Are There Many Good Writers In Tahoe? Yes.

Let's say you're a storyteller and you earn your living by arranging words on paper or computer screen. Unless you're a journalist who has to work from a certain location, you could live anywhere, right?

Pretty much.

That's why the spectacular places in the world have more than their share of writers.

Tahoe is no exception. I've met dozens of writers who live in Tahoe and more who are here part time.

Among our notable writers is Suzanne Roberts, a poet who teaches at both Lake Tahoe Community College on the South Shore and Sierra Nevada College on the North Shore. 

Another writer worth noting is Jared Manninen. In addition to his words, he is an artist and illustrator of note.

Last night we went to a launch party for their recent books. Suzanne has just come out with Almost Somewhere – Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail.

 Buy it at Amazon

Suzanne's new book is the story of a hiking trip that she and two other women took on the John Muir Trail. Having read Suzanne's poetry – she has published three collections – I knew she would be a great prose stylist, and Almost Somewhere demonstrates this. I just started it after coming home from the party with my new copy, and I'm already hooked
.

Jared's book is Mega '99 – Adventures of an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker. 

Buy it at Amazon

Jared's book is a fascinating illustrated account of the 2160-mile hike that took 167 days for him to complete.

The festivities were held at Bona Fide Books, Tahoe's very own publishing company owned and run by Kim Wyatt, herself a writer. (And editor and publisher and all-around great person.)
Among other books, Kim recently published Tahoe Blues - Short Lit on Life at the Lake.

Buy it at Amazon

Tahoe Blues features sixty short works of flash fiction and true tales.

Check out Almost Somewhere, Mega '99, and Tahoe Blues,  three very different yet fascinating views into literature by Lake Tahoe writers. 

Talent Has Nothing To Do With It!

Every author I know has had this experience. You do a signing, a talk, or some other event, and a person comes up and says that they would love to write if only they had the talent. Every time it happens there is a little voice in the back of our minds that wants to cry out, “Talent has nothing to do with it! Whatever writing skill I have is the result of years and years of hard work.”

The ability to write doesn't go to some luck of birth. Yes, we are born with more native skills in some areas than in others. Just as with athletes, good writers need certain body parts to function well. In the case of writers, it is our brains that must have at least several neurons firing in the correct order.

But in general, natural talent has nothing to do with how well we write. The difference between a good writer and a not-so-good writer is almost always a matter of how much the writer has practiced.

There are amazingly few writers who were able to write well at a very young age. (Truman Capote comes to mind.) 

The vast majority of good writers got good at it only because they ran a lot of words through the old Underwood. I was a lousy writer in the beginning. But my practice produced four completed novels that lie in a drawer and a half-dozen more novels that made it to the quarter point, the halfway point, and even further. I had practiced for twenty years before my “first” novel (the fifth I'd written) got a great review in Kirkus Reviews, a nice mention in Publishers Weekly, won Best Thriller of the Year award from the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, and made the Cincinnati Library's Best New Fiction list.

If any person who wished they had the talent to write practiced enough that he or she also had an equivalent amount of writing in storage, you can expect that they would develop some writing skills as well.

I often tell people that learning to write is like learning to be a figure skater or a juggler on a unicycle. You can study it at length, take a multitude of classes, watch videos about it, join a support group, drink coffee with other wannabes and discuss the process forever. But none of that will teach you how to do it. To become professionals, most of us have to practice an enormous amount. The writer Malcom Gladwell has written about the ten thousand hours of practice necessary to get to a professional level of ability in any skill.

You have to go out on the ice or climb onto that unicycle and work at the process over and over. You have to fall on your butt a thousand times. Five thousand times.

 Hemingway =

 Kyle Petersen =

 Midori Ito

There is the old joke about the neurosurgeon who comes up to a writer at a book signing. The surgeon says, “You know, when I retire, I think I'll write a novel.” The writer says, “Really? When I retire, I think I'll try brain surgery.”

You don't expect to become a skillful neurosurgeon without an enormous amount of practice. You aren't born with a talent for brain surgery. You have to learn the skill.

Same with writing.

The Bear Who Said, "Just You Wait, You'll Be Sorry!"

