4 Fantastic Fall Road Trips

Years ago, on a crisp October afternoon near Lake Tahoe, North America’s largest alpine lake, I witnessed a true wonder. 

Flame red kokanee, dwarf freshwater salmon, were returning from Tahoe to Taylor Creek, where they were born. Watching them struggle upstream, I knew that eagles and merganser ducks would eat some before they reached their goal. Others would complete the journey, spawn and — exhausted, their life cycle done — dissolve back into the waters from which they first emerged.

​Something about that autumn afternoon — the mysterious force impelling the fish onward; the honey-thick light bathing Tahoe and its ring of soaring peaks; the way the aspens shimmied like dancers covered in a thousand gold coins — touched me deeply. After more than 50 years of visiting Lake Tahoe in all seasons, it remains a lasting memory from a favorite fall road trip destination, a 3.5-hour straight shot on Interstate 80 from my San Francisco home.

​Autumn is a quiet time at Lake Tahoe, the 6,223-foot-high sapphire-and-turquoise jewel of the Sierra Nevada that straddles the California-Nevada state line.

​The sun-and-sand crowds of summer are gone, and you can almost hear a clock ticking down to the first snows of late November, when skiers and boarders start to arrive en masse for the winter-spring fun.

​Even leaf peepers are scarce, most of them preferring more colorful destinations than Tahoe’s vast basin, which is largely covered in evergreen forest dotted here and there with aspen stands. Lodging and restaurants are easy to book, and traffic thins on the scenic drive around Tahoe, a stunning, 72-mile succession of sweeping mountain-and-lake vistas and peekaboo water views through the trees. The world temporarily forgets about Tahoe, and that’s fine by me.

​Tahoe’s daytime air temperature begins its slow slide from the 70s into the 40s as the season progresses.

​I love the softly popping fires that make chilly, starry nights cozy, and the lumberjack-size breakfast of a smoked salmon omelet or buckwheat pancakes from the homey Fire Sign Cafe to fuel a long hike or bike ride around town. On the occasional rainy day, I love to study the exquisite work of early 20th century Washoe weavers at the Marion Steinbach Native American Basket Museum, or the Lake Tahoe History Museum’s funky collection of gambling memorabilia, a nod to the casinos that still flourish on the northern and southern ends of the lake’s Nevada side.

​During one of my most memorable trips, on a late October afternoon a few years before I witnessed the stirring return of the kokanee, I drove a near-empty Highway 89 along Tahoe’s west shore to Ed Z’Berg Sugar Pine Point State Park. There, while walking through fragrant pine forest, I came upon aspens that had recently shed all their leaves, paving the trail with gold. It was a startling, beautiful sight but, more than that, a reminder that autumn in the high country is fleeting. Catch it while you can, before winter roars in, and like the last notes of a soulful cello sonata, hold its feel close.

San Francisco journalist Christopher Hall has covered cultural topics for a wide variety of national publications, including Smithsonian, Architectural Digest, National Geographic Traveler, Saveur and The New York Times.