Taum Sauk Mountain – Missouri’s High Point

Although spring is now well underway in the middlin’ latitudes of Missouri, it was only a few short weeks ago that winter was still with us.  For my last winter hike of the season, I returned to perhaps my favorite stretch of my favorite trail in all of Missouri – the Mina Sauk portion of the Taum Sauk Trail on Taum Sauk Mountain.  Located in the rugged St. Francois Mountains (the “epicenter” of the Ozark Highlands), Taum Sauk Mountain is Missouri’s highest peak.  I say “peak” with a bit of reservation – at 1,772 feet it hardly compares with the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains or even the much mellower Appalachians (and certainly not with those of my beloved Sierra Nevada).  Nevertheless, unlike the remainder of the Ozark Highlands, the St. Francois Mountains are true mountains initially formed through a series of volcanic events occurring well over a billion years ago.  They, and the rest of the Ozark Highlands, have been shaped to their current form by repeated cycles of uplift and subsequent erosion.  

During their Precambrian prime, the St. Francois Mountains reached heights of 15,000 feet (the “ancient” Appalachians, in the meantime, were still just a twinkle in Mother Earth’s eye).  Rain and wind and the vastness of time have reduced them to nubs, leaving only the most ancient of volcanic rocks as testament to their former glory.  Although most of what is now the Ozark Highlands was inundated repeatedly later in the Palaeozoic (laying down the sediments that were then uplifted and “carved” to their current shape), the highest peaks of the St. Francois Mountains may be among the few areas in the United States never to have been completely submerged under those ancient seas.  Standing atop Taum Sauk Mountain, it is tempting to visualize today’s craggy terrain as a fossil of that ancient landscape - the peaks representing the former islands of rhyolite, their slopes barren and lifeless in stark contrast with the exploding diversity of bizarre life forms appearing in the tropical waters that surrounded them.

The sterile, volcanic rocks of the St. Francois Mountains support an abundance of open, rocky glades – especially on their peaks and southern and western slopes – that are home to a number of plants and animals more typically found in the tallgrass prairies further west.  Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) thrive in clumps between the large, pink boulders that are strewn across the landscape and which provide shelter and sunning spots for animals ranging from the charismatic eastern collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris) to the smaller but no less beautiful splendid tiger beetle (Cicindela splendida).  The surrounding forest is historically an open woodland with a rich, herbaceous understory and widely-spaced, drought-tolerant trees such as shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), post oak (Quercus stellata), and blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica).  These woodlands and glades are a fire-mediated landscape dependent upon periodic burns to maintain their vegetative character.

A trail begins at “High Point”, marking the summit of Taum Sauk Mountain and the highest point in Missouri.  A granite slab next to the summit rock documents the elevation at 1,772.68 feet MSL (Mean Sea Level).  The Mina Sauk Falls Trail, a rugged three-mile loop that joins the Taum Sauk Section of the Ozark Trail, leads to the tallest wet-weather waterfall in Missouri, Mina Sauk Falls.  During periods of high water flow, water gushes over the edge and drops 132 feet over a series of rocky ledges.  Water was flowing lightly during my late winter visit; nevertheless, looking out from above the falls (see photo above) offers one of the most spectacular vistas available in Missouri.  A rather difficult hike down the side of the mountain to the bottom of the falls is also well worth the effort, although clear views of the entire falls are difficult to find in the dense, moist forest below (it was here that I photographed the spectacular Ozark Witch Hazel).

A second unique geological feature lies about a mile farther down the Ozark Trail – Devil’s Toll Gate.  The rocks stand 30 feet high on either side of this eight-foot-wide, 50-foot-long fissure.  The gap probably began as a vertical fracture in the rock that has been enlarged by subsequent weathering. Over time the fissure will continue to widen, as the rocks on either side lose height.

