Sierra Club's Clair Tappaan Lodge, wonderful wilderness and relaxation.
Written: Apr 12 '07 (Updated Apr 13 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Location, communal living, price, everything
Cons: The Hill
The Bottom Line: If you like your wilderness with a little electricity and good food, this is for you.
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| jckatz's Full Review: Clair Tappaan Lodge/Norden, CA |
Sierra Club's Clair Tappaan Lodge, wonderful wilderness and relaxation.
Clair Tappaan Lodge is the oldest Sierra Club wilderness lodge, built in the 1930's by volunteers and with additions added over the years. Recently Sierra Club spent $100,000 to upgrade the facility with new fire suppression units.
Normally I wouldn't start with the price but in this case I'll make an exception, we stayed at the Clair Tappaan Lodge during a holiday weekend and it was 100% occupied and yet we only spent $55 a night per person, with an additional 10% discount for being Sierra Club Members.
At Clair Tappaan Lodge you get room and board covered in the costs, that is 3 meals a day and a bed.
I shall describe the rooms. SMALL
Lodging
There are two types of lodging at the lodge, dorms (both male and female) and private rooms. The two dorms were originally built in the 1930's and the rooms are later additions. I can describe the men's dorm but I never had access to the woman's dorm.
The men’s dorm had a private balcony a fair sized window and think 8 bunk beds so a total of 16 men sleeping at a time. Most beds seemed to have hangers near them for hanging clothing but my bed seemed to be missing that feature or I couldn't find it. I had the bottom bunk so I just kept my stuff under the bed. (Be sure to plan your next day clothes in advance if you want to get up early, it is dark in there).
One thing I can tell you about the woman's dorm is that I think the fireplace has a chimney going through the dorm so I am guessing it is very warm in the winter time. We stayed there in February so this should have been important but it was in the 40's every day. ODD
The private rooms are tiny, the are the length of a bed and the width of two singles, some have bunks some have two singles pushed together. My mother and father stayed in a room with two singles my brother and his female friend stayed in a room with bunks.
I personally found the bunk bed to be very comfortable the report was not the same from the people in the private room. It should be pointed out that I can and do sleep anywhere and am very unpicky about my bedding.
Unusual
Clair Tappaan lodge is a hostel, you don't find them very much in the United States but if you are a word traveler you will be more use to this.
At the lodge you get a bed and that is it, bring your own sheets, blankets, and pillows. I brought my sleeping bag and my brother plans on bringing his sleeping pallet next time also.
Of course the bathrooms are communal one for the men one for the woman. Surprisingly I never had to wait for a shower since there was only two for all the men staying there. There are cubby holes to keep your stuff in and the bathrooms are very clean.
Food
There are 3 meals provided to all guest. Lunch is served at 7:30 AM, Breakfast is served at 8 AM and dinner is served at 5:30 PM or 6:30 PM depending on the day of the week.
Lunch is the first meal of the day served, and is served in the living room. On the tables they place all the makings of a good breakfast, bread, meats, cheeses, condiments, fruits, cookies, and bags of chips. After making your sandwiches and bagging them (they even had markers for naming), you can mozy into the dinning room for breakfast.
Everything here is communal so breakfast is served at tables of 10 and the food is brought out by volunteers. The breakfast was always wonderful the best meal of the day, but I always say that I love breakfast. If you didn't like the cold cereal your table but look around other tables will have gotten something else, want more food go to the kitchen and get it, After the meals food that was brought out to the tables but not served is brought back for use in future meals. I am told this is not true for everything but that decision is left up to the chef.
Dinner is the same way, but there is no alcohol served. This is a problem easily solved by a short drive down the hill to the nearest highway entrance, where a quick stop a local Quickie Mart with a surprisingly good supply of wines solves all your problems. Next time we will pack a cork screw, but this time we purchased a cheap Quickie Mart plastic type cork screw. They do sell lovely souvenir wine glasses at Clair Tappan Lodge but we picked up some plastic wine glasses at the Quickie Mart.
What to do
Clair Tappan Lodge is a place for people that love the out doors. The groom miles of cross country skiing trails in the winter time, and rent equipment for $15 a day. They also rent snow shoes, if you haven’t snow shoed in the last 10 years try it again, I am told the technology is much better now and it was fun. Near by there are also several down hill ski resorts. In addition to the standard winter fair, there is also kayaking, dog sledding, inter-tubing.
In addition right at the base of the trails, is a near endless supply of sleds. Your truly took one for a spin trying to relive my childhood, I even tried a jump but got scared at the last second and tried to avoid it. This was a big mistake, but I did get to relieve to bumps and bruises childhood seems to be full of,
After a day in the sun and the snow, you are going to want to relax, there is of course the hot tub (out of service when we were there), the rumor was some “boy scouts of America” Eagle scouts came prepared to Clair Tappan lodge a week before and put a lot of Ramon Noodles (including the sauce package) in the hot tube. It was confirmed that the above event did happen, but they would not admit that the hot tubs failure was related to said act.
So if you can’t enjoy a hot tube you can enjoy a lovely fire in the living room. The living room is the communal area for games and talk. I would suggest if you have a favorite game pack it, the communal games are in short supply of required pieces. I will once again blame the boy scouts. We packed 2 decks of cards and let some kids play with one of them, 15 minutes later we knew we would never use them again. We also packed “Travel Scrabble” and played nearly ever night.
There are of course puzzles, and a couple of people there were very good, amazingly one puzzle was 99.9% finished during the weekend and at the end only 4 of 5 pieces were missing out of 1500!
Then there is the library, the library is a room of quite. No talking or game playing is allowed you just sit and read, once again there is a nice fireplace and very comfortable seating, and even a good supply of books if you like reading about nature.
Chores
This is a communal place so every guess is asked to perform a chore a day, some chores are worth to days. I took out the trash, set the tables, and cleaned pots during my stay.
The list of available chores is a first come first serve basis so sign up early or you might be washing pots more than you want to.
The People
As I have mentioned Clair Tappaan Lodge is communal so you get to know the people you are staying with. I will tell you about the “stereo types”. I am told normally everyone there is from “The Bay Area” this was not true for our stay. There were two unrelated groups from Tennessee there. In addition you have the boy scouts, the families with children, the hikers and the wilderness seekers. For the wilderness seeks Clair Tappaan lodge was a short stop before getting lost in the wilderness, since a major storm was expected soon, listening to “what can go wrong” would have been enough to get me to book a few extra nights there. There was also the guy who said, “I haven’t watched TV since 1963.” I really feel sorry for his kids. I have nothing against not liking TV, heck I hate it, but something rubs me the wrong way when people say stuff like that. Then there was the guy watching Veronica Mars Season 2 on DVD on his laptop. Yes that also rubbed me the wrong way. Not that I have anything against laptops and watching DVD’s of high school dramas, but he unplugged the only working light in the room so he could watch TV.
The Location
It is all about the location. Located in the infamous Donnor's Pass, about 45 minutes from the Reno Airport, Clair Tappaan lodge is convent to get to, assuming the weather is good. Donnor's Pass is notorious for being closed during snow storms. Of course closing the highways is a much better solution that getting stuck in the pass and eating your fellow travelers.
When traveling from the Airