Tahoe-Yosemite Trail Meeks Bay to Stony Ridge Lake

Welcome to another Travel Tuesday! There are a crap ton of photos coming up in this post. :] You’ve been warned!

My friend and I actually went on this hike back in uh, June of 2016. We’d been planning a weekend Tahoe trip since I hadn’t been there since 2008, so on one of the days, we decided to go hiking!

We started out the day with some freshly-squeezed orange juice!

Along with some delicious strawberry guava pancakes using one of the mixes I brought back with me from Hawai’i…

We packed a delicious lunch of stir-fried tomato + egg and fried rice!

Pretty flowers outside the cabin!

Originally, we wanted to hike up Rubicon Peak, but we couldn’t find out how to get to the trailhead. The Tahoe-Yosemite trail was nearby, but it’s 186 miles long in its entirety and stretches from Lake Tahoe all the way to Yosemite National Park (as the name would suggest) and we had a single day for hiking.

…So we decided to make up our own hike and took the Tahoe-Yosemite Trail from Meeks Bay to Stony Ridge Lake!

First, a view of a tree and waterfall by Emerald Bay! <3

Tahoe-Yosemite Trail Meeks Bay to Stony Ridge Lake

Location: On Highway 89, ~11 miles south of Tahoe City! 7941 Emerald Bay Rd, Tahoma, CA 96142 = address for Meeks Bay Resort)
Parking: Park in the area across from the Meeks Bay Resort! You’ll see a small dirt parking lot across the highway.
Fees: As far as I know, there are no fees for day use, but permits are required if you want to stay overnight!

You’ll see a great mix of things on this hike, from wildflowers to waterfalls to lakes and trees, and off in the distance, you’ll be able to hear Meeks Creek!

There are a number of “natural” bridges made of logs and/or rocks to cross–some are trickier than others but they’re not bad at all!

A photo posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Jun 19, 2016 at 2:34pm PDT

The snow plants were really pretty!

It gets colder the higher you climb, so I’d advise packing snacks, dressing in layers and bringing water with you on this hike!

Lake Genevieve!

Even though it was June, there was still snow up here!

Stony Ridge Lake!

I’d love to go up to the top of Rubicon Peak sometime! We probably could’ve made it if we’d pressed on, but we figured thin t-shirts and light jackets wouldn’t cut it up there, especially if we got lost and also wanted to get back down before dark. (sigh).  Someday!

A photo posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Jun 18, 2016 at 9:30pm PDT

I’ve never gone backpacking before, but I think it’d be really fun to go backpacking along the entire Tahoe-Yosemite trail someday too! There are so many things on my travel bucket list!

The claim was that we ended up hiking 17.34-ish miles! I say “ish” because on my friend’s phone, it showed up as 32,312 steps, 18.59 miles and 67 floors climbed. I suspected this is because he’s taller than I am. Sigh, short legs.

So concludes the longest hike I’ve done to date! :O Before this, it was probably the 12-mile one I did up in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, but it didn’t even feel that long! :O Clearly, this means I need to go hiking more. :]

• Have you ever been to Tahoe? What’s your favorite thing to do there?
• What’s the longest hike you’ve ever done?