reach the Mt.

Rose Summit and arrive at the Tahoe Meadows Trailhead.

MUSIC >>Dave: Hey, Mark.

>>Dave: At the trailhead, we meet Mark Kimbrough, the Executive Director of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.

>>Dave: So, uh, whataya got in store for us?

>>Mark Kimbrough: Today, we're gonna hike Nevada's little segment of the Tahoe Rim Trail, at least a piece of it.

And, we're gonna start here at Tahoe Meadows, uh, at our trailhead for the Rim Trail.

And, we're gonna head to Spooner, which is 23 miles away.

>>Chris: Well, should we head out, then?

>>Mark: Yes.

Let's go.

>>Dave: We'll follow you.

>>Chris: Tahoe Meadows offers two trailheads for the Tahoe Rim Trail, as well as a 1.3 mile long interpretive trail, all of which are located above 8,000 feet in elevation.

>>Dave: With all the water running through here, I imagine that this trail erodes pretty quickly.

Do you have to do a lot of maintenance on it?

>>Mark: Yeah, well, actually the trails are really, there is a lot of maintenance, especially when you mix water with them.

And, this is the worse case scenario 'cause you have a tremendous amount of water have an impact on your tread.

So, you build different features along there to, hopefully, get the water off the trail.

>>Chris: So, we're finally headed away from the highway.

Why did we follow the highway so long?

>>Mark: You know, that wasn't very attractive, was it?

Going along the highway to start with the Rim Trail.

>>Chris: Well, it's still beautiful.

>>Mark: Well, what happened was that this meadow area is a very significant area for the Washoe Tribe.

That was one of the reasons we stayed away from the meadows.

So, they really didn't want that encroachment into kind of their area of, of protection.

>>Dave: Hmm.

Okay.

>>Mark: So, we stayed along the highway for that reason.

And, then the other reason, one, obviously if you walk across the meadow, especially this time of year, you're gonna walk in mud, which is a very difficult task in trail design.

>>Dave: The trail cuts through the meadows and the display of wildflowers is spectacular!

The water of Ophir Creek is refreshing, too, but we have a lot of miles ahead of us, and we're anxious to begin our trek in earnest.

MUSIC >>Chris: In less than a mile, the trail climbs out of the meadows and into the pines.

Then, for the next 7 to 8 miles, we hike along a north/south oriented ridge.

Mt.

Baldy, Rose Knob Peak, and Relay Peak all sit on the ridge just north of us.

The trail takes us up and down a number of gullies until we reach the trail intersection of Tunnel Creek Road and the Red House Flume Trail.

>>Mark: Well, here we are at the end of this segment of the trail where the bicycles usually take off here for the, the famous Flume Trail goes off this way and most of the bikes like to go that way for the scenic value, and then part of the Rim Trail gets closed up here pretty soon.

But, we got another few miles to go before the mountain bikes aren't allowed.

And, this segment here's gonna take us around to Twin Lakes and then we're gonna head up the ridge there and then end up over at Marlette, uh, Campground tonight.

But, the big surprise we all get is to go up to Chris's Loop first.

>>Dave: Chris's Loop?

They named it after you and you didn't even know it, did ya?

>>Chris: [laughs] I didn't.

I'm eager to see my namesake.

>>Dave: [chuckles] >>Chris: When you're laying a trail, then you try to balance the visitation of the person hiking and, and the environment itself, then?

>>Mark: Yes.

So, that's kind of, it's a little bit of a balance and protection.

The wildlife is just as equal as we are when you lay it out, which is kind of unique.

>>Dave: Hmm.

>>Mark: They have just as much a right to us not disturbing their, maybe nesting areas, and so we protect those and let people have another route, get in the same spot, but maybe not the best route.

>>Dave: The tracks on the path tell us that this is a busy mountain biking area.

And, besides that, our path is marked with reminders that the Tahoe Rim Trail is a multi-use trail.

>>Mark: This ridge is the one that I walked probably fifty times trying to find a better route for the Rim Trail here and this is one of the segments that I was responsible for.