Returning to High Point at the end of the hike, I noticed that the summit was a little higher than when I started my hike – whether this was through additional uplift of the underlying mountain or a depositional event I cannot say.  Nevertheless, I estimated Missouri’s new highest elevation to be approximately 1,773.01 feet MSL!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

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Up the Glacial Staircase

During last year’s visit to Lake Tahoe, we attempted to hike Eagle Falls Trail, one of Lake Tahoe’s most scenic and popular trails.  Beginning at the Hwy 89 trailhead above Emerald Bay, this trail climbs a dramatic ‘glacial staircase’ with steep, narrow gorges connecting a series of deep lakes and meadows.  Each of these lakes, and indeed Emerald Bay itself, was formed as a result of glaciers that carved Lake Tahoe’s granite shores until as recently as 10,000 years ago – leaving behind scars of incomparable beauty.  Eagle Lake perches atop one of these steps – only a short, one-mile hike up the trail but rising nearly 2,000 feet above the trailhead.  Summer hikers have trouble enough dealing with this elevation gain, but winter hikers – as we learned last year -  find it impossible without the assistance of snowshoes.  The first steep section just short of Upper Eagle Falls would prevent any further progress, leaving me with only a teasing view up the gorge and a commitment to try again on our next visit.

There was even more snow this year than last – a good 4-6′ it appeared, but our rented snowshoes made this irrelevant (even desirable), and the four of us began the arduous task of climbing the snow-laden slopes all the way up to Eagle Lake.  It was a family affair, so the pace was dictated by 10-yr old Madison, who got us to Eagle Lake – serenely beautiful and frozen solid – in a leisurely 1 hour 45 minutes.  The hike back down the gorge passed more quickly (almost too quickly) but provided spectacular views of Emerald Bay and Lake Tahoe below. Those of you with an interest in the geological history of Lake Tahoe may refer to my earlier posts, Lake Tahoe, California (Mar 2008) and Born of Glaciers (Mar 2009).  The rest of you may just enjoy these pretty pictures.

View of Upper Eagle Falls - it was here where our hike last year would end.

View back down the gorge from bridge over Upper Eagle Falls.

Looking back down at Emerald Bay from Eagle Falls Trail.

Further up the trail, one looks back upon this spectacular view of Jake's Peak.

Eagle lake lies at 8,500' elevation (frozen lake surface visible through trees left).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

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Hawn State Park – Winter Hiking at its Finest

Two weekends ago we received another wave in what has been an unusually frequent series of snow events. I’m sure my northern (and Patagonian) friends are not impressed, but at our middlin’ latitudes snow falls rather infrequently and rarely sticks around for long when it does. This winter has been different, with snowfall almost every week, it seems like, and temperatures that have remained cold enough to keep it around for awhile. While this latest snowfall measured only a modest 1-2 inches here in the St. Louis area, a 7-inch blanket (as measured by my hiking stick) fell in the Ozark Highlands just south of here. Coming as it did at the start of the weekend, I welcomed the opportunity to go for a hike — among my favorite wintertime activities — in a landscape that is rarely seen covered in deep, newly-fallen snow. My daughter Madison loves hiking as much as I do (even in deep snow), so the two of us headed off to perhaps my favorite of Missouri’s public areas, Hawn State Park.  I have long adored Hawn for its premier hiking, facinating geology, and unusual flora, and everytime I visit Hawn I find something new to love about it.  

Lamotte sandstone outcrops on the White Oaks Trail

Such was the case on this visit, when Madison and I decided to explore the White Oaks Trail, a newer trail that I had not yet hiked.  I was a little concered whether we would even be able to get to the park, as the road leading into it had only been partially plowed (and we had already seen one car off the road, causing me to reach down and switch on the 4-wheel drive).  Most of the park was snowed in, but we were able to reach the uppermost parking area, leaving our snow-covered trail-finding abilities as the last obstacle to overcome.  After studying the trail map and looking at different route options, I asked Madison if she wanted to hike 2 miles, 4 miles, or 6 miles.  She immediately blurted out “6 miles!”, so off we went.  I was disappointed to see that we were not the first persons to have the idea, as we entered the trail only to find two sets of footprints (one human, one canid) leading off in front of us.  It did, however, make following the trail easier, and in fact I’ve had enough experience finding trails through the Ozark Highlands that I never felt like I needed the footprints in front of us to point the direction.  