We had a recent bear incident, which reminded me of an evening a couple of years ago when I went for a “ride-along” with Truckee Police Sergeant Marty Schoenberg. At one point, as an example of the contrast between his law enforcement experience in the Tahoe-Truckee area and his past experience as a cop in the Bay Area, Marty joked about how a good chunk of the calls to the Truckee police are about bears.

Our first traffic stop involved providing backup for other cops who'd stopped a small car out of which emerged at least two more young men than you'd think would fit in a car of that size. A couple of them were teenagers, and in the bright flood lights of the patrol units, they showed a sullen look that suggested that they were up to something that runs counter to the wishes of California lawmakers. Of course, there are rules about evidence and probable cause, but those looks were hard to ignore. Their faces communicated without words... “Just you wait, you'll be sorry.”

Later in the evening, Marty got a bear call just as he'd predicted. We went to investigate only to find that the bear had already left the scene. Nevertheless, looking for the bear made me forget about the kids.

I thought of that ride-along a few months ago when I heard a noise in our back room. I turned to see a yearling black bear, maybe 150 pounds, on the deck outside the sliding glass door. He was trying to claw the door open.

Black Bear Yearling photo
in the San Francisco Chronicle

I walked over, clapping my hands and yelling something clever like, “Go away!”

The young bear just looked at me and continued to work at the edge of the door. He hooked his big, youthful claws onto the rim of the glass and scratched and gouged and pulled sideways to his right, apparently knowing that the door opened to his right.

Bears are smart, and they know that it is dangerous to mix it up with humans. So they generally wait until we're gone before they raid our houses.

Not this guy.

So, like a cop, I called for backup. My wife appeared with two large pan lids. She banged them together like cymbals. Despite a volume that was damaging to our ears, the juvenile-delinquent bear continued to ignore us. My wife moved next to the window door and banged the pan lids within inches of the bear, separated only by the glass.

The bear gave us a look that was very similar to the sullen look that those teenagers gave the cops the night I rode in the patrol unit. This “teenaged” bear moved a bit away, then stopped and turned back. I swear his eyes narrowed and his face looked like he was sneering at us.

“Just you wait,” I almost heard him say. “Sometime when you're gone, when you've forgotten about me, I'll be back. And you'll be sorry.”

He gave us one more glare of youthful antipathy and then sauntered away, taking his sweet time.

In Tahoe, we have a steady dose of bear incidents. There was a woman who lives a half mile from us. She took a nap on her deck and woke up to find a bear sniffing her face. Another woman came home, carried her groceries into her house and found the freezer door standing open. She turned around to see a bear sitting on the floor in the living room eating the Dreyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. Some vacationers recently came to the lake and parked their vehicle outside of their vacation lodgings only the have a bear break into the vehicle, climb inside and get stuck. Its panicked response was to tear up the interior, then shift the transmission into neutral and take the car for a ride down the sloping street.

Now, when I hear these stories, I think of our young bear and his sullen look. “Just you wait. You'll be sorry...”

I am waiting. And I'll probably end up sorry.

Have Lunch on the Beach, See the Earth Curve!

Not every day do you get an amazing science lesson during lunch.

Most days, I eat lunch at the computer, or I take a sandwich in the car to eat while driving errands. Then come the glorious exceptions. A cooler on the beach. My wife next to me. 

Some time back, the sun was hot, the air cool and clear. We found a beach log to sit on just ten feet from the lapping waves. Turkey sandwiches, chips, apples, perfection. Okay, I forgot cookies, so it wasn't perfect. But close. The water was indigo, and the mountains – Mt. Tallac especially – still had some small snowfields in the high bowls to the side of The Cross.

The cerulean sky was decorated with jet contrails from travelers who probably looked down and thought, “Oh, my God, look at that view! Why are we flying someplace else when we could have gone to Tahoe?!”

Our postprandial activity was sailboat watching through binoculars. There were a variety of boats transforming wind into movement and play. The most interesting one was across the lake about 10 or 12 miles, over by Cave Rock, just a flicker to the naked eye, but easy to watch in the binoculars. It had a tall mast and a beautiful sail curved into a graceful, power-generating airfoil shape.

