A Single Snapshot: Lower Lola Montez Lake, Tahoe National Forest
My life started—really started—sometime past midnight in the wee hours of a March morning almost three years ago.
I’d grown tired of waiting for life to start, so I went out to meet it. How? I signed up online for an introductory group backpacking trip in California. The minute I clicked the “Submit” button and the deposit was paid, I knew there was no turning back. Several months later, at the end of July, I was sleeping in a coffin-sized solo backpacker’s tent overlooking Lower Lola Montez Lake in Tahoe National Forest in northern California.
Sunrise on Lower Lola Montez Lake, Tahoe National Forest, California
I woke up early on the second to last morning of our time on the trail to this view of the lake: the sun rising upon the Sierras, illuminating the hard, white granite mountains; the sky, so deep and so blue that I swear I’ve never seen anything like it since; the lake, as flat and as still as a mirror reflecting that sapphire sky.
This is the one photograph from those few days that takes me back to that spot, perched high above the lake, alone with my thoughts, wrapped in beauty, serenity, and awe.
I enjoyed the view into Crater Lake in S Oregon. It was September and the snow was piled high around the rim. The lake was a sapphire blue and the sky bursting with sunshine as it dazzled against the snow. Sorry I can’t download a shot of it from 1983…..
I’d enjoy the name of the group you travelled with to Tahoe. I have been with a singles’ group while travelling abroad but not in the states.
It wasn’t a single group–the Sierra Club runs backpacking trips–I had a great time and got to meet some amazing people!
Where did you catch the trail?…a loop or out and back?
It’s been a while, Larry, but if I recall correctly, it was an out and back. Best time ever.
[...] think it started four years ago, on the shores of Lower Lola Montez Lake in Tahoe National Forest, California. I’d just finished the first four days of a group backpacking trip and, swaddled in my [...]