High Fives & The CR Johnson Foundation

High Fives is an amazing foundation. CR Johnson was an amazing skier. Take some time to contribute to the CRJ Foundation at High Fives. Your $20 minimum donation gets you a cool memorial tee shirt and a subscription to Powder magazine. Here's the link.

Site Partners Wanted

Getting this site to the next level is going to take a bit more than I can personally give. We're still looking for someone willing to provide some schwag for giveaways, contests, etc. There's been quite a few people that have expressed an interest but not yet committed. If you want to be part of our team, contact Mark.

Stickers?

Got many stickers still around. They seriously need to get on skis, helmets and bumpers as there are plenty around Alpine Meadows. If you've been seeing our stickers around Alpine and want your own, send me an e-mail.

Wanted: Your Unofficial Alpine Forum Posts

The forum really is the heart and soul of Unofficial Alpine, at least after you have read Andy's report. We're getting around 100 readers a day. It would be great to see more people posting. If you took a great run, had a fantastic slice of pizza or met a friendly employee, please share!We're now at 135 members and nearly 1500 posts at the Unoffical Alpine forum.

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The Unofficial Alpine Meadows "Summer" Report
8/25/10 A Day Hike To Azure Lake

Hello friends,

Yesterday the weather was just too good to stay inside, so a few of us decided to stretch our legs hiking.  We headed for Emerald Bay and ended up parking at the Bayview Trailhead which is located on the west side of Hwy. 89 across from the vista point parking area at the south side of Emerald Bay.  Drive through the small camping area to the trailhead parking lot.  The goal was to walk to Azure Lake (you can see photos of this lake and locate it using Google Earth).  The trail we took is labeled Cascade Falls.  It heads off to the left at the trailhead sign.  The trail is easy to follow  until you arrive at Cascade Falls (nothing to right home about yesterday, but awesome earlier in the season when the water is flowing at a higher volume).  This fall drops into Cascade Lake.  From this point we ended up hiking cross country on the south side of the drainage.  Our wandering involved hiking over granite slabs until we found ourselves at a small pond filled with blooming water lilies.  At this point we took a wrong turn and ended up standing in deep manzanita bushes.  Back tracking, and climbing over more granite, we finally crossed a trail that seemed to be leading in the correct direction.  Climbing over downed logs and crossing a stream eventually led us to Snow Lake.  A lovely lake where we relaxed and ate lunch.  There were other people at Snow Lake, so there must be an easier trail to follow, but we seemed to have missed it.

 After enjoying the view, cooling off my feet in the pleasant water, we headed up a rocky drainage and climbed over granite boulders and slabs until our sore eyes viewed a most beautiful site.  Azure Lake sits in a granite basin.  Granite cliffs drop straight into the deep water creating an amazing azure blue color.  The water was refreshing enough for a couple of the group to dive in and swimming around for a decent length of time.

At this point the question was to return the way we came, or continue on to complete a loop using the Bayview Trail.  We chose the loop.  This involved hiking along the lake's edge until we found a trail that took off up hill.  We had to look for the trail as there are no signs indicating it is a trail or that it was going to hook up to the Bayview Trail.  Lucky for us the trail, that climbed more than we expected, eventually ended at the Bayview Trail.  We headed back to the car enjoying a 1445 foot drop in elevation with views of Mt. Talac,Eagle Lake, Emerald Bay, Fallen Leaf Lake, and Cascade Lake among others.  

Take a good topo map and/or a GPS on this hike so you do not get lost.  It is really an enjoyable mixture of elevation gain, views, lakes to swim in, and both trail and off trail hiking.  One of the best hikes in the Tahoe area according to one member of the group.

Enjoy your day.  

Andy

 Sponsored by Andy Wertheim, Realtor andyinalpine@yahoo.com

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