But what made it striking in looks was that the sail had no boat.

WHAT? NO BOAT?!

That's what we saw. A sail going back and forth with no hull below.

That's how much the earth curves.

Tahoe as seen from SR-71 Blackbird from approximately 90,000 feet
Photo credit F-16.net

It was fascinating to watch, this mast and sail dancing the waves sans boat.
Back home, I did some research. 
The simplest thing to say about the earth's shape is that it curves about 8 inches per mile. It would seem, then, that a 6-foot-tall person could see the water's surface about 9 miles away (6 feet = 72 inches. Divide by 8 inches – the amount of curve per mile – and you get 9 miles.)

Unfortunately, I learned that it ain't that simple.

The first complication in assessing long distance curvature is that with each additional mile, the earth's surface is curving away from you at 
an ever-increasing angle. Because of this, a 6-foot-tall person can see the water's surface only about 3 miles away.

If you want some techy explanation, go here:

http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/qq/database/QQ.09.02/shirley3.html

This ever-increasing characteristic makes a huge difference as the distances increase.

If you want to see the waterline 10 miles away, you'd have to be about 66 feet up in the air.

If you want to see the waterline 22 miles away (the length of Tahoe), you'd have to be about 300 feet up in the air.

Now comes the second main complication. Because of the cool, denser air near the cold water's surface, light curves toward that surface just like it curves when it is refracted through a lens. The amount of refraction varies with different temperatures and other climatic conditions, but it can be substantial.

The result of this refraction negating the effects of curvature is that if you stand on Tahoe's North Shore, you may be able to sometimes see the tall hotels of the South Shore. But sometimes you won't because they are technically “below the curve of the earth” as seen from the North Shore. Only when light from them bends are they visible.

Of course, there is always one more thing to keep in mind. The earth's curvature is only noticeable when you are right down on the water. Most of the land around Tahoe is substantially above the lake. If you are up the mountain slope just a few hundred feet – as many of us are most of the time – then nothing on the shore is “below the curve of the earth.”

So next time you picnic at the water's edge, sit down close to the water and watch the sailboats with binoculars. You may be in for a science display treat!
P.S. Remember to bring cookies.

What? No Bugs in Tahoe?

In the Midwest, you will see a popular T-shirt that shows a picture of a large Anopheles Mosquito. Above the amplified, scary-looking bloodsucker, it says, “Minnesota State Bird.”

After we moved to Tahoe in 1990, we'd periodically hear people say things like, “I was at a barbecue last night, and I got bit by two mosquitoes!”

After hearing comments like this, a Midwesterner is tempted to respond, “Mosquitoes aren't really bad until they are swarming so thick that you can't breathe without inhaling them.”

T-Shirt from Zazzle.com

One of the amazing things about Tahoe is that it has an arid summer and the summer nights get very chilly. Further, there is little flat land that collects standing water where mosquitoes and other bugs breed. The result is a dearth of mosquitoes as well as other bugs.

Yes, we still have a few significant bugs. I remember the first time my wife was doing some planting in Tahoe and she showed me a bug in the dirt the likes of which neither of us had ever seen. It was scary-looking enough to make your heart flutter and large enough that it looked like it could fly away carrying a small cat in its clutches. I looked it up in my bug books, necessary research tools for writing one of my characters, Street Casey, who is an entomologist.

The bug turned out to be a Jerusalem Cricket, otherwise known as a potato bug. They are as harmless as they are imposing. They are also somewhat rare, and they never show up in your kitchen or bedroom. Like the best bugs, they stay outside in the dirt where they belong.

There are a few other bugs in Tahoe. We have a good supply of carpenter ants, which usually, though not always, stay out of your house. As with most places, termites can also be a problem.

Probably the most common annoyances are spiders, especially the Turret spiders, but they don't bother you unless you are a carpenter ant or other insect, which they feed on.

And that's about it.

If you take the total amount of bug encounters that a Tahoe person encounters in a lifetime, you might add up to one week's worth of bug encounters in the Midwest or other similar places with wet summers and a flat landscape to collect the puddles that are perfect for bugs to lay their eggs.