Madison next to the root wad of an 83-yr old wind-thrown oak tree.

The White Oaks Trail followed nicely up-and-down terrain through mature white oak (Querucs alba) (appropriately) upland forest dissected by small riparian valleys before settling into relatively mild terrain through monotonous black oak forest.  Just when I thought the trail wouldn’t match the splendor of Hawn’s Whispering Pines and Pickle Creek Trails, it wrapped around to the south at the far end and passed by a beautiful hoo-doo complex of Lamotte sandstone outcroppingss supporting majestic, widely-spaced, mature shortleaf pines (Pinus echinata).  The rock outcrops provided a perfect spot to break for lunch while looking out on the deep, snow-covered valley in front of us.  

More Lamotte sandstone exposures along Pickle Creek, Whispering Pines Trail.

After counting a cut, wind-thrown black oak (Quercus velutinus) and determining a lifespan of 83 years, we took a connector trail down to the Whispering Pines Trail where it ran alonside the incomparably beautiful Pickle Creek.  Our hope was to hike down to the igneous shut-ins, where hard, pink rhyolites channeled the creek’s clear, spring-fed waters through narrow chutes and miniature gorges.  Upstream from the shut-ins, Pickle Creek runs lazily through the softer Lamotte sandstones that overlay those ancient rhyolites, combining with the snow cover to create a scene as peaceful and serene as any I’ve ever witnessed.

Pickle Creek meanders lazily through Whispering Pines Wild Area.

  
Just above the shut-ins, Pickle Creek bends to the west, carving deeply into the soft sandstone.  The porous nature of the rock allows moisture to trickle through and between the strata from the hillside above, creating seep zones that weaken underlying layers and lead to their collapse.  The abundant moisture this winter and continuous cycles of daytime thawing and nighttime freezes have resulted in extraordinary ice formations along the bluff face and underneath the overhanging layers, the likes of which are rarely seen in our normally more open winters.  Compare the scene in the first photo below with that in the second, taken at almost exactly the same spot one year ago in February 2009.  

Icicle formations along Pickle Creek, Whispering Pines Trail.

Same place as above in February 2009.

Ice rarely forms over the small ponds and lakes that dot the Ozark Highlands, much less its creeks and other moving waters.   The scene below of Pickle Creek as it exits the sandstone gorge is a testament to the slowness of its movements and the unusually consistent cold temperatures experienced during the past several weeks.  Only a short distance downstream, however, these lazy waters reach the bottommost layers of the erodable sandstones and encounter the hard rhyolites below.  These half-a-billion year old layers of igneous rock are much more resistant to the wearing action of water, which rushes noisily through narrowly-carved chutes before fanning out in broad sheets over smooth, steep slopes below.  

Pickle Creek along Whispering Pines Trail.

Sadly, there would not be time to visit the shut-ins.  The short February day conspired with our snow-slowed pace to leave us with a too-low-sun by the time we reached the fork in the trail that led to the shut-ins, a mile in one direction, and our car, a mile in the other.  Although we (both) had thought to carry flashlights (just in case), the last thing I really wanted to do was find myself stumbling over snow-covered trails through the dark with my 10-yr old daughter. Even had we survived the nighttime winter woods, I might not have survived the inevitable maternal reaction to such an escapade.

Arriving back at White Oaks Trailhead with a few minutes to spare.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010  

  

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Myths about why Lake Tahoe does not freeze

In my recent post, Born of glaciers, I touched on the formation of Lake Tahoe and discussed the glacial origins of Emerald Bay and nearby Fallen Leaf and Donner Lakes.  At the end of that post, I listed some interesting facts about Lake Tahoe, including the fact that Lake Tahoe does not freeze over.  That last fact was linked to one of the many internet sources explaining that Lake Tahoe’s massive size and the fact that its waters are always in motion prevent it from freezing. Sounded good to me.