And, it's too steep and it has too many boulders on it.

So, there would've been too many switchbacks, which is something you avoid like, uh, more than anything else with trail design.

So, doggone it, we weren't able to ride on that ridge over there which certainly would've made it a much nicer view of the Lake over there.

Part of the problem is when you lay out the trail other things come along with plant problems or archeological problems or animal problems that realign you.

But, we get right back on track just as quick as we can.

And, when we get up on the ridge you'll see the reward we get... >>Dave: Cool.

>>Mark: ...for this route.

>>Mark: That's a nice switchback.

Very well built and designed.

That's the perfect switchback.

>>Mark: Here we are at our next junction.

>>Chris: About 2.5 miles from Tunnel Creek is a trail spur called Christopher's Loop.

It is a short hike to Herlan Peak.

>>Mark: ...hill here, and this hill's got some, a special name to it.

There was an individual who worked on getting some butterflies discovered in this area and he got the peak named after him by the name of Herlan.

>>Dave: Herlan?

>>Mark: Herlan.

H-E-R-L-A-N.

So, we're gonna head up over Herlan Peak, here it's called, which is kinda unique 'cause you already see a peak here.

It's kinda the highest pile of rocks up there... >>Chris: Hmm.

>>Mark: ...that we're gonna go over the top of.

>>Dave: Will we see butterflies?

>>Mark: We hope so.

I don't know if they're the Herlan butterflies or not.

>>Dave: We'll see.

>>Dave: Not far to the overlook.

That should be exciting.

Love the views!

>>Mark: Half-a-mile.

MUSIC >>Chris: Is this Christopher's Loop?

>>Mark: Yes.

>>Dave: Who was Christopher?

>>Mark: He was a son of a couple from Incline Village that was a pilot.

>>Dave: Ah.

>>Mark: That, uh, and I'm not sure how he, I think, I don't know if he was in a plane when he died or not, but he died too early.

>>Dave: Hmm.

>>Mark: And, they bought this mile.

You can buy miles from the Rim Trail.

It's our fund-raiser.

>>Mark: Not many tracks on here.

There's a short-lived water source there.

[chuckles] >>Chris: Some little birds will be enjoying that one.

>>Dave: Ah, a very small pool.

>>Mark: That gives you a class in granite.

How water and granite form an acid that starts eroding the rock so each year that that gains water it just erodes a little bit more and the pool gets a little bit bigger.

>>Dave: Some wild trees up there.

>>Mark: Yeah, actually, there's some, uh, Sierra Junipers in there.

That's not really common in this part.

See 'em hangin' in the cracks of the rocks there?

>>Dave: Oh, yeah.

How do they grow outta there?

>>Mark: It's a very, very old tree.

And, what is it, six feet tall?

[chuckles] >>Mark: This is great, great scenery in here.

Comin' up to the last little piece here.

And, actually, I wanna remind you've got any fear of height you need to pay attention to the fact that this is a major drop-off.

>>Chris: [chuckles] >>Chris: Oh, my gosh!

>>Mark: And, it just kinda falls out from underneath you, doesn't it?

[laughs] >>Chris: You weren't kidding.

>>Dave: Ah, ha, ha, oh, that's great!

>>Chris: Oh, wow!

>>Dave: Whoo!

>>Mark: It drops ten degrees by just lookin' at the water.

>>Chris: [chuckles] >>Mark: And it cools you off a little bit.

>>Chris: [chuckles] Oh, my gosh!

>>Dave: That does feel cooler.

>>Chris: You do just walk up to the edge, don't you?

>>Mark: Yep.

It's like a ninety-degree drop here for the first 100 feet down.

>>Dave: Incredible.

>>Dave: The view from Christopher's Loop is phenomenal.

We're standing on a granite outcrop 1,500 feet above Sand Harbor.

From here, you really experience the incredible beauty of the Tahoe Basin, the crystal waters of Tahoe itself, and the sculpted granite of the mountains all around us.

>>Chris: This view is definitely worth enjoying for awhile, so we take off our packs and have lunch feeling very much like we're on top of the world.