Tahoe has few flat, wet areas that provide good bug-breeding grounds.
Our lakes (yes, we have lots of lakes) aren't good for bugs because they are too cold.

Bottom line is, Tahoe has very few bugs, and that is another reason why it is such a wonderful place to live or vacation.

An Author's Best Friend is Radio

This week I drove down to Sacramento for an interview on CapRadio's Insight program. (CapRadio, for those of you who don't have a radio, is the awesome NPR affiliate that by some measures is the biggest non-Bay Area radio station in Northern California, bigger, even, than the commercial stations.) 

The Insight program used to be hosted by the impressive Jeffrey Callison, and when he left, he left a hole in radio that many listeners thought would be impossible to fill.

But to the delight of CapRadio's listeners, the radio station found an amazing new host named Beth Ruyak. Smart, charming, smooth, and warm, Ruyak has convinced listeners that she is their new source for all essential information about Northern California. Note that my books are not essential information! But they are fun, and my interview was fun, too.

I've been interviewed many times including several times on past Insight shows. I'm comfortable with radio interviews. And I knew that with her past experiences on shows like Good Morning America, Beth would be a real pro. But being in the studio with her was unlike any of my previous interview experiences. She was more creative and more fun than other interviewers.

Some interviewers like to challenge their interviewees. Some interviewers like making their interview subjects nervous. Beth knows that making an interviewee comfortable and relaxed will produce the most interesting interview. If you are relaxed, you will reveal your thoughts. If you are uptight and tense, you will guard your thoughts.

Comfort is no small thing. Several times in the past, I've been in the waiting room at radio and TV stations and talked to other interviewees who were sweating and scared. As I think back on those people, I wish they could have interviewed with Beth. They would have thought it was the easiest thing in the world.

One more shout-out goes to Jen Picard, the producer of Insight. Like producers everywhere, she is the force that shapes Insight as well as the glue that holds the show together. The credit for that seamless, entertaining, and educational listening experience goes to Jen along with Midori Yoshimura, Mark Jones and several others at CapRadio. They all do a great job.

Here is the link to my interview. It was the most fun I've had behind a radio mic. Enjoy!

Insight Interview with Todd Borg
(Be sure your sound is turned up.)

The Top 10 Things to Do and See in Tahoe (A Mini Tourist Guide to Tahoe)

More than a few times, I’ve met visitors at the end of their vacation in Tahoe, and I learned that they never saw Emerald Bay. Not only is it sad that people miss such a beautiful place, but it must be embarrassing to get home and endure the scowls of friends who say, “What? You went to Tahoe and never saw Emerald Bay?”

Ouch.

Emerald Bay

Of course, you can have the most fantastic vacation of your life in Tahoe without having seen its only bay. But not seeing Emerald Bay is like visiting Yosemite and never looking up at Half Dome. It's like walking the hills of San Francisco and never noticing the Golden Gate. Like going to Paris and not ever laying eyes on the Eiffel Tower. You get the idea.

I decided that I should make a list of must-see places so I could reduce the post-vacation Ouch Factor for visitors.

My list is biased toward those things that are unique to Tahoe. For example, there are people who come to Tahoe to gamble and they may think that Tahoe is the best place to play the tables. But you can gamble anywhere, and many people would claim that Vegas or Monte Carlo or a Mississippi riverboat provides a better gambling experience. So gambling in Tahoe is not on my list.

Likewise, Tahoe has many fantastic restaurants that draw visitors. But great as they are, our restaurants are not really what sets Tahoe apart from any other place on the planet.

I have also weighted this list toward those things that most visitors always rave about. If you routinely find that you dislike what most other people like, this list won't be for you.

I should also mention that my list has some physical activities that not everyone pursues, so not everything on the list is for everybody.

Because I'm highlighting only ten items, everyone will think that I'm leaving out absolutely essential things. But such are the constraints of a limited list. You may disagree with my choices. But if you come to Tahoe without experiencing several of these, you'll risk going home without really knowing the essence of Tahoe.

First comes the list. Farther down is information about each entry. Because some people are less mobile than others, my list is divided into two groups based on how physical the activities are.

LESS PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES

1) Visit Emerald Bay by car or boat.