Fortunately, my post drew the attention of David C. Antonucci, an environmental and civil engineer and author of the website TahoeFacts.com. David pointed out that this widely circulated explanation for why Lake Tahoe doesn’t freeze (repeated even by the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit FAQ website) is, in fact, wrong. David is currently updating his TahoeFacts.com website to include a more detailed explanation about this, but he sent me a draft of his update and has graciously given me permission to quote from it in order to help clear up some of the confusion.

As David points out, size is not the reason – Lake Baikal has more than three times the depth of Lake Tahoe and 160 times the volume, yet is freezes over to a thickness sufficient to support a railway. Nor is it the motion of the water – the Bering Sea is rocked all winter long by violent storms but still forms thick ice cover. The real reason results from a combination of three basic scientific principles:

1. Freshwater has the unique property of reaching its maximum density at about 39°F – that is, water is densest at a temperature 7°F above the temperature at which it freezes.    For any lake to freeze, its surface waters must cool to 39°F, at which time they become denser than the underlying waters and sink beneath them.  This process continues until the water at all depths is a uniform 39°F, after which the surface waters can continue cooling down to 32°F and begin freezing.
2. Freshwater bodies gain heat during summer when air temperatures exceed the temperature of the water at the surface and lose it during winter when air temperatures are below the water surface temperature.  The rate at which stored heat is lost during winter depends upon the surface area/volume ratio – lakes with a higher ratio (i.e., they have a large surface area compared to their volume) lose heat quickly, while those with a smaller ratio (small surface area compared to their volume) lose it more slowly.
3. The rate at which heat is lost is also affected by climate.  Freshwater bodies in colder climates will lose heat more quickly than those with the same surface area and volume in a milder climate.

These three principles combine to explain why Lake Tahoe does not freeze over.  Lake Tahoe has a very small surface area/volume ratio due to its great depth but relatively small circumference.  This limits the rate at which stored heat is lost from the lake during the colder winter months.  The relatively mild climate that occurs in the Tahoe Basin, due to its proximity to the warm Pacific Ocean, further limits the rate at which stored heat is transferred to the air above it.  The result of all this is that the surface temperature of Lake Tahoe never reaches 39°F.  The lake is coldest in late March with a temperature of 41°F at the surface and gradually decreasing to 39°F at a depth of 500-600 ft and below.  Before the surface of the lake has a chance to cool further, increasing sunlight and air temperatures start raising the temperature at the surface.  By early May, surface temperatures reach 50°F, and they peak at 65°F to a depth of 15 ft by mid-August.  However, the summer warming penetrates only to a depth of about 375 ft – where the temperature has remained at 41°F.  Since the upper layers of water never cool below this temperature, they never sink below this depth and allow further cooling to take place.  It is, ironically, a lack of movement that prevents Lake Tahoe from freezing. In order for Lake Tahoe to freeze over, climatic conditions would have to become much colder, or the lake would have to fill in and decrease its depth enough to achieve a sufficiently high surface area/volume ratio.

David also points out that Emerald Bay has formed complete ice cover at least three times during the 20^th Century and partial cover in more years. The reason for this is that Emerald Bay lacks the same depth of the main lake – its surface area/volume ratio is high enough to lose its accumulated heat and reach the required 39°F top to bottom during particularly cold winters.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

Sand Harbor Overlook, Nevada

Lake Tahoe is fabulously beautiful from almost any perspective. There are certain places around the lake, however, whose beauty is so striking, so stunning, that one begins to believe they must have been copied from a starving artist’s painting or some inspirational poster. I have already highlighted one of these places – Emerald Bay, sitting at the lake’s southeastern corner on the California side. Emerald Bay is, in fact, the most dramatic example of the beauty that characterizes Lake Tahoe’s entire western shore – a boulder-strewn landscape sprouting rich forests of white fir, pine, and incense-cedar, massively trunked and often draped with lime-green mosses and lichens.

