Lake Tahoe easy trails?
 

Hey group, taking the wife to Tahoe for her B-day this weekend and wanted to see if any of you know of an easy trail (stock jku and I mean stock) with some decent scenery I can take her up on. I heard of Genoa Peak but not sure the difficulty on it. Thanks

Run the back entrance to the rubicon. There are several logging road-type trails over there and even some water crossings! Nothing that will hurt a stock JK. Just don't head down the actual rubicon trail unless you have a rear locker and no side steps. If you are set up at least at the level described you can drive down to the overlook at the top of Cadillac hill. Its pretty impressive. Don't drive down Cadillac however...

When you say "Tahoe" area are you refering to just around the lake? There are some great trails to be had within 50 miles of the lake. Here are some personal favorites.

1. Mt Watson/ Lake Watson - North side of the Lake. The Mt. Watson trail requires nothing fancy and takes you to the top of Mt. Watson and has an amazing view. Pretty Much a fire road.

2. Angora Lake - This trail is almost paved the whole way to the top of the mountain where you park and then hike an another 8/10ths of a mile to the actual lake which is breath taking. There are some cabins that rent out years in advance and a little care takers area that sells lemonde and sandwiches during the middle of the day.

3. Sierra Buttes - this trail is north west of tahoe and you enter the trail out of Sierra City. Its a fire road that runs along the side of the mountain with great views and if you wanna put it 4-Lo you can take a side trail to a parking area where you can hike to the top of the mountain where a fire look-out exists. There is a metal staircase to the top and you will feel like you are on top of the world.

4. Deer Lake - Continue on Sierra Buttes and you will run into two trail options Golden Lake Trail and Deer Lake. Deer Lake is short nice trail to a beautiful lake, nothing crazy but some dirt on the tires. Golden Lake is more challenging a stock Rubi is fine.

5. Black Bear Canyon is off of 89 north of the entrance to the back-side of the Rubicon. You can actually do a loop up Black Bear over and out the back side of the Rubicon. If you don't have an air compressor or a way to air down I don't recommend this trail it is rough on fully inflated tires.

6. Fordyce Lake/ Stanilus Lake - (Not Fordyce Trail) You can access this easy trail off of Hwy 80 at the Cisco Grove Exit heading north toward Reno. There is a campground on the north side of the highway which is a great base camp all spots have water and electricity. Up the trail you can get to three different lakes within 15 miles. Great place to bring lunch for a picnic.

I highly recommend picking up two differnt books

A Guide to Northern California Backroads and 4x4 trails. Worth every penny 30%easy/30%medium/30%hard trails 80 plus trails.
Northern Califronia Trail Guide. Much larger book more easy to moderate, very few if any difficult trails.

Have fun and let us know what you decide, if you post it up on the forum others may come.

Thanks,
Huck

Thanks guys. Huck, looks like options 1-4 are good for me. I appreciate the help. :thumbsup:

Glad to help

Huck

Are you talking about the books by Charles Wells? (The guy that did the Moab book)

Subscribed because I live close to here and am looking for places to go myself.

Yes the book i am referencing is written by Wells. He wrote one for Northern California and one for Southern California.

Ended up going on the back side of Rubicon trail (Mckinnley). Not too far up as it gets very rough for the dinky stock tires. Fun though

Did you air down? How low?