Red Lake Peak

Red Lake is one of the easier peaks to access and makes for a great car-drop tour. Leaving a car at the top and bottom of Carson Pass saves you about 1200 feet of earning your turns. Park in the Meiss Meadows (Carson Pass overflow) lot and hop on the trail. The peak has fantastic views, including Lake Tahoe. There isn't much else about it. Below there is an excellent ski back to highway 88. The bowl featured on the right offers a multitude of choices to ski down to Crater Lake. We were disappointed to find snowmobile tracks in the sunny bowl on skiers left of the panorama. After Crater Lake the pitch back to the car provides excellent glade skiing in winter snow or corn. On the Northern side underneath you will find Round Lake and Meiss Lake. Interesting features in the spring include tunnels through the snow in some of the gullies on the Northwest flank that you can walk through. March 10, 2005 - Spring conditions have arrived in full force here in Tahoe which means nothing but choices. This day our time was short so we opted for a gully dropping off the SE flank of Red Lake Peak back down to Highway 88. Keep in mind this tour takes you past a Gaz-Ex propane cannon down an avalanche chute above the road.
If you park at Carson Pass you must have a Snow Park Permit, which can be purchased at the Chevron on the way out of Lake Tahoe in Meyers.
When entering the backcountry, proper precautions should be taken, including avalanche beacon and the know-how to use it, shovel, compass or GPS, friend, weather information, and common sense. Click here for thelatest avalanche advisory info. You can also find more info on our gear pages.

Ride Aware, It's Big out there!