Nevada’s eastern shore, in contrast, has a different feel – its forests more open and dominated by Jeffrey pine due to the relatively lower amounts of rain and snow that reach the eastern shore. I do not mean to imply, however, that the eastern shore is any less beautiful than the western shore – far from it, and after a day of cross-country skiing at Spooner Lake (just below Spooner Summit, elevation 7,200′), my family and I discovered an eastern shore jewel with as much raw, overwhelming beauty as any of Lake Tahoe’s other premier scenic vantage points – Sand Harbor Overlook.

While the views from Sand Harbor Overlook may not match the grandeur of Emerald Bay, they certainly equal (and perhaps surpass) its more famous landmark in their intimacy and varied perspectives. Whether viewed from high atop the granite point that jutts out into shallow, sandy-bottomed bay, or from lake level atop one of the half-submerged granite boulders, no other vista around the lake shows off Lake Tahoe’s famously clear waters better than Sand Harbor Overlook. Moreover, unlike most of scenic points around the lake, views of the vantage point itself are as dramatic as the views from it.

I suspect that during the summer months, Sand Harbor Overlook is trampled daily by an unending stream of sightseers, many of whom quickly jump out of their cars and briskly search for a spot or two from which they can take photographs before jumping back into their cars and rushing off to the next scenic spot. Such “power” sightseers rarely experience the full beauty offered by Sand Harbor Overlook – their photographs cluttered by strangers in bright clothes, and their memories of what they saw limited to an instant in time. Similar to our experience at Pyramid Creek Geological Area, we had the good fortune to experience the beauty of Sand Harbor Overlook in complete solitude – able to slowly imbibe the subtlties of scale and nuances of each vantage as we explored the area with leisure and reverence. Unmolested by strangers, our contemplations were free to meander slowly, unintruded by persistent background chatter and adolescent shouting. While I came to Lake Tahoe this winter to enjoy the skiing, I walk away with renewed awe at its extraordinary, unending beauty.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

Pyramid Creek Geological Area

On the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, Hwy 50 follows the American River Valley on its way up to Echo Summit before dropping precipitously into Lake Tahoe Basin. A few miles from the summit and 13 miles east of the quaint mountain town of Strawberry lies a spectacular gorge – born of glaciers and boasting one of California’s top ten waterfalls. During the warmer months, the small Forest Service parking lot that provides access to the gorge is constantly choked with cars, and throngs of people can be seen milling about. I have passed this place many times during the five years I lived in Sacramento, and though the crowds suggest that the area truly is spectacular, the idea of sharing a visit with so many strangers and their dogs was always out of the question. Yesterday, as daughter Madison and I drove down Hwy 50 to that very spot, I wondered what crowds we might encounter, hopeful that during this winter “off-season” we might luck out and enjoy at least some fragments of the kind of solitude that befits such a magnificent example of California wilderness.

At 6,200 feet elevation, there was still plenty of snow on the ground, and unbeknown to me this USDA Recreation Site is officially closed during the winter months. The parking lot gates were locked, and there was not a car nor a person to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. That did not deter us – despite the many “No Parking” signs along each side of the highway – necessary during the summer months to prevent the throngs from creating chaos – we found a small turnoff in which we were able to tuck away the car and begin our little adventure to see Pyramid Creek Geological Area and its main attractions – Horsetail Falls and Cascade Vista. The gorge – named for the creek that originates at the base of the falls – was formed during the same late Pleistocene glaciations that formed Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe. Vertical cliffs of granite tower above the U-shaped gorge, whose smooth granite domes remain littered with glacial scree (boulders and smaller rocks of assorted sizes). We lost the trail almost immediately due to snow, but since we knew we could not get lost (with a mountain on each side of us) we decided to bushwhack as far as we could. It was rough going, and with a hiking partner only 4′ in height the deep snow was a formidable obstacle. Still, we soldiered on, zigzagging from this granite exposure to that, testing (and often sinking) into the snow-covered plains between them, and splashing along the many meltwater streams that were gushing on this warm, early-spring day, until finally we could go no further. We were still a quarter mile from the falls (only a 1.25-miles hike from the trailhead if one uses the established trail), yet still the view was mesmerizing! As a father, I should probably be glad we did not make it all the way to the falls, as a number of people have been killed over the years when they got too close to the edge of the constantly wet rocks. On the way back, we spotted some granite exposures that we hadn’t seen earlier that suggested we might be able to get all the way up next to the Cascade Vista, and in this we were successful. We scrambled over the rocks and snow, ever careful but proud for giving the effort, before retracing our tracks back to a clear shot out of the gorge.