2) Drive around Lake Tahoe (This automatically takes you around Emerald Bay.)

3) Take a boat ride on Lake Tahoe (This can also encompass #1)

4) Ride the Squaw Valley Cable Car and/or the Heavenly Gondola.

5) Spend some time hanging out at one of Tahoe's great beaches

6) Visit one of Tahoe's grand estates

MORE PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES

7) Climb a Tahoe mountain.

8) Hike to a remote mountain lake

9) Mountain bike The Flume Trail

10) Ski or ride one of the downhill resorts that faces Lake Tahoe

HERE ARE DETAILS FOR LESS PHYSICAL THINGS TO DO

1) Visit Emerald Bay by car or boat.

You can drive to Emerald Bay or you can take a boat to Emerald Bay. Driving has the advantages of allowing you to hike down to the Vikingsholm Castle – an easy 1-mile hike. (It's best to go relatively early in the morning, because the parking areas often fill up.)

You may want to tour the Vikingsholm. You can also hike to the top or the bottom of Eagle Falls, the biggest waterfall in Tahoe. 

Eagle Falls from Tahoe'sBest.com

If you park at the Bay View campground on the southwest side of the bay (across the highway from the vista overlook above Emerald Bay), you can easily hike to Cascade Falls above Cascade Lake. 

You can also hike up to the top of the famous Rock Slide from 1955 and look down on Emerald Bay from above. (A gorgeous view.)

There are multiple tourist boats that cruise to Emerald Bay, the Tahoe Queen and the M.S. Dixie among the most prominent. 

Tahoe Queen

While the boats don't generally allow you ground access, the view of the bay and mountains from the water is a sight you won't forget.

Seeing Emerald Bay may not be a thrill like skiing or sailing, but nevertheless, no trip to Tahoe is complete without a visit to one of the most famous bays in the world.

2) Drive around Lake Tahoe

Tahoe is so big that the only way to really grasp its essence is to take the 75-mile drive around its circumference. The route is simple even though the highway changes numbers depending on county and state. Get a map before you go. If you drive clockwise, you keep turning right and it is nearly impossible to get lost. If you drive counter-clockwise, you need to watch for one turn. When you come up the East Shore from the south, Highway 50 leaves the lake for a bit and begins its climb up toward Spooner summit. Before you get to the top, you need to watch for a left turn onto Highway 28, which takes you back to the lake as you head up the north portion of the East Shore.

The entire drive takes 3 hours on average. My advice is to plan an entire day for your drive so that you can take a couple of side trips. One begins just west of Incline Village. Turn up the Mt. Rose Highway #431 and drive it up to the vista overlook. From there you will be able to see a spectacular view of the lake below. A second side trip begins in Tahoe City. Turn west at the Tahoe City “Y” and take 89 downstream alongside of the Truckee River. A few miles down, you will see the Olympic rings and flame at the entrance to Squaw Valley, where the winter Olympics were held in 1960. Driving into Squaw Valley is worthwhile for the beauty as well as the history.

Squaw Valley photo by Wunderground.com

Another, longer side trip is to continue north to Truckee, a hip mountain town with a lot of railroad history.

Note for two-wheel enthusiasts:

Cruising the lake's circumference on your motorcycle is a special treat.

And if your choice of recreation is road bicycling, circumnavigating Lake Tahoe is an experience you'll cherish for the rest of your life. There are even planned rides where thousands of bicyclers circle the lake together. http://bikethewest.com/tourdetahoe.html

3) Take a boat ride on Lake Tahoe

When you are at what is arguably the the most beautiful lake in the entire world (and the biggest, highest, clearest lake in the Northern Hemisphere), going out on the water is a no-brainer. You can choose from a wide variety of tourist boats, from the big stern-wheelers to large cruisers to big sailboats. If smaller is your choice, you can rent every kind of vessel from speedboats to runabouts to jetskis, or – my favorites – boats without engines, i.e., quiet rides like canoes, kayaks, sailboats, sailboards, or stand-up paddleboards.

Tahoe Cruises' huge catamaran

Once you've looked down through mountain water as clear and turquoise as the best dive spots on the Great Barrier Reef, you will never forget the experience.

