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Day Hike
Mount Tallac with Katia
Lake Tahoe · Mount Tallac · Desolation Wilderness
Type
Day Hike
Time out
2–4 hrs (est.)
Party
With Katia
Contours, elevations and trails from OpenTopoMap. Scroll down for the zoomable map.
Mount Tallac stands 9,738 feet above the south end of Lake Tahoe — one of the classic Tahoe summit hikes, climbing past Floating Island and Cathedral Lakes to a ridgeline that looks straight down onto Emerald Bay and across into Desolation Wilderness. Climbed with Katia, before the kids.
(Pre-digital era — no photos survive in the cloud archive. 2009 is right; the exact day isn't recorded.)
"Tallac" comes from the Washoe word for "big mountain." Its distinctive winter cross of snow on the southwest face is visible from around the lake.