Tahoe City, California, USA trip: Family Gathering: Alpine Meadows, Squaw Valley, North Tahoe | TripWiser: Social Trip Planner for Family Trips and Road Trips

Even tho we stayed at a privately owned cabin, I'm including these 3 hotels as good deals & while the River Ranch Lodge is right off Highway 89, it's a nice looking place. The Squaw Valley Lodge is right near the Cable Car ride so it's a good location. And Three Buck Inn is on Alpine Meadows Road, which is a quieter street.

Day 1 On the way, we stopped at the McDonalds in Colfax...and lo & behold, we saw an old picture of my hubby's grandfather's business called Livery Stables - Autos - W.J. McCleary, Prop. His great-grandfather had a blacksmithing shop there, his grandfather the Livery Stables & a Plymouth/Dodge dealership, and his Dad grew up there. My hubby has the same name as his Great-grandfather & father so it was cool to see his initials up in an early 1900s photo. Today is arrival day with a BBQ potluck dinner & Margaritas to start the trip off with a bang! A great view of the surrounding mountains from the decks!
Day 2 Today we hit Commons Beach, which is right in Downtown Tahoe City. Nice family beach with a playground tho I found the water too shallow for good swimming. Had to walk out beyond the pier to get chest deep.
Day 3 Today we took the cable car up to the top of Squaw Valley, where most of the younguns hit the great swimming pool on top, while 4 of us did some geocaching & hiked down to Shirley Lake. The lake is cool with a great stone lip jutting out into the water but the way down is steep & slippery & the way up Solitude Trail is even steeper! It was also the 7th Annual Kite Festival but there wasn't enough wind to get a good kite flying show, tho the live band made it nice to sit & eat lunch on the grass, surrounded by some cool mountain scenery.
Day 4 Today all 15 of us boarded 3 rafts, armed with splashing paddles & water guns & proceeded to soak each other for the duration of a 5 mile rafting trip. 99% of this run is calm waters with a few wee-wees (small white-water) with only the end run having a stretch of white-water that scared a few in a group (not me, it was a blast, even if we did end up getting turned backwards 3 times in that stretch). After rafting & cleaning up, 9 of us headed into Reno for some gambling on the strip. It's only about 45 minutes to Reno from Alpine so made for a good jaunt.
Day 5 Today 5 of us hit Skylandia Park which has a real nice, sandy beach & water that's shallow but deepens quickly enough for some good swimming.
Day 6 The last guests left at 10 am so we spent part of the day cleaning the bottom level, went shopping & that evening, we hit Boomtown for the 2-for-1 buffet, then proceeded to lose 10 times the dinner cost on the machines. Boomtown is 10 miles closer than Reno so it took only 30 minutes to get there.
Day 7 Today, with just the two of us remaining, we went geocaching at Squaw Park then hit the trails at the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. Unlike Squaw Valley, which has festivals, weddings, swimming & hiking up at high camp, with stores & activities down at base camp, Alpine Meadows was virtually deserted. It was nice walking amongst the wildflowers & trying to find more geocaches (unfortunately, it appeared to be on the OTHER side of the mountain, something I wasn't prepared to do this time!).
Day 8 Another interesting family fact was that W.J. McCleary was the first person to swim across Donner Lake in the early 1900s. On the way home, we stopped at the Historical Museum in Colfax, hoping to get a good copy of the McCleary photo & discovered his Grandmother's wedding dress on display as well as a work-shirt showing McCleary Plymouth/Dodge...bear in mind this dealership was when these cars were first made.

Add to Trip