Thunder Mountain Trail

The Thunder Mountain Trail is the perfect hike to explore the Palisades Alpine Meadows. Palisades may be famed for its mountain ski runs in the winter, but when the snow melts in the summer, beautiful alpine meadows line the mountain and the ski runs turn into hiking trails! The Thunder Mountain Trail follows much of the winter Mountain Run, which lets skiers ski their way down the mountain from High Camp without taking the Cable Car.

This is a 3.2 mile one-way-out hike (you can ride the cable car back) with a 2000' elevation change. The distance and elevation change alone are not difficult, but the trail is narrow, mostly unshaded, a bit rocky and starts at an elevation of 6200' (higher altitude, thinner air), making this a good challenge for intermediate or motivated beginner hikers. This hike takes about 2.5-3 hours in total.

The trail is not an obvious path but markings are present in the form of paint streaks every so often on rocks alongside you. The start is just to the right of the bottom of the KT-22 lift. A slightly unintuitive dirt path will lead you to a wide bridge and a very steep start that quickly turns gradual as you enter the meadows. After that, just follow the paint streaks all the way up the mountain!

Continuing on the trail winding up the mountain, you will pass the Headwall Express ski chairlift (that's when you're about 2/3 of the way there) and eventually reach High Camp. There, you can grab a snack, check out the Olympic museum, take in the beautiful views of the mountain and Lake Tahoe, go for a swim in the High Camp pool, and finally ride the Palisades Valley Palisades Car back down (for free instead of $35!) to the base where you started. The base also offers even more ways to celebrate your accomplishment of hiking all the way up Palisades mountain, in the form of restaurants and shops.