For those of you bringing your own boats, do some online research for current boat ramp conditions, and plan extra time to get your boat inspected (required by law) for invasive species, and cleaned if necessary.

4) Ride the Squaw Valley Cable Car and/or the Heavenly Gondola.

The Heavenly Gondola takes you up nearly 3000 vertical feet to the highest easy-access overlook in the Tahoe Basin. The view of Tahoe from 9100 feet is beyond spectacular.

Heavenly Gondola

The Squaw Valley Cable Car doesn't take you quite as high, nor is it as close to the lake, but the view is still spectacular and the ride itself is astonishing as you make a near-vertical climb up the face of a 2000-foot cliff.

Squaw Valley Cable Car, courtesy of Tierra Unica

Both Squaw and Heavenly have a restaurants and recreation facilities at the top, so you can spend a whole day up on the mountain, if you like, hiking, lounging, lunching. At Squaw you can even go ice skating or swimming in the mountaintop pool.

Squaw Valley High Camp pool

If you want to get a sense of Tahoe from above, either of these rides is fantastic.

5) Spend some time at one of Tahoe's great beaches

After millions of years of winter storm-generated waves pounding Tahoe's shores, the water has ground the rocks into huge beaches of fine sand. Tahoe has dozens of great beaches. Some of most celebrated are Sand Harbor (East Shore), Baldwin Beach (Southwest shore), Nevada Beach (Southeast Shore), King's Beach (North Shore)

Baldwin Beach photo courtesy of LakeTahoeReps.com

Many beaches have barbecues, some have volleyball, all are good for Frisbee, swimming, reading novels, and launching self-carry paddle craft like kayaks, paddle boards, and canoes. A few beaches, like Kiva Beach on the South Shore, allow dogs. Many do not.

Remember that Tahoe is cold. Although the water can warm up to 60 or more at the shallow beaches, pay special attention to your kids. Their desire for play makes them oblivious to hypothermia. If they start shivering or slurring their speech, get them out of the water!

6) Visit one of Tahoe's grand old estates

Over the years, some of the richest people in the world chose to build fantastic estates at Lake Tahoe. This is still going on today, most notably along Lake Shore Blvd. in Incline Village where multiple billionaires have built spreads that, when sold, make headlines as the most expensive residences in the country. (A recent “For Sale” (not at Incline) is Tommy Hilfiger's palace on the mountain up above the Southeast Shore, which listed at $100 million. Lemme see... Standard mortgage calculations would suggest a monthly payment of $1 million!)

Many of the older estates are available to tour. Follow the links to find the details of tour times and other useful information. Here are some of the grand estates.

Vikingsholm at Emerald Bay is an intriguing look into Tahoe at the end of the Roaring Twenties. The woman who built Vikingsholm was Lora Knight. She had connections to the Union Pacific Railroad, Diamond Match, Wells Fargo Bank and other companies. She and her husband backed Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Vikingsholm is great to tour, and it is now owned and run by the California State Park system.

Vikingsholm Castle

The Ehrman Mansion at Sugar Pine Point State Park on the West Shore. Built in 1902 by the Hellman Ehrman family, it is a fine example of a glorious summer estate.

Ehrman Mansion photo courtesy of  Lake Tahoe Getaways

The Thunderbird Lodge on the East Shore was the focus of George Whittell's 40,000-acre estate, which is now part of the Nevada State Park system. 

Thunderbird Lodge photo courtesy of cityprofile.com

The Thunderbird Lodge is known for its secret tunnel down to the boathouse where George would take his lion Bill and go for a cruise on the 75 mph Thunderbird wooden boat, Tahoe's fastest boat of the era and still one of the fastest boats on the lake. For more info visit http://thunderbirdtahoe.org/

Note: One of the most asked-about estates is the one that was featured in The Godfather II movie. This was the Kaiser Estate (Kaiser Aluminum) on the West Shore. Unfortunately, it was sold, and the land was turned into a condo development.

HERE ARE DETAILS FOR MORE PHYSICAL THINGS TO DO

The following items on the list are more physical activities, so the usual qualifiers apply: Wear good hiking boots (or appropriate footgear if bicycling), carry lots of water and food, bring extra rain and weather clothing, have a good trail map and guidebook, and don't ever attempt any climb/hike/bike unless you are confident of your physical abilities, strength, fitness, and your adaptation to high altitude.

