You may follow along in our journey by visiting Julie's Journal page. It will include photographs, suggestions, mishap adventures and our experiences on the road and back-country trails.

If you would like to know more about the history of our adventure click here for the history page. How we planned, saved money, chose our equipment and prepared for ten months on the road.

These are some other web sites we found useful and/or have recpical links with.

Lake Tahoe, California
April 19, 1999 to April 23, 1999

Written by Julie Hackler and Dave Fink

Our tour was run by Snowmobile Unlimited, Inc. they took us to the tops of the mountains of the Tahoe National Forest to view the spectacular sight of Lake Tahoe and back to a frozen lake to race each other and practice our jumps. Once I got so carried away I almost collided my chin with the front windshield, so I had to tame it down a bit. Out of our group of about ten we only had two small close calls. One couple was riding double and couldn't handle the weight on the turns and almost dumped the snowmobile on its side. After laughing about it for a while once they recovered they decided to have the passenger ride with a "more experienced" guide. Another girl riding alone came face to face with a nice jump, that Dave and I both tamed flawlessly, and was catapulted off her machine and into a snow pile. After she rolled out of the other drivers' paths and was out of harms way she claimed it would be a great story to tell everyone back home.

Despite these two close calls Dave and I continued to enjoy ourselves immensely by pressing on. Dave continued to do fishtails in front of me and live dangerously by going off the designated trail. Since he was so intent on doing these things he convinced the guide to get off the snow-covered roads and make fresh tracks through the woods. Both our speedometers on the machines were broke so we couldn't tell exactly how fast we were going, but Dave claims it to be 50mph. The scenery was beautiful and the tour was extremely exciting. I would recommend it to anyone!

The lake itself was amazing. My favorite scenery would have to be tall trees, snow covered mountains and clear blue water. Lake Tahoe has it all. Once we drove south on route 89 to reach the Lake it opened up a whole new world. The Lake was clear blue water where you could see all the way to the bottom, the trees were tall enough where your neck began to hurt if you looked up at them too long. And the snow was about 5 feet deep in the mountains. All I can say is it was beautiful. There are several state parks that you can camp on around the Lake, both on the Nevada and California sides. But the time of year we got there the only park open was the Sugar Pine State Park south of Tahoma, California. Not much of it was open either due to the snow, but enough where we could pick a sight, have running water and a bathroom nearby. At $12 a night it was nice and cozy and right across from the Lake.

We decided to check out the few casinos that they have on the stateline to entertain ourselves one night. On the drive there on Route 28 South there were two highway patrolmen, a Bounder motorhome, and three other vehicles blocking traffic. They had a police car guide one direction of traffic at a time through the roadblock. At first we just assumed it was normal road construction, but as we drove past we noticed a camera mounted to one side of a car, and sever pieces of lighting and camera equipment. They were filming a move, television show or maybe even a commercial! We tried to catch a glimpse of the star, but we couldn't see if it was anyone famous. The casinos were just like any other casino. I plopped about a bucks worth of nickels in each one and lost $4. Dave dropped a couple of dimes into a poker machine at Harvey's Casino and wins $14 bucks. So we came out ahead and even treated ourselves to a sticky buns and two hot chocolates at the Caesar's Coffee Shop.

The Lake was a nice addition to our trip route. We really enjoyed ourselves and the view was one for a thousand pictures. Definitely one to add to your trip even if it's only for a day. I think the view would bring anyone back twice.