The tallest mountain along Lake Tahoe's shoreline, Mt. Tallac rises to 9,735 ft. Billy and I hiked five arduous miles uphill to bag this peak in the summer of 2005.

We had just driven in from Reno, Nevada (elev. 4500 ft) and started our climb at the trailhead, elev. 6800 ft, just past 11 in the morning. It was a bad idea not to get acclimated first -- I struggled going uphill, and I thought my heart was going to burst! But we made it up by late afternoon, and got back to our car by 7:20 pm as precious daylight started to fade. (Although we did have our headlamps just in case!)

The views on this hike were spectacular: Lake Tahoe and many smaller lakes, alpine meadows, pine forests, and the granite peaks of the Desolation Wilderness. Though we felt at the time like we were going to die, we both agree that we would do it all over again. This was rated as an expert technical hike (Difficulty: 5 out of 5). Taken in South Lake Tahoe, California, in August of 2005.