7) Climb a Tahoe mountain.

Tahoe mountains are great because, frankly, they are not that tall and not that steep. This means that the average person in decent shape can hike to the top of any Tahoe mountain. No handholds or special gear are required. (Yes, we have lots of world-class rock climbing that requires technical skill, but that's completely different than hiking to a mountain summit.)

Hiking a 10,000-foot mountain is no small thing. Not only is the view of the lake and its surrounding mountains unmatched anywhere, but getting to a mountain summit under your own power is something to be proud of.

We have lots of mountains to choose from. Perhaps the most popular are Mt. Tallac on the South Shore and Mt. Rose on the North Shore. Both have good parking areas, well-marked trails, and spectacular views.

Most hiking guidebooks provide the details about trails to many peaks. The only one that is possibly excessively strenuous to hike is Tahoe's highest, Freel Peak on the South Shore. The reason is that the route is not over solid rocks or hard dirt but grus, a type of granitic sand where you slide back a half-foot for every foot you step up.

There's something about standing on a mountain summit with the entire world stretched out below you. And if you're lucky, you can look down into the rocky crags below you and see Golden Eagles riding the updrafts.

Mt. Tallac with its famous snow cross

8) Hike to a remote mountain lake.

The Tahoe area is peppered with hundreds of smaller lakes, from Hollywood favorites like Fallen Leaf Lake on the South Shore to Donner Lake near Truckee. If you get a hiking guide, you will find several dozens of great hikes that take you to smaller wilderness lakes perfect for swimming, fishing and camping. (Note that there are strict camping rules, and areas such as the Desolation Wilderness require permits before entering. Most guidebooks tell you everything you need to know.) 

Lake Aloha under the Crystal Range on the Sierra Crest

9) Mountain bike the Flume Trail

Up above the East Shore of Lake Tahoe is the Flume Trail, one of mountain biking's grandest adventures.

The Flume Trail may be the world's most spectacular mountain biking trail

Note the tiny bicyclist on the left!

The Flume Trail's history dates back to the lumber days, when the Tahoe Basin was clear-cut by lumbermen who supplied timbers to shore up the mine tunnels under Virginia City. Getting the logs off the mountain was difficult, so they built a water flume, essentially a big wooden trough-like viaduct up at 7800 feet of elevation. The flume stretched from the outlet dam of Marlette Lake, which is tucked up in the East Shore mountains. The flume was built along the steep mountainside facing the lake. Water from the lake flowed through the flume, and the loggers floated logs in the artificial “Flume” creek. The flume ran north for approximately 8 miles, then turned east into a tunnel that burrowed through the mountain toward Washoe Valley on the other side. Once out of the mountain tunnel, the logs shot down a very steep wooden chute toward the valley floor. (Daredevil lumberjacks would sit on the logs and ride them down to the valley at speeds estimated to be over 60 mph.)

When the lumber days were over, the flume fell into disuse. Years later, its remnants were cleared away, and it was turned into one of the world's most amazing mountain bike trails.

Because the trail is perched on the side of a steep mountain with thousand-foot drop-offs, it can be dangerous, and only sure-footed bikers should try it. Nevertheless, it is not a technical challenge. If one simply pays attention, it is not difficult.

The typical way to enjoy The Flume is to park a shuttle car on Highway 28 near the north end of the trail, then drive to the Spooner Lake Campground just off Spooner Summit. You begin the ride by biking from Spooner Lake up the canyon to Marlette Lake. From there, you ride around the south end of Marlette to the dam where The Flume begins. Prepare for excitement as you ride the cliff-edge trail with the world's grandest view! At the north end of the trail, you make a fast descent down a gravel road to the highway where you've left your shuttle car.

Many mountain bikers will claim that other mountain bike trails, such as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, are more exciting and challenging than The Flume Trail. But for a combination of excitement and beauty and uniqueness, little if anything beats Tahoe's Flume Trail.

