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The Nipple

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The Nipple
Tahoe Ogul

Place Name: Alpine County

Place Description: State: California
Date: 09/13/2018
Elevation: 9,342 Feet
Prominence: 702 Feet
Miles: 2.2
Elevation Gain: 1,1080 Feet
Lists: Tahoe-Ogul

  • Difficulty
  • Solitude
  • Kid Friendly
  • Summit Views

Yep, that's the name!

The name of this mountain shows that the male mind hasn’t evolved much in the past 100+ years, the writings in the summit register, appropriately marked “Nipple Thoughts” confirms it.

Overall
2.6

Pros

  • Great off trail hiking
  • Fun little scramble at the top
  • Fantastic views of the area

Cons

  • Route from Blue Lake on steep, loose rock
  • Very windy on top
  • Exposed to sun the entire time

Wanting to get a few more Oguls under my belt before winter, I decided to tackle The Nipple today. Looks like most people summit this from Blue Lakes Road. I wanted to cut the distance down since it was a family hike with my 7-year old son and 5-year old daughter. Probably a bad idea, even though we saved 2 miles. Without them, this would have been cross country bliss! With them, we should have stuck to the PCT. We parked at the parking lot between upper and lower Blue Lakes and cut up through the campground. The first part in the forest opens to some giant pieces of granite that you could do some fun Class 2 or 3 climbing on. We found a small wash between and went right up. This put us into the open country with sparse brush, but very loose rock which was tough on the kids. We pushed up and over a ridge where the PCT came into view and as well as a clear line towards the summit block. My daughter petered out at the saddle right by the west summit. The wind was absolutely ripping up here. 30mph gusts easy! My son and I followed the ridge line to the summit plug. I helped him up the plug taking steps into a good foot hold and pulling him up to it. It was actually really easy and I never felt uncomfortable taking him up this. We sat up on the plug and enjoyed the view despite the heavy wind. If you are headed up there, a new register would be nice as well a zip lock bag to store it in. The old registers are full and very water damaged. I saw in a recent report there was a beer left in the box, it’s no longer there so don’t get your hopes up! This was Ogul #5 for me. Fun hike. 2.24 miles. Took us 3 hours with the kids, could have done it in 90 minutes up and down alone.