>>Dave: Refreshed by our break and the panorama from Christopher's Loop, we return to the main part of the Rim Trail and continue toward Marlette Peak.

>>Chris: At the Trail Junction we meet Jay Howard, a research ranger with the Nevada State Parks.

He'll be taking us to our day's destination, Marlette Campground.

>>Jay Howard: Hope we get some snow.

>>Dave: Marlette Lake and Peak were named for Seneca Hope Marlette, who was one of Nevada's first map makers.

This part of the Basin is rich in history and closely tied to the development of the Comstock.

>>Chris: Jay, are we still on the Tahoe Rim Trail?

>>Jay: Yeah, we're still inside, uh, we're on the Rim Trail inside the Park, Lake Tahoe-Nevada State Park, and we're actually in the back country of the Park.

It's, uh, almost 13,000 acres of area that's been set aside for primitive-type recreation.

Now, here's an interesting spot here.

Let's take a look at this.

>>Dave: It just looks like a little depression in the ground.

>>Mark: You know, one of the interesting things you get to do when you build trails, when you go out and look for routes you get to bring an archeologist out.

>>Dave: Yeah.

>>Mark: 'Cause they have to look at the route and look for sites.

And, all I saw was the slight depression here and when the archeologist came through she was all excited.

She come runnin' over here and looked at this depression.

And, it wasn't this one, but it was one very similar.

There was a top of a powder can which predates dynamite which was at the early era of the Virginia City time when they were mining over there.

So, she was very exited to see mining activity over here that predated, almost, Virginia City.

>>Dave: So, this was a hole blown in the ground?

>>Mark: Just as, uh, an area for them to gather ore to take in for tests.

So, there's, all through this area we found those little depressions.

But, it wasn't enough to change the trail alignment because you really don't see an artifact here, so... >>Dave: Hiking this portion of the Trail with Jay, we learn more about the forest as we enter an area of old growth.

( >>Jay: M'kay.

If you guys will take a look over here and you can pretty much just look at either side of the Trail.

This is actually an old growth stand in here.

These old growth trees don't typically get as large as they probably should because it's so dry over here.

But, but another interesting thing to take a look at is, uh, the, you know, just the way this forest floor looks.

This is much more, uh, you know, a good example of what a good pre-European forest floor would look like.

Nice and clean.

Um, not overly shrubby and... >>Chris: I was gonna say, you'd think old growth, you would think it would be very dense or... >>Dave: Yeah.

>>Chris: ...or very lush and it's... >>Jay: Right.

>>Chris: ...it's not.

>>Jay: Right.

And, again, this is just the dry side of the Basin.

Um, but the way these trees are spaced, it looks pretty good and, and pretty clean.

There's not a whole lot of ladder fuels goin' down to the ground.

>>Chris: Now, this is a very bizarre-shaped tree.

Is this normal?

>>Jay: Oh, yeah.

>>Dave: Whoa, check that out [chuckles].

>>Jay: Look at that.

>>Dave: That's funky!

>>Jay: This is interesting.

>>Dave: What's the deal with that?

>>Chris: I mean, 'cause the trunk is in the ground over there, but it's growin' there.

[laughs] >>Jay: This tree must've been knocked over by the snow or, or, you know, by somethin'.

And, then one of the branches just took off as it's new terminal leader.

[laughs] >>Jay: Um, there are cells in these trees that, you know, any one of these branches, if, if need be, it can, you know, become the new tree.

>>Dave: It's like if I fell over and my arm became my neck... [laughs] >>Dave: ...and my hand became my head.

[laughs] >>Jay: [laughs] Well... >>Dave: That's kinda freaky, Jay.

[chuckles] >>Jay: Yeah.

>>Dave: [laughs] >>Jay: That's Mother Nature.

>>Dave: Very cool, though.

>>Jay: That's good.

Good find.

>>Dave: Good find, Chris.

>>Chris: [chuckles] I found something [laughs].

>>Dave: Don't get cocky.

>>Chris: [laughs] >>Jay: Yeah, this is an area where we've kinda broken out of the canopy.

