Description

Starting off for this tour you will need full avalanche rescue equipment, a partner, and enough water and nourishment for a full day.

Start by parking at the end of Dundee Cr., where it meets up with Tahoe Mtn.

Rd., which is usually not cleared, so this is where you will park.

Continue down the hill for 100 yards and you will see a green Forest Service gate on the left blocking Angora Ridge Rd.

Skin around the gate and proceed up Angora Ridge Rd.

for 2.5 miles.

Once you get to the parking lot (covered in snow) continue up the dirt road corridor for 0.5 miles until you get to the north end of Lower Angora Lake.

From here, you will contour right, heading north-west.

The skin track is usually in place but if not, you will contour ever right, advancing with a generous amount of switchbacks.

There is one distinct opening where the trees clear pretty wide so that you can see a large majority of both Fallen Leaf Lake and Lake Tahoe.

Continue past this opening for about less than a half mile until the trees become ever more thick.

As you gain elevation you can see the top of the peak, but know that there is a slight false summit.

Just keep heading up until you can see the small saddle with an opening just above the tree line.

The top is only a few hundred feet above the tree line, to the right of the saddle and is a large granite outcropping.

If you find yourself in an area looking down into Glen Alpine above Fallen Leaf Lake you have gone too far right and need to proceed back till you see the saddle between the false summit and the real summit.

The descent is some of the best tree skiing in the Basin (30-40 degrees).

I recommend skiing fall line for the couple hundred yards then start veering skier’s right slightly.

You can see Fallen Leaf Lake the entire way down and can choose to either ski to the true bottom (2,088 vertical), or take a shorter lap (1,588 vertical) back to the wide opening you skinned up past and back to your skin track on Angora Ridge Rd.

If you go to the bottom, a more fall line descent will put you in more steep terrain with playful features to jump.

The more skier’s right is full of wide-open cruising trees.

Once at the bottom you will have to skin up back to your track on the ridge.

If you have gone past the Fallen Leaf Lake Marina you have gone too far.

Skin up to where the ridge meets Angora Peak.

From here you can skin left, back the way you came in on Angora Ridge Rd.

At the old Forest Service lookout station you can take off your skins and ski most of the way back to where you parked.