Sometimes the Plan is No Plan

I like to have a plan. 

This summer is a little different. I can barely remember what day it is so there is never really a need to plan out every minute of every day. While it is nice to finally relax, it is a weird feeling to just go with the flow and see where the days take you. 

I woke up one morning, no alarm set. And my boyfriend and I decided to drive up to Tahoe. A friend of his posted a waterfall the day before on her social media and when he asked her where it was, she replied, “Emerald Bay.” That was really all we had to work with. We didn’t ask for specifics. 

Despite growing up in Reno, with Tahoe in my backyard, I had never been to that part of the lake. Emerald Bay is more of a general area than an exact coordinate. We based our destination on the picture and the cars parked on the side of the road. 

We found what was the trailhead for Eagle Falls.

There were several other people on the trail and we even came across a few mountain climbers. We made our way around them and hiked our way to the top of where they were ascending. 

From there we hiked a little higher. We may have gone off trail, it’s hard to tell when the trail is nothing but rocks and no signs, but the view we found was unimaginable. We were the only ones up there.

We hiked back down, continued on the original trail, and found a bridge that went over the waterfall.

We crossed the bridge, to another trail not knowing where it led. We wanted to explore. 

After about a mile, we figured we had gone far enough and decided to turn around. 

As we headed back, we passed this family we had seen earlier, and they if we made it to the lake. 

“There’s a lake?” 

We had no idea. We figured we had to keep going. Come to find out we were a quarter mile, if that away from Eagle Lake. It was beautiful and so peaceful. We camped out on one of the rocks, had lunch, and enjoyed the view. We would have missed out on that experience if that family hadn’t said anything. We were thankful for that. 

For having no plan, no clue, and just a snapchat picture to base our day on, it was fun. I highly recommend this trail. And sometimes it’s okay to not have a plan and to just go. To me, this was a hidden gem, quite literally because I didn’t know it was there and now it is a place I will keep in my back pocket not only for the memories but a place to return.