MUSIC >>Jay: We made it.

>>Chris: We enter the Marlette Campground around 6 o'clock and right on schedule.

There's plenty of time to make camp and prepare dinner before the light fades.

By then, we're all ready to get some rest.

There's another long day of hiking ahead tomorrow.

MUSIC >>Chris: Well, we've had a good night's rest here in camp and we've already torn down all the tents, and we're ready for another day of hiking.

>>Dave: And, we're about halfway through our section of the Tahoe Rim Trail.

And, today we're gonna hit Snow Valley Peak and Spooner Summit will be our final spot.

>>Chris: We're gonna talk more with Mark about the history of the Tahoe Rim Trail, find out how it all came to be.

>>Dave: Mornin', guys.

>>Jay: Mornin'.

>>Mark: Good mornin'.

>>Dave: Look at you, all ready for us and everything.

>>Jay: Yeah.

Ready to go.

>>Dave: So, uh, we're headin' to Snow Valley Peak, right?

>>Chris: I was gonna say, Snow Valley Peak's next, right?

>>Mark: Now, I'm gonna stop ya.

>>Dave: Uh, oh.

>>Mark: We're gonna go out and look at a really nice vista point up here.

>>Dave: Okay.

>>Mark: Just up around Marlette Peak, we'll sneak off.

We've got a little time this morning, we'll go up there and look first.

>>Mark: This segment of trail has some personal kinda connection with us on this piece up here.

We used to have a, uh, a back country ranger used to work for the Division of Wildlife.

And, when he retired, he came up here and became our back country ranger.

And, uh, we got kind of a close attachment to him The family, uh, became, his granddaughter worked at the park at Sand Harbor and, when he passed away, they adopted a mile up here from the Rim Trail.

>>Dave: Hmm.

>>Mark: And, then State Parks and the Division of Wildlife people built it, actually.

Came up and built a mile of trail in honor of John Brooks, his name.

Called it the Brooksies Mile.

>>Dave: That's a nice honor for him.

MUSIC >>Mark: Here's where we're headin' out.

>>Dave: Oh, okay.

>>Mark: We're gonna go up here about half, quarter mile, half mile.

>>Chris: Marlette Peak Trail is closed to bikes.

And, this sandy, steep spur would be very difficult for most cyclists anyway.

MUSIC >>Dave: What's the history of the Trail?

Uh, it's here now, but how much time did it take to put together?

>>Mark: You know, back in, uh, about the mid-'70's, a gentleman who worked for the Forest Service over in the Basin, named Glen Hampton, kinda sat out one day and looked around, he was responsible for recreation in the Basin, said, you know, wouldn't that be really nice to have a trail around the rim of this lake?

So, and, he was one of those type of people, once he has a vision, you know, that he wants to chase it a little bit, and he was very smart and pulled in some really great partners with State Parks in his office and some people in the community that had some money, and they gave him some seed money, in 1981 it became an organization, and then since then, since '81, they've been workin' on the Trail.

And, then in 2001, we finished the ability for people to do the loop.

We still have a lot of little pieces to fix, some bridges, some connectors.

>>Dave: Hmm.

>>Mark: Some pieces off the roadway.

But, in that time we did a hundred-and-some miles because the Pacific Coast Trail, which is the west shore, was already there and, uh, we became partners with them and kind of taken their route as part of our route.

>>Chris: Your views definitely do not disappoint.

>>Mark: Yeah, I knew that I wouldn't be wastin' your time bringin' you up one more last chance over here on this side.

>>Chris: [laughs] >>Dave: This is incredible!

>>Mark: Isn't this a nice one?

One more last chance.

You come up here in the Fall and all those quakies are bright yellows and reds, and it's really a very nice show up here.

>>Dave: Wow!

>>Mark: This is one of my favorite spots.

>>Mark: This is a great place here.

This is where, a Kodak Moment, I call it.

I like to bring people up from the Rim Trail to share this vista with 'em.

>>Dave: Yeah, it's beautiful.

>>Mark: So that you can encourage them to be donors in the future.

