Lake Winnemucca Hike + Secret Cove Sunset

On our last full day in Tahoe, Levi and I drove further into Nevada to hike a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail! It was about 45 minutes from where we were staying in South Lake, and it was totally worth the drive! Now. The thing about hikes...sometimes it's not super clear where they begin on a map. And then your phone loses service in the mountains and so you are really not sure where it starts. So then you park somewhere, get 35 minutes into the hike, and realize it's the wrong trail and this one goes no where. Not that I would know what that feels like or anything...

When we started the hike it was like 40mph wind gusts + 35 degrees outside. Not good, bro. But real pretty!

This is our, "Well Crap We Came to the Wrong Trail But Let's At Least Get a Selfie Out of It" face.

Ok, we got back in our car, literally drove 30 seconds further down the road and came to a huge parking lot and hiking station that was where our hike began. I like to say I'm a non-outdoorsy outdoorsy type of person. Here is where the hike of the PCT starts!

What I love about hiking in the mountains is that there are just these little lakes everywhere! This was Frog Lake, which we passed on our way to Winnemucca Lake.

The beginning portion of the hike had a lot of tree cover, but the second half was all out in the sun, which was nice because it was cold but also not nice because OMGWIND.

Winnemucca Lake! This was our turnaround point, so we stopped and had a beef jerky lunch in a little spot away from the wind.

Lunch stop:

Winnemucca was the longest hike we did, I think it was 4.5 miles, but it's a pretty easy course and we loved it! Later that evening, our last night, we decided to catch the sunset at Secret Cove on Lake Tahoe. Now, we both had initially learned that this was a nude beach, but we forgot until we showed up and there were naked men everywhere. It was so awkward! But- it was hell getting down to this secret beach so I wasn't about to give up on it just because of a bunch of nudies!

What was so weird is that it was only MEN at the beach, and no one was interacting, it was totally just an individual be naked thing. Once it got really close to sunset, everyone left, but before then we were just careful with the direction of our cameras. Also, we had a hilariously weird experience while we were there. We hiked up the right side, near a sign for the beach and a guy about our age was walking up (fully clothed). He had a Go-Pro and asked if we would mind taking a picture of him so I said sure and grabbed the camera. He stood back in front of the sign/beach and I took one picture. He asked if I could take one more just slightly further back, and as I counted off he dropped his pants, had this huge smile, and was completely naked for the picture!!!! I was stunned, hahah. I just laughed, handed him back the camera, and said, "Well okay then! See you later." It was definitely one of my stranger life experiences.

For dinner we went back to MacDuff's Pub and got the Truffle Mac + the Pear and Blue Cheese Salad. We split them both and it was soooo good!

And with this post- we say goodbye to Lake Tahoe! The next day we drove to the coast and stayed just north of San Francisco for the rest of our trip.

- Bethany