10) Ski or ride one of the downhill resorts that faces Lake Tahoe

All of the dozen-plus resorts around Tahoe have their superlatives, and several of them such as Alpine Meadows, Squaw Valley, Sierra At Tahoe, Mt. Rose, and Northstar, have distant and/or filtered views of the lake from certain places on the mountain. But there are three resorts that directly face the lake and have the best views of the lake: Heavenly - the California side (South Shore), Homewood (West Shore), and Diamond Peak (Northeast Shore). The views from these resorts are the stuff that clog up visitor's photo memory cards and iPhones. Magazines and websites that showcase the lake rely heavily on photos taken from these resorts. You may like the fresh powder at Kirkwood or the chutes and steeps of Squaw or the history at Sugar Bowl, but nowhere on Earth will you find views like those from Homewood, Heavenly and Diamond Peak.

Homewood Ski Resort

Other attractions not on my list...

While I've mentioned 10 spectacular things to do, there are many other great activities such as:

Para-sailing

Jetskiing

Kayaking

Hot air ballooning

Horseback riding

Scuba diving

(Yes, there is great scuba diving in Tahoe for those of you who are certified divers. You just need to have a guide who is familiar with high-altitude diving (greater decompression concerns), and you need to be conversant with cold-water diving. Hint: Think insulated, pressurized drysuits! The East Shore is especially intriguing, and even has under-water tunnels.)

Cross-country skiing

Snowmobiling

Water skiing

Camping

Golfing

(For example, golfing at Edgwood, where the celebrity championship is held each year, may provide more dramatic views than nearly any golf course.)

Edgewood Golf Course

While I mentioned the more dramatic bicycling experiences, there are many great but tamer places to bike. Guidebooks detail many beautiful mountain bike trails. There are also several great paved trails from South Lake Tahoe out to Baldwin Beach, up the West Shore from Sugar Pine Point Part to Tahoe City, and along the North Shore from Tahoe City to Dollar Point and Tahoe City to Squaw Valley.

There are countless things to do in Tahoe, so come up the and have the time of your life!

(Just don't forget to see Emerald Bay!)

A Golden Retriever Meets the Wild Bunch

Sure, I write fiction, you say, but this blog is true stuff.

One day my wife and I saw a Golden retriever on a motorcycle on Emerald Bay Road. No, it wasn't a circus dog riding by himself. He was just the passenger. Even so, it kinda catches your eye, a biker doggie dude.

BeeSafeLocksmithBlog

The Golden sat in a custom seat behind the driver. Like the driver, the doggie wore a little helmet and sunglasses, no doubt a nod to the law's requirement for head and eye protection.

I knew that the dog was loving it. (If you doubt that, you're not a dog person. Dog types can tell these things.) If any neighboring drivers had doubts about whether the dog was being forced to suffer in order to conform to human behavior, those doubts were squashed when the motorcyclist came to a stop at the red light at the “Y” intersection. We stared as the dog put on that smile that Goldens are famous for. Then the dog turned his head and gazed over his shoulder as if to see if the car drivers were noticing just how perfect he was.

(Please put aside for the moment your judgments about whether or not riding on a motorcycle is safe or appropriate for a dog.)

This Golden-on-a-motorcycle experience brought up an amazing difference between dogs and all other animals (Owen refers to this in my new novel TAHOE TRAP.) 

All animals exhibit a certain caution to maintain safety. Dogs do, too. But consider this scenario – not to be cruel – but just a hypothetical to illustrate a point. If you held any animal out of the car window while driving at high speed, I'm pretty sure that they would all – crocodiles and lions and T-Rexes included – be terrified. But dogs can't get enough of it. A dog's appetite for a “rush” extends from running or playing or catching a Frisbee to riding in a fast car or even riding on a motorcycle! Or a snowmobile, windsurfer, or a skateboard.

Why is this?

Because the modern dog has evolved over 30,000 years in close association with people, they have effectively become as humanized as an animal can be. They like to eat nearly all the same foods we do. They like to join us in our activities. (As much or more than any other animals, dogs like to “do stuff.”) They want to sleep in our beds or in our laps. They want to join us in our physical games. And dogs especially like to ride in our cars and on our boats.

Which means that if people like riding on motorcycles, dogs do, too.