>>Dave: [laughs] This is a good spot for that, huh?

>>Chris: You've talked a couple of times about donors and adopting, uh, the Tahoe Rim Trail is an all-nonprofit organization, isn't it?

>>Mark: Totally run by membership and donors.

And, some grants.

So, we, we need opportunities like this to bring people up and let people have an opportunity, for those who have the finances in their life, to have a place, pick a place, buy, actually, this vista's up for sale.

This one here.

People can actually buy this vista and get credit on the trail heads and, and help the Rim Trail do all the maintenance that we've been talkin' about on the hike here.

We're gonna head out to Snow Valley Peak.

You can see it from here, actually.

>>Dave: It doesn't look that far.

>>Dave: The Tahoe Rim Trail incorporates 165 miles of trail, and it's construction and maintenance have been huge undertakings.

>>Chris: Mark, I'm guessin' it takes more than one person to build a 100-some miles of trail.

>>Mark: You know, that, this, this, this project is known nationally as one of the most, um, one of the best volunteer projects in the country because they had over a hundred-some-thousand hours of volunteer time and thousands of people were involved with us building this trail.

And, it's all about volunteers.

I mean, everything about this trail was people that take their private time from their life, come out here, spend 8 hours, many of 'em spent hundreds of hours out here, becoming crew leaders and working on very difficult projects.

Um, we've seen some stuff today in the rock work and those rock walls, and movin' soil, and cuttin' down trees.

And, it's really, really important to understand that this is all about volunteers.

This whole trail is.

>>Chris: Hiking toward Snow Valley Peak we are leaving he pines behind.

Soon, we're in an open field of low-lying wild flowers and sagebrush.

This area is often covered in snow for months at a time.

>>Dave: It looks like the, most of the trail, if not all, that we've walked is designed to, to avoid obstacles rather than to go through them.

Do you, is that by design or is it just too much work to, you know, blast through a rock to put a trail through?

>>Jay: Well, you do that as much as you can.

But, uh, more often than not, you just can't get away with it because when you, when you lay out a trail you've got a certain alignment that's at a certain grade, and you can only go around things so much... >>Dave: Mm, hmm.

>>Jay: ... or else you'll end up messin' up your grade.

You know, you go around things as much as you can, but, um, sometimes you just have to go through... >>Dave: Hmm.

>>Jay: ...to keep that nice, even grade that you wanna walk.

>>Chris: Both of you guys have talked about trail building and I'm guessing that it's not an easy task.

>>Mark: All of the design elements in building trails all deals with water.

The side slope with a 10%, you always have a side slope, how you cut into the bank, it all deals with getting water off of it as quickly as possible without the tread becoming a river.

>>Dave: I see.

>>Jay: You can spend two weeks on 20 feet of trail, um, very easily when you get into a, you know, a very rocky area.

Then, you break out the equipment, um, the more technical type of stuff like your grip hoists and your Pionjar rock drills, and you split the rocks or you grab a hold of 'em with cables and you move 'em around.

And, sometimes you have to make some really big walls, you know, and movin' around these thousand-pound-plus boulders, and probably, you know, it's very satisfying to do all this heavy work and then to have something done behind you that you can look at, but then what happens?

You end up burying it all.

>>Dave: Mmm.

>>Jay: So, the hardest part of trail building, um, is hidden and it gets buried.

People are walkin' along and they have no idea the work and the pain that went into, um, you know, buildin' this trail tread for people to walk on.

>>Chris: Even in dry years, it's common to find snow up here in the summer months.

We come across a couple of snow fields along the trail.

And, Mark can't resist the chance to play a little .

>>Mark: I'm gonna bring you guys out here to a point that's off the Rim Trail, what we kinda call our vistas, and actually we might use it in the future to put a spur out here because it's such a popular view, as you can see why.

>>Chris: Oh, yeah!

>>Mark: It's a beautiful spot.

>>Chris: [chuckles] >>Mark: Another one.

>>Dave: Whoa.

This couldn't get any better.

>>Chris: I don't think there's been a bad spot yet.

