TRT: Mt Rose to Spooner
I am backpacking the TRT in sections and I planned to do Mt Rose Summit to Spooner (25 mi.) over the course of 2.5 days. I parked in the parking lot right at the summit and crossed the highway waking in on Mount Rose Summit Ski Rd (the road that leads to Mt Rose Campground); there is a trail head there. I couldn’t park at the Tahoe Meadows parking lot because the gate was locked. I began at 3:30 in the afternoon so that I would cover 8-9 miles and then set up camp for the night. I did it that way because camping inside Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park (between Tunnel Creek Road and Spooner Summit) is only allowed in designated campgrounds, and I didn’t want to hike 16 miles to get to Marlette Peak Campground. So at 8.7 miles I found a nice spot to set up for the night on the east side of the trail. The next morning my friend and I hiked about 8 miles to get to Marlette Campground (filling up our water at Twin Lakes). Make sure to take the Christopher Loop detour, even though you may be tired from just climbing 700’ it is worth the extra effort. It’s a great place to kick off your boots and have a snack. On the trail it is not called “Christopher’s Loop” the sign says “Sand Harbor Lookout.” When you get to Marlette peak you either go right or left. We opted for the easier route and turned left (the East face of Marlette Peak). Good thing we did other wise we would not have crossed a small stream flowing about a 1/4 mile just before the Campground since we did not know that the water pump had been broken for over a year. Some workers were actually trying to fix the pump the day we were there and said they replaced all the top components of the pump but were still unable to draw water. The problem they said was down at the bottom of the well and they were going to have to do some more research on how to fix it. All that to say, don’t count on water at the pump, hike back to that stream I mentioned. We arrived at the Campground at 1pm which was great because we were able to set up camp, ditch our gear and hike down to the lake for a swim. It was so refreshing and well worth the 1-mile, 500’ climb back up to camp. The morning of the third day we finished off the 9 miles of the trail by noon and went into Incline Village for a much craved, well deserved burger and a beer at Inclined Burgers. It was an amazing trip!