Words cannot express the overwhelming beauty of the landscape we explored, the joy in doing so without ever encountering another human being and the expansive feeling of solitude that that allows, and the exhausted satisfaction that results from hiking over rough, snowy terrain for more than 5 hours. Daughter Madison did great, and I almost had to rip her from the area she was having so much fun. She asked question after question as I showed her cracks in the rocks and explained the carving actions of water over the millennia, how water can create such a landscape. “Water always wins,” I told her. My botanizing trip to Emerald Bay two days before had also prepared me well for this trip, as I was able to recognize every single woody plant I encountered in the gorge (the mosses and ferns will have to wait for another day).

Of the many photographs I took during the day, I share with you here some of my favorites:

Jeffrey pine and white fir soften the stark, towering granite walls

Evidence of glacial carvings can be seen in the American River valley below.

A small waterfall flanked by Jeffrey pine and Sierra juniper previews what is still to come.

Another view south into the American River valley from a little higher up.

Horsetail Falls is gushing from the snowmelt.

A distant view of Horsetail Falls.

Looking down on the Cascade Vista and the American River valley.

A distant view of Horsetail Falls from the Cascade Vista.

Pyramid Creek sheets in a continuous cascade over the granite bedrock.

Deep snow was a continuous obstacle for myself, and for 4'-tall Madison.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

Born of glaciers

Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator.–Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)

When Mark Twain first laid eyes upon Lake Tahoe in 1861, he thought it “must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.” More than a century and a half later, that opinion is still shared by another Missouri boy, and though I would gladly welcome three months of camp life over one week at a ski resort, I nevertheless remain confident that my vigor will be fully restored by the time I return to work next Monday. The journey that began some days ago in the foothills of my beloved, ancient Ozark Highlands has today taken me to one of the youngest of landscapes to grace Lake Tahoe – Emerald Bay. I have written previously about Lake Tahoe (one year ago almost to the day) in a post that also featured photos of Emerald Bay and its only island, the iconic Fannette Island. The Tahoe Basin itself is a relatively young landscape, forming within the last 5-10 million years as the basin floor dropped between two uplifted blocks. Volcanic flows in the valley on the north side of the present lake dammed the valley to form the lake, whose level has fluctuated drastically over time during the past 2 million years as Pleistocene glaciations have repeatedly damned the Truckee River that drains the lake into the lowlands of Nevada. At maximum, the level of the lake approached 7,000 feet in elevation – nearly 800 feet higher than today. It was the last of these glacial events – near the end of the Pleistocene just 10,000 years ago – that gave birth to Emerald Bay. Unlike the “ice sheets” that spread out across much of the continent, the ice age here manifested itself as individual glaciers that formed at the highest elevations and carved out individual valleys as their crushing weight ground them inexorably downward. The elongated shape characteristic of such glacial valleys is seen not only in Emerald Bay, but in the adjacent Fallen Leaf Lake and Donner Lake in the north as well. John Muir alludes to this glacial birth in a description of Emerald Bay that he wrote in his private journal in 1888:

Emerald Bay is about two miles long. Its mouth is nearly closed by a terminal moraine; the sides are formed by lateral moraines. The left lateral is very striking, well formed, three or four hundred feet high where it joins the shoulder of the mountain, timbered with pine and spruce¹ sparsely on the grayish slopes.

¹ Actually firs, of the genus Abies.

