ocation: West Shore – Lake Tahoe, CA
Duration: 1-2 hours
Elevation Change: 2,357′ – from 6,830′ to 9,187
Recommended Map: Emerald Bay, California
Elevation Profile:
Map of General Route:
With some real sweat and skilled skinning, you can wind your way up to a nice view of Tahoe and Desolation Wilderness, in a 2400′ climb above Bliss State Park Headquarters. Half the reason why you’re sweating is to beat the crowds to the top. The ski terrain is only moderately steep, but the skin tracks get icy from high traffic, and set by the local chargers who don’t need a mellow track angle. The track is also steep to mitigate avalanche danger during the storms and immediately after it stops snowing. Sometimes locals skin up there when there IS avalanche danger so don’t just follow without knowing where you are going, and why. There’s a reason why you’ll see missing strips of trees in places. There are some common starting zones you should steer clear from, basically near the top where wind slabs form in most storm cycles. Jake’s gets skied enough for you to figure it out by just showing up a little late.
For skiing the north and east sides, park near the entrance to Bliss State Park in a long pullout on the east side of the road. Walk across the street and you’ll see the starting skin track. There are a few more pullouts down the road to the south that also work fine. Wave at CHP and Cal Trans Drivers and say thank you. They are allowing us to park for backcountry skiing. Land managers at TRPA, USFS, and CA State Parks might say positive things about the ski touring scene, but I have never seen them help skiers access public lands. They have only removed highway pullouts and parking opportunities for backcountry skiers in my 30 years here. I’ve been on many steering committees and commented out the wazoo, only to hear BS from them over and over. Backcountry skiing is amazing for the local economy, and it is the reason many of us live here. It is the job of land managers to allow access to public land in the Tahoe Basin just as much as it is to protect Lake Tahoe water clarity. If I hear the excuse that parking can’t be allowed around Lake Tahoe anymore because of errosion one more time… OK, so thank Cal Trans and CHP please. We actually lost this most important parking pullout in 2016, when TRPA allowed Cal Trans to just wipe it out. We reversed that ridiculous move as a group and got it back. We are also always one bad parking job away from losing ski access at the Emerald Bay Avalanche Gate. Cal Trans managers ocassionally threaten they are closing it off to skiers, but then they leave and the Cal Trans Drivers leave us alone. Again, this is unofficial parking that CHP and Cal Trans allow. Don’t block the road. Be quick and nice to them. And CARPOOL like your life depends on it. If there is no parking, just leave and go a mile further where you can easily park at Eagle Lake or Bayview Trailheads or Mt. Tallac.
Wow. Everytime I return to edit these West Shore pages, I delete it all and try to be a normal person, and just talk about the ski touring. Then I go off on a rant about parking. Jake’s is popular because there actually is some parking. And you could also show up at the crack of noon and probably find parking at popular trailheads too. Many other classic and historic ski touring locations in Tahoe have no parking signs down the entire stretch of highway shoulder for no reason. There used to be signs in the 80’s that said “no parking when snow removal conditions exist”. That sounded pretty fair to me. Can’t we get those back? If you ever get a ticket, do not pay it without a fight. If you are not blocking the road or an opportunity for a plow to clear some snow, and you are beyond the snow stakes, CHP has always told me that we can park and go skiing.
OK, I’m relaxed again. Whewwww.
Your jake’s Peak options are many. I’m going to let you figure them out on your own, because this area is crowded enough as it is. Jake’s is pretty close to town, has a great view, and is kind of a fun party. There are ski lines on different aspects wrapping around this mile long ridge up top, so you can find good skiing most any day of the year. It’s almost too easy and good. I’ll go a few times in early season to test myself and gear and love it. Then I move on to other tours around Tahoe for some variety. But in March and April Tahoe will get amazing backcountry powder conditions, and Jake’s isn’t crowded anymore for some reason. I guess they start Mt. Biking and Golfing.
We can’t meet up at the Corpus Christie Church anymore to carpool, they put notes on our cars last year. Bummer, its a huge parking lot that no one uses. The Tahoe City Transit Center parking lot will work going forward.
And please help www.tahoebackcountryalliance.org with donations or your professional expertise. This is our local organization to speak on our behalf.
Looking for awesome ski and splitboard tours in the Sierras? We’ve got write ups on many common and uncommon tours curated by the owner of the BackCountry, Mike Schwartz.
On 3/13/17 I took a quick spin up the south side of Jake’s Peak at Emerald Bay. We were in a great week long corn cycle and the EB chutes were fairly tracked out, but less people ski over on the other side of the ascent track. I was the only car parked at the avy gate turnaround at 8am and it was full with about 15 cars when I returned at 10am. Thanks to Cal Trans and El Dorado Sherrif for allowing us to park here! They do sometimes ticket and tow when there is no plowing to do, which is a bummer. This is an important winter access point to the most beautiful ski terrain within 100 miles in any direction!!!! It’s one of the only places you can park in all of lake Tahoe, which is another sad reality.
If it weren’t for the few renegade Cal Trans plow drivers helping us backcountry ski, you would be moving on to other states more friendly towards public land access. Our State Parks, USFS, and County officials have done nothing for us as backcountry skiers…after many meetings and over 2 years of “stakeholder meetings”. I even made a well received slide show presentation at their office and then drove the TRPA managers around in my van, showing them the whole deal with our pirate parking issues. They said they can’t help in the end basically, and that they have zero control over other Tahoe Gov’t Agencies. Seriously? Call them too! TRPA is half charged with improving recreation, just like restoring lake clarity. They have reduced half our sad parking pullouts in 2016 with the hwy 89 “improvement” project, and didn’t consult a single local person about the recreation access impacts. They even wiped out the standard Jake’s Peak parking lot, which we had to fight to get back.
