Trail Guide

INDEX

Lake Tahoe
Basin
PERMITS

Meiss
Country
PERMITS

All
Wilderness PERMITS

Local Weather

All Sierra Weather

Adventure Mountain

Adventure Mountain had rope-pull "lifts" from their lodge, all tailored for little-kids and families during Wintertime.

It's always been closed during Summer when I walk past...

Adventure Mountain

The trail marked as the Tahoe Rim Trail on the above map is also the route of the Tahoe to Yosemite and Pacific Crest Trails.

As a matter of fact a small segment of the trail from our crossing point of Highway 50 (be careful!) is also part of the Pony Express Trail.

Local Knowledge
There are a series of trailheads circling the Meiss Country Roadless Area that local backpacking parties starting out of Echo Summit can define as their destination, and ferry a second car prior to beginning their backpacking trip.

Typical destinations would be to the Big Meadow, Carson Pass, or South Upper Truckee Trailheads. Myself, I am typically hiking across Meiss on my way to somewhere else, but its diameter of about 12 miles makes it a nice place for trailhead to trailhead trips across the length & width of this sweet little backpacking gem stuck in the bottom of the Tahoe Basin, the Meiss Country Roadless Area.

Review the Meiss Country Backpacking Map above.

Meiss Country Roadless Area is a locals' favorite for quick getaway short backpacking trips during Summertime, and some real fun adventures for Winter travelers.

Hiking Map South
Meiss Country Roadless Area

Add Your Experiences
The forum page below posts up notes & trail information from local hikers and even passing long distance backpackers about experiences, trips, and route options in the Meiss Country hiking out of Echo Summit. Each of our divergent experiences helps other backpackers and hikers figure things out for themselves.

Well, the most common trip out of Echo Summit is South to Showers Lake and back. The Meiss Country Roadless Area offers much more than this fourteen mile round trip to Showers Lake from Echo Summit and back. The hike from Echo Summit to Showers Lake and back covers about a third of this compact semi-wilderness area.

The twelve miles across the whole Meiss Country Roadless Area to Carson Pass from Echo Summit is a shorter trip, but it reveals much more of the terrain while hiking across the heart of this amazing little gem of an "almost" Wilderness Area.

The 14.6 mile backpacking hike from Echo Summit to the South Upper Truckee Trail head reveals almost all of the Meiss Country to our understanding. Well, it will if this is the beginning of scrambles from our Summer campsites stretching out across the seasons into Winter routes exploring the nooks and crannies of the Meiss Country.

Meiss Country Roadless Area
Backpacking Training Center
This nice little wedge of High Sierra terrain in the Southwestern corner of the Tahoe Basin during Summertime turns itself into delightful forum for snow travel and exploration during Wintertime.

This is where I first started formally expanding Summer backpacking trips into Spring and Fall snow trips, then eventually mid-Winter travel as I developed gear & skills.

The time spent exploring and becoming comfortable with the Meiss Country Area during Summertime becomes valuable Wintertime information as our backpacking skills expand to first explore the diminishing power of Winter during snowy Spring trips, then into the deepening cold and potential explosiveness of Fall conditions, and finally into Full Wintertime trips as our capabilities grow and consolidate with experience.

The Meiss Country Roadless Area possesses a range of terrains from open mountain and meadows to an incredibly complex South Upper Truckee River drainage buried in deep forest climbing from Lake Level to the Tahoe Rim offering a broad natural canvas for our exciting development of basic backpacking skills, of their careful transition from Summer to Spring, Fall, and eventually Wintertime backpacking trips as we evolve.

It a fine classroom, and delightful experience.

There's lots of potential experience packed into this tiny place across each seasonal transition of Nature and our backpacking skills.

Meiss Country can grow on you, and its utility can grow along with your development as a four-season backpacker. It is not alone. You can find your own, "Meiss Meadow," meaning your favorite hiking area in the High Sierra that you thoroughly enjoy and identify with that you can thoroughly explore during Summer as part of the preparation for your first snow trips.

Explore your suitable favorite local High Sierra areas to experience the receding powers of Spring storms while snowshoeing across the diminishing snows of Spring. The topography of Meiss Country is helpful as it offers a range of difficulties suitable for evolving snow backpackers.