Upper Eagle Falls from Eagle Lake - part of a

Unfortunately, the very existence of Lake Tahoe is under threat. While the mountain building processes that created the Sierra Nevada have ceased for now, the erosive forces caused by weathering continue unabated. The Sierra Nevada range is being gradually worn down, and Lake Tahoe is filling with sediment at an average rate of about 1/10th of a millimeter per year. At this rate, Lake Tahoe will become a meadow in just over 3 million years.[/humor]

Lake Tahoe facts:

• It is 22 miles long, 12 miles wide, and holds about 40 trillion gallons of water – enough to cover the entire state of California to a depth of 14.5 inches!
• Maximum elevation of the lake surface is about 6,229 feet above sea level.
• The lake is drained by the Truckee River, one of a few rivers that run inland to the desert rather than towards the ocean.
• It is the third deepest lake in North America, with an average depth of 989 feet. However, the deepest point is about 1,645 feet.  It is the largest lake in North America above 600 feet elevation.
• Surface temperatures can reach as high as 75°F in summer, but at depths below 600 feet the water remains a constant 40°F.
• Lake Tahoe does not freeze over, although Emerald Bay has formed complete ice cover at least three times during the 20^th Century and partial cover in more years.

More Lake Tahoe facts can be found at the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit FAQ site and at Tahoe Topics and FAQ’s, by David C. Antonucci (2004).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae

A journey through time

East Humbolt Range, northeastern Nevada

During the past two days, my family and I made the long drive from St. Louis, Missouri to Lake Tahoe, California to enjoy a week of skiing (both alpine and cross-country), snow-shoeing, hiking (at lower elevations), and decompression.  At 1,990 miles, it’s not a drive for the pampered or easily bored (and for those with children, thank goodness for in-car DVD players). Yet, for those willing to explore the little seen wonders of a landscape that most people see only from 30,000 feet, driving cross-country can be a richly rewarding experience.  I have traveled through many parts of the U.S., but this was my first time experiencing the “northern route” between Missouri and California along I-80.  Along the way, I saw:

• Massive flocks of snow geese roosting in wetlands along the Platte River Valley, rising up at morning’s light in swirling clouds and stringing across the sky in vast, intersecting “V”s as they begin another day on their journey northward.
• Sandhill cranes in the Nebraska Sand Hills, dropping down from the sky like miniature parachutes as they congregated in fallow corn fields to feed amongst the stubble.
• The vast, high, arid, lonely expanses of the Wyoming Basin, transitioning from mixed-grass prairie in the east to sagebrush steppe in the west.
• The stunningly spectacular descent down the western escarpment of the Wasatch Range, where the eastern edge of the Great Basin laps against the western edge of the Rocky Mountains.  (Nightfall unfortunately deprived me of my chance to see the vast Great Salt Lake and the even more expansive stretches of its associated salt flats.)
• The magnificent Great Basin landscape and its alternating basin and range theme – its broad basins of salt lakes, marshes and mud flats interrupted at regular intervals by craggy, north to south mountain ranges formed as a result of strike-slip faulting during the past 30-50 million years as the thin Basin crust continues to crack and stretch even thinner.
• The dramatic eastern face of the Sierra Nevada Range, its snow-capped peaks rising massively as a single granite block at the western edge of the Great Basin, and the equally dramatic, tortuous climb up to Spooner Pass at 7,200′ elevation before the 1,000′ drop down into the majestic Lake Tahoe Basin.

Driving across such a vast expanse of North America, especially in the west with its endless vistas and majestic landscapes, invites contemplation about earth and time.  Starting out in the foothills of my beloved Ozark Highlands – born before life itself and weathered for a billion and a half years, driving through the upstart Rocky Mountains – mere babies at only 50-100 million years of age, and finally arriving at the truly young Lake Tahoe – whose mere few million years of age make it a mere infant in geological time, I realized that the vastness of these landscapes, and of the countless tectonic, erosional and sedimentary episodes that shaped them, is surpassed only by the vastness of the time it took to create them.  For those willing to make the investment, driving through these landscapes is more than a trip across the country – it is a journey through time.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009