WTF? No one wants backcountry skiers at Lake Tahoe in any government agency? How lazy and lame can you be? Tahoe IS backcountry skiing!!!
on 3-5-18 Steph, Jessie and I parked at the avy gate and got into a frustrating discussion with someone named Bill from Cal Trans, who lectured about 15 skiers that we could no longer park here. This has happened in the past. In the end we all went skiing without moving our cars, because there is nowhere else to park to access Desolation Wilderness or Jake’s Peak (the most popular ski tour in Tahoe). He said he was going to post a no-parking sign on the tree at the turnaround, but that luckily hasn’t happened yet. He says the problem is that tourists park blocking the road later in the day, seeing our skier cars as a suggestion to park. What does one thing have to do with the other? Why can’t they just have signs that say “parking allowed from here…..to here”. I asked him what’s the deal when the road gets plowed and the snow melts away to the point where we are all parking on dirt? This happens a day or two after a storm. He said NO DICE, no more parking here. Try parking back half a mile. I told him no one is going to do that. How about opening the gated summer parking lot just past the gate? Bill also talked about a tractor trailer truck that got stock without being able to turn around last winter when emerald bay wasn’t plowed. This also has nothing to do with skiers or anything really. The guy wasn’t going to be able to turn around at all, and just missed some signs. Whatever, leave the truck and call a taxi! You’ll eventually get through.
Backcountry skiers ARE the economy on the west shore of Tahoe in the winter and spring. You would think land managers would realize this sport is a real thing. Like since before ski areas even got built. We are a real part of Tahoe’s Soul as well as the economy. And their job is to provide access to public land, not remove it all so they don’t have to deal with it. We have lost our parking at Rubicon, Bliss, Jake’s (got it back), Tallac, Pyramid, Ralston, Fallen Leaf….kind of all of it. Half of these access points have locked, unplowed parking areas or huge highway shoulders with no parking signs.
OK, I will rant no more! just wanted a little to filter into the website. Our organization Tahoe Backcountry Alliance could use some more volunteers. We are working on it, but it really looks like the public has to figure it all out, fund raise, design, and convince the land managers of the Tahoe area of something that is so fundamental to the reason why most of us live here. We want to park the damn car and get out into the woods or onto the lake. Do they expect us all to go pay $150 and fight crowds and moguls at squaw and heavenly? TRPA, USFS, CA State Parks, El Dorado Supervisor Sue Novasel, SLT and TC Chamber of Commerce, El Dorado Sherrif, are some of the main land managers you might try to talk to if you want access to Desloation Wilderness and our public land in general. These organizations are so busy managing campgrounds and general sight seeing tourists, that they kind of don’t care about mountain biking, paddleboarding, or ski touring.
So anyway, we went skiing on a super warm day and needed to take our second run down the north side. Jessie used to work at our shop at the beginning in the early 90’s, before moving to Santa Cruz. He had no problem pounding out 4500′ without an acclimatization day and some nice turns were had. Then we hit some dreamy easy Alpine Meadows Ski Area groomers the next day which almost felt like a backcountry experience in the morning.
These pics are from feb 6 2019. Steph and I skied thigh to waist deep dry snow. I got us both Voile Vector V8 skis that are ridiculously light and wider than we’ve skied before. The first thing I realized is trail breaking is way easier. My skis are 114 at the waist and only weigh 6.5lbs. This makes me so much faster I can’t believe it, so I got 2 more pairs to have in my family and loan out perhaps just to help people go at my new hiking speed. Unreal, you should get a pair. They carve great turns when it’s not deep somehow too. I originally thought I would only use these skis when ski penetration is well over 12″, but have since found I prefer them even when it’s only a few inches deep. Of course when ski pen is 4″ or less, I’m back to wanting 100-104 waist width or so.
These pics are from Feb 12, 2019. In the middle of the month called Februburied. 330″ of snow measured on the west shore in just one month! It was super windy on this day but no wind slab avy danger, as the wind was blowing the opposite direction from our ski direction. Pow was surprisingly good considering the cold wind, and lunch tasted that much better because of it at Fireside.
These pics are from Feb 17 2019. Not only was Emerald Bay closed virtually all month from over 300″ of snow received just this month, but the end of the road was right at the state park. And it was a one lane sketchy unplowed drive for a few miles getting to this point. It reminded me of the old climbing manufacturer bumper sticker that I forgot who authored, that said “My vacation is your worst nightmare”. I went out solo today and and bumped into plenty of friends.
The picture upload feature broke and now is fixed! Here’s some Jake’s from last year
video clip attached of Valentine’s day run 2022 with Steph. I like to let her go first.
This was a great day with Jehren Code Blue Boehm and Alec Dynashred Sandberg. If you don’t know these guys, know them. They are what Truckee is all about. Deso peaks look great for this time of year! Can’t wait for EB to open.
2023 has been amazing. these are from mid march
Mid March Stevie, Caleb and Marty skied a few laps on the south side of Jakes in great corn snow. The road was closed, the snowpack was ridiculous, and we skied passed the hwy and down to a snow covered beach 700′ below the car. It had rained a few days prior and frozen solid, setting the stage for perfect corn snow. We did have to hang around on the summit for an hour or more waiting for the surface to soften. Darn.