Spooner to Marlette Lake Hike above Lake Tahoe

A beautiful Mother’s Day compelled us to hike from Spooner Lake up to Marlette Lake. While the hike is considered moderate, you will climb from an elevation of 7060′ at Spooner Lake upto 8200′ just south of Marlette Lake. While there are only a couple of steep switch backs the 4.5 mile trail has a steady and contiunou increase in elevation.

It is a typical high Sierra hike with plenty of trees and meadows. There are benchs along the way to rest. Once at Marlette Lake, we continued the extra mile around the lake to check out the dam and part of the flume trail. The hike up to Marlette, along with the flume trail, is great for mountain bikers as well.

Completed in 1875, Marlette Lake, as far as I can determine, was created as a water source for the log mill at Hobart Mills and Virginia city. The flume trail is the excavated line that actually supported the water flume to Hobart Reservoir. Because the flume actually travels through a mountain, approximately 3,000′ in length, I don’t think it ever carried any logs similar to other flumes in the area.

Malette lake bridge — Crossing a bridge above Marlette into a snow field.

Reconstructed chimney at Rock Point, from the Leonard family built in 1933

end of day — Sunset at the end of the long hiking day.

Marlette lake — The eggs of trout are laid in the sandy bottoms of the fish ladder in order to hatch. At the creek feeding into Marlette Lake

flume_trail_board — One of the original flume planks from the Marlette Lake flume along the side of the trail.

flume_trail_tahoe — Lake Tahoe as viewed from the flume trail.

keen_hiking_shoe — Worst hiking shoes I ever bought. The smell like a warm box of band-aid, the laces never stay tight, and the stitching rubs on the back of the heel.

marlette_creek — Water from Marlette creek, from lake, cascades down toward Marlette reservoir.

marlette_overflow — The new outlet built in 1957, water heads toward a small reservoir above Lake Tahoe.

marlette_southside — View of Marlette Lake looking north at the point where the creek enters lake.

marlette1 — Another view of Marlette lake from the trail.

snowfield paw print — When crossing snow fields, look for the paw prints of bears, deer, and mountain lions.

rock_climbing Marlette trail — With enough energy, you can scramble up the rocks long the trail to Marlette lake

snow_field — Mid-May and we had to traverse snowfields still blanketing parts of the trail.

spencers_cabin_exterior — Spencer’s cabin, near Spooner lake, was a care taker cabin built in 1922.

spencers_cabin_interior — Possibly the original wood stove in Spencer’s cabin.

spencers_chair — I called this Spencer’s chair, after the name of the care taker. Did he cut the chair out of an old tree?

spooner_lake — Spooner Lake at the start of the hike.

spring_creek — This creek is in full spring run off mode, along the trail up to Marlette Lake.

Virgina_City — View of Virginia City along the path of the original water pipe that carried water from Marlette Lake.

water_outlet Virginia city — I believe this to be the original water pipe, part of inverted siphon, that crossed the Washoe valley.

waterpipe_joint — The joint of the water pipe is filled with lead, like the original built in 1873. Most of the pipe was cast iron with flanges, lead filled joints and rolled steel on the bends.

waterpipe_leadjoints — Flange and lead joints on original water pipe.

waterpipe_rivets — The original water pipe, 12″ diameter, had 1,000,000 rivets, joints filled with lead, and 52,000 pounds of rolled steel.

The water from Marlette was then channeled into a first of its kind inverted siphon across the Washoe Valley to supply water to Virgina City. Mr. H. Schussler, an engineer from San Franciso, was hired by the Spring Valley Water-Works to design the inverted siphon. The lenght of the pipe was over 7 miles long and spanned and elevation change of 1420′. The completed 12″ diameter pipe capable of supplying 2,200,000 gallons of water per day, offered Virgina City a stable water supply source. Information from The Big Bonanza by Dan De Quille (William Wright), first published 1876.

From our visit to Marlette, we learn that the lake had been raised by 15 feet in the 1957. Overall, if you like history or a nice Sierra hike, the trek upto Marlette is worth it. Our round trip, including a little break for lunch was approximately 6 hours at a moderate pace. We took the hiking trail up and the access road down. There are just some beautiful views in a very quiet setting.

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