Beware of "This Way is Shorter"

(Enough of Prop 8 - let's talk about something else)

Also known as Mt. Tallac: Not Even Close
So today I drove over to Lake Tahoe in hopes of climbing Mt Tallac (local vernacular calls it Ta-LOC')

Now Terri and I have been to this trailhead a couple of winters ago, but do I remember anything about it? Of course not. Do I remember that the turn off is marked prominently? Nope. So I proceed to take every other possible access road before I ever got to the correct trailhead, but I found myself on the road right beside Fallen Leaf Lake which I see on the map takes me to a different trailhead. Wending my way down to the road's end I look around for a trail but don't see one. I'm about to give up and go back to the other one but I saw some folks working on their house so I stopped and ask if they could locate me on my Desolation Valley map (thinking I may have been at the wrong spot.) But I was at the right spot and the guy I'm talking to points out the slightly hidden trailhead and says "This way is Shorter" [than the regular way].

Intrigued I decide to give it a try. Now this is a much less used trail and it's over grown and it's rocky and I'm having to go down the trail by the lake looking for a trail that goes up the mountain. Trouble is that I don't know just how far down to go so I take a couple of E Ticket wrong turns that have me scrambling up a large pile of loose rock. During one of these forays I realize that it's (a) Thursday - I took the day off (b) I'm hiking by myself and (c) I have not seen a soul on this trail. My solution to hiking by myself is to use popular trails where there's someone around. I'm suddenly feeling rather alone and I pick my way down the wrong turn talus slope very carefully.

I'm realizing that shorter does not mean faster if you've never done it before and I'm wasting a lot of time on these wrong turns. Frustrated I sit down to think about what to do. "Use the force" comes to mind. Great the force doesn't seem to be terribly interested right now. Then I realized. "Hello? You have a GPS." "Yeah but I haven't loaded the more detailed map into it." "But you have a map." The light slowly dawns. I look more carefully at the map and it tells me that I need to go 0.7 miles before the turn off. I look at the GPS - I've gone 0.5 miles. D'Oh. Gee I think I need to go a touch further. Because of all of my previous wrong turns I needed to go a bit further, but then a trail did appear that wasn't all talus.

The trail was rough but doable up to a point. I'm past my turn around time and I've hardly gotten anywhere but I decide to go a bit further. Then the deciding factor appeared. 3 downed treed and a boulder blocked the trail (see photo) and I couldn't find where it continued even after jumping over one of the logs. Seeing how the shadows were growning I decided to bail and maybe do the main trail at a later date.

Things learned
My boots worked great at protecting my ankles and keeping my footing, though my feet are a little sore and I'm wondering if I should switch back to Spenco's rather than the Superfeet.

I used my poles with the right angle grips which I still like (even though they're wearing out) but I should use some padded bike gloves with them.

I didn't get over 7500' (only up to 6950') so I'm not sure how I'm doing on the altitude issue.
I deliberately took my time and when my breathing was getting a little heavey I stopped and drank Gatorade and ate chocolate. My legs did not fail ever and was able to lift myself up some large boulder steps.

Photos:
Wrong Turn Tallus Slopes and Fallen Tree (shows gradient)


Fallen Leaf Lake: