Reno-Tahoe

Balancing Rock Nature Trail

Balancing Rock

Winter is just around the corner, so we decided to head to Lake Tahoe last weekend to take advantage of the still-warm temperatures. We’d never visited D.L. Bliss State Park on the California side of the lake, so we journeyed there.

Bliss State Park is named for Duane LeRoy Bliss, one of the 19th century lumber barons that nearly chopped down every tree at Lake Tahoe. Fortunately, they grew back.

At one time, Bliss owned nearly 75 percent of Tahoe’s shoreline as well as the local steamboat line, the train system, and a variety of other businesses. In the 1930s, his family donated about 800 acres of lakefront property to the state of California for a park.

The result is a fine park that boasts several miles of pristine lakeside property including two white-sand beaches. At the north end of the park is Rubicon Point, which is adjacent to one of the deepest parts of Lake Tahoe.

We paid our $6 fee to spend the day at the park, then drove down to one of the beaches. The water was surprisingly warm (Tahoe is usually one of the coldest lakes around), so my daughter got in some splashing around time.

Part of the reason we wanted to visit Bliss was that we had heard about some giant rock that sat atop another rock, which was known as Balancing Rock. We asked the park ranger where it was located and she guided us to the Balancing Rock Nature Trail.

A brochure at the trailhead noted that the walk was a little under a half-mile. Markers that corresponded to numbers in the brochure indicated the flora, fauna and geology of the area.

Reading the brochure, we discovered that we were walking in a shallow granitic soil and that the vegetation along the way includes Huckleberry oak shrubs as well as white, red and yellow fir trees.

We meandered on the dirt trail for less than a quarter mile before finally seeing Balancing Rock. It was impressive. A massive, nose-shaped rock weighing some 130 tons was perched or balanced above a second boulder. A thin membrane of stone connects the two giant rocks.

The brochure pointed out that, “the precarious remnant will certainly fall when enough material has eroded away to break the equilibrium between the two pedestals.” We hoped it wouldn’t be while we were walking around it.

For more information about D.L. Bliss State Park, contact the California State Parks, 530-525-7277.—Richard Moreno

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 9:12 am and is filed under Exploring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.