Meiss Country can be a vital part of a balanced life, meaning a part of a balanced four-season backpacking schedule.

And, because it is a small wedge of terrain in the Southwest corner of the very over-developed Lake Tahoe Basin, it turns the disadvantage of over-development into an extra factor of safety for Winter travelers.

Meiss Country is surrounded on one side by civilization (South Lake Tahoe/Meyers to the North), and on it's other three sides by highways.

This is good. This means escape lays in a couple of directions from almost anywhere we can get in trouble in Meiss Country. The next areas we will explore as Winter backpackers have no nearby outposts of civilization. We will be on our own.

A Summertime liability, Meiss Country's proximity to busy four-season highways becomes a safety asset during Winter. Meiss Country is both a great place to learn about the requirements of basic High Sierra backpacking, and after that, a great place to evolve Snow and Wintertime backpacking skills.

If things go crazy bad, Meiss Country is fairly easy to push out of to safety during Summer or Winter.

Meiss Country is an exceptional place both to introduce backpackers to the rigors of High Sierra Summertime travel and to for experienced backpackers to make the transitions to Winter backpacking in an educated and informed manner.

Hear the chorus of lawyers singing in my ears?

I do!

My Goal
Where do you learn to responsibly evolve your skills and fitness to become capable of observing, engaging, and balancing yourself within the contradictions between the raging violent changes and timeless serenity of Nature?

While carrying a heavy pack efficiently over High Sierra Terrain during Winter?

Not here. Move along,... nothing happening here... just another pretty view...

A pretty view not just of Nature, but of the evolution of our natural skills of natural engagement.

Hiking from Tahoe to Whitney aims to bring out the skills and potentials inherent in our design, one step at a time. Join me. The challenge is different for each of us, depending on our circumstance. Each of us requires different approaches to restoring fitness, to gaining access to Natural Spaces, to push back the demands of man to escape into the mountains of Nature.

Our inherent ability to move over the most difficult terrains on this planet does not come finished. It requires some training and development to bring out.

Thus I suggest a program, a system.

Our ability to carry heavy loads under extreme weather conditions over the most difficult terrains in the world are the results of multiple evolutions, of the repeated exercises of a wide variety of physical and psychological, I would more precisely define the mental aspects of these evolutions as evolving our spiritual assets.

Nature has created a unique "perspective," with a unique combination of perceptive and physical tools in each of us. Society can only go so far in defining that perspective, and its purpose and meaning.

Only Nature can finish the job it started. Only you can put yourself there.

This requires a training program feeding a regular schedule of High Sierra backpacking trips. Or a schedule exploring your local natural access points, where these skills can be exercised, If you live distant from the High Sierra.

The evolution of this program will first get the feet steady and strong on maintained trails under a load, then begin probing unmaintained trails to evolve our route-finding, growing into evolving Navigation Skills we use for cross country travel during Summertime, and finally to locate and navigate the best routes across the naked Sierra during Wintertime...

...while in the meantime developing the fitness and perception required step by step.

Stepping into the Meiss Country Roadless Area could be the next steps on your evolution as a backpacker. If not at Meiss, then at your version of the Meiss Country.

Forum

Send me a picture of you and/or your crew at the trailhead or hiking these trails. Or at the top. I'll post it up on the forum. Maybe even the guide.

Continuing South down the trail from Echo Summit we will observe and record various backpacker encounters, their impressions of the trails, and do our best to recount their unique trips and experiences, all to learn more about approaching local terrain from both the locals and the long distance hikers we encounter.

I expect you to contribute along the way, when, and from where your Sierra explorations carry you.

top of page

looking back (North) at the parking lot and trailhead while hiking South from the Echo Summit Trail Head.

See the green gate for Adventure Mountain down there by the white car?

Google Road Map
All Guided Trailheads in Tahoe Basin

Echo Summit,
Meeks Bay,
and
South Upper Truckee
Trailheads

Backpacking Trail Guide

North

Echo Summit

Backpacking Trail Guide

South

South
of
Echo Summit