April 5, 2008, Maggies Peaks towards Dick's Peak

We met with a few folks from the Backcountry Ski Section of the Sierra club for this tour.  It was another sunny, spring day in the Lake Tahoe area.  The tour began at the BayView trailhead - across the road from Inspiration Point overlooking Emerald Bay on hghway 89 on the southwestern portion of Lake Tahoe.  Some in the group were hoping to get to Dick's Peak, while the remaining mortals felt a more relaxed tour beyond Maggies Peaks to some of the south facing slopes would produce sufficient corn goodness to make the trip worthwhile.  The trailhead starts at 6500' and you travel through trees up to the saddle between the 8500' and 8700' north and south peaks.  The peaks have acquired rather descriptive female attributes since the days of Steinbeck who referred to them as Maggies Bubs!  The slopes are north facing and famous for holding powder late into the season.  Today they were firm on the ascent and soft on our return descent.  Once at the saddle, two of the young'ens darted off towards Dick's.  The mortals traversed left along a ridge to a rock outcropping overlooking Azure Lake and a south facing bowl between point 9190' and 9579'. The Desolation Wilderness was spread before us and the views were endless as we rotated 180 degrees for views of the backside of Tallac and Lake Tahoe. We skinned up a trough providing access to the south facing bowl. The descent down towards Azure Lake was classic Sierra corn in brilliant sunshine.  O yeah - life is good in the Sierra.  It all ended too soon as we skinned back to the saddle between Maggies Peaks. We looked down at the waters of Emerald Bay and descended through the trees on corn that was finally soft.  The young'ens were close to Dick's but ran out of time to complete the circuit.  A great day was had by all!