Summer Begins at Powder Haus

It was so nice to get back up to the mountains after being away for seven weeks. Shoulder season up in the mountains is a beautiful time of year: everything is incredibly green, the evenings and mornings are cold, MTB trails aren’t super dusty yet and the peak heat of the day allows for a river float or a swim… I spent a few days at Powder Haus solo before the kids and Lisa joined me for our wedding trip to Boise, catching up on work and weaving some fishing and river floating into the few days I had by myself. I also managed to hit some new trails with Paris: Sober Deer over in Carpenter Valley was a hoot, and I also enjoyed exploring Sky Tavern above Reno (which is a ski resort owned by the city of Reno).

Our first day at Powder Haus post-Boise was on the cooler side, so we took advantage of the weather to hit some of the pirate trails below Jackass Ridge off Highway 89. I think my favorite was Mutley and I’d guess Max’s was the famous Jackass, but all were an incredible amount of fun. I mic’d up Wild Man and chased him down the three main descents, good times aplenty.

I also took the team back to Sky Tavern early one morning fora shuttle descent down the Tamarack Lake Trail. It was a beautiful almost all downhill 4.3 mile singletrack from the peak of Mount Rose into the top of Sky Tavern bike park. We had to battle some snow drifts up top in the shade, but otherwise had magic views of the Reno basin almost the whole way down. Sky Tavern was a hit with the kids and Lisa, pretty sure the flowy High Fives descent with all its berms and jumps was everyone’s favorite of the day. Post-ride we stopped in at Kings Beach for a bit of a bake in the sun and swim in the icy cold water of Lake Tahoe. In all her wisdom, Lilia neglected to put suncream on one of her legs, which turned almost purple by the next morning from an afternoon in the sun. Pretty sure she’ll lather up more appropriately for the rest of summer!

Collectively I think probably our favorite thing to do in summer up in the mountains is float the Truckee River while towing a cooler full of icy drinks. We hit the river when it was 77°F/25°C on Thursday – which is pretty much the perfect temp for a float – and had so much fun we scrapped our Friday plans and floated again the next day (when it was slightly hotter at 79°F/26°C). The Tahoe City launch for the start of the Truckee can turn into a bit of a zoo in peak summer, so it was nice to be able to find a park easily and have the rapids mostly to ourselves for a couple of days… Looking forward to getting in a few more floats before summer’s done, for sure.

As always, our time at Powder Haus flew by too quickly but it was a great start to the kids’ summer break: an MTB ride every morning, two Truckee River Floats, a swim in Tahoe, hot tubbing every night and plenty of competition around the board games after dinner. Lilia remains the official queen of both Catan and Ticket to Ride, but I did manage to unset her from the Catan throne for one night. Only things we didn’t fit in was a game of Codenames and a swim in Long Lake. Next time!