Marlette Lake via Chimney Beach Trailhead

This trail starts right off NV28 between Chimney Beach and Great Tahoe Beach. Around 30 minute drive from South Lake Tahoe and the CA/NV border, we arrived close to 10am with plenty of parking available. While it seemed the trail was heavily used by mountain bikes, we encountered zero during our entire trip. We also didn't run into a single human until the turnaround point, however, no shortage of chipmunks and other critters keeping us company. Nice respite from the endless crowds at some other locations along the Tahoe area. 

The trail almost immediately starts its way upward, gaining close to 1000 feet in the first mile or so. Not terrible, however, coming from the east coast, and not being quite used to the elevation, this had us huffing and puffing early on (sad, I know). Along the way, you are graced with vast and beautiful views of Lake Tahoe to the left.

Before we knew it, we were at the turnaround point at Marlette Lake. We picked a couple of nice rocks with our name on it, scarfed down our PBJs and Swedish Fish, and were on our merry way.  In all, took us about 2.5-3 hours with a few stops included. 

Recommended for beginners/intermediate and/or people from the east coast like us that think anything above 5k is high.