>>Mark: We made it to the other side of the Lake.

>>Chris: And, now, this is only one section of the Tahoe Rim Trail, right, that we're doin'?

>>Mark: Yes.

We, actually, they call it 'segments' and, uh, this is kind of a good spot to talk about segments 'cause you can see almost the whole Rim Trail.

>>Chris: [laughs] >>Dave: The Tahoe Rim Trail is divided into 8 segments.

Each one is anchored by trailheads and many offer hikers roadway access.

>>Chris: There's the 22-mile Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Summit Segment that we're on, as well as the 12-mile Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade, 23-mile Kingsbury Grade to Big Meadow, 18-mile Big Meadow to Echo Lake, 32-mile Echo Lake to Barker Pass, 19-mile Barker Pass to Tahoe City, 19-mile Tahoe City to Brockway, and 19-mile Brockway to Tahoe Meadows.

>>Dave: Do you remember, uh, the, the eight sections well enough to, uh, give us your favorites spots on each?

>>Mark: Well, that might be fun because coming from Nevada, being, uh, a State Park ranger, retired, you know, you get a little bit prejudiced about what you might think's the best.

>>Dave: Yeah.

>>Mark: Recently, I've visited the California segments and every one of 'em have a really neat characteristic about 'em.

Which is really unique about hiking the Rim Trail, every little segment has some little personality, it seems.

Different rock zones, different types of trees, water features, wildflowers.

Beautiful country on the south end down there at the upper Truckee River, Neace Meadows, it's called.

Wildflowers like crazy and then the Desolation is, beautiful lakes.

Well, we get one last look at the view here.

This is where we're gonna be headin' and this has got a little story about this.

This is the Snow Valley Peak area.

But, this trail was built on this side of the mountain due to the fact that one of our board members who had strong feelings about the Rim Trail being on this side of the mountain rather than the other, even though there's a lot of rock work, you can see it over there, but that gentleman died of hypothermia up on Mt.

Rainier in Washington.

And, the community came together after that to support that gentleman and this endeavor to do all this rock work on this side.

So, there's kind of another personal moment about things that happened on the Rim Trail.

>>Dave: As hard as it is to leave a view like this, we have another six miles before we complete our segment.

So, it's back into the packs and on the trail.

>>Chris: Just below Snow Valley Peak the Tahoe Rim Trail crosses a dirt road coming from North Canyon and a large forest of aspens.

Our path follows this road south for a number of miles, dropping down in elevation and back into the trees as we move towards Spooner Summit.

>>Jay: We're comin' up pretty soon on a pretty good view of Spooner Lake here off to the right.

>>Chris: Oh, there it is.

>>Dave: The appearance of Spooner Lake on the west side of the Trail tells us that we're getting close to the trailhead.

That gives our trail-tired feet encouragement to keep going.

>>Chris: What can you do out on Spooner?

>>Jay: Um, Spooner Lake, uh, that portion of the park is, um, a day-use area only.

People fish the lake.

It is catch-and-release.

On top of that it's, you know, like we talked about before, it's, it's the, the entry point for hikers into the back country.

>>Dave: I see cars.

>>Jay: We're here.

>>Dave: Is this, is this the moment?

>>Jay: Yep.

[chuckles] >>Jay: Finally!

>>Dave: The end of this section, wow!

We did it!

Two days.

That was incredible.

>>Chris: Great trip.

>>Dave: I tell ya, a part of me is a little sad 'cause that was really fun and it's sad that it's over.

But, my feet are really glad 'cause I am wiped!

But, thank you, guys, so much.

That was an incredible two days and I can only hope that you someday get to see it in person yourself.

It's great.

>>Chris: If you want more information about this or any of our adventures, you can visit our website at knpb.org.

While you're there, send us an e-mail and tell us about some of your excursions.

>>Mark: So, until your next Wild Nevada adventure... >>Jay: You come out and explore our beautiful state for yourself.

MUSIC Major production funding for Wild Nevada is made possible by the Nevada Commission on Tourism, who encourages everyone to explore the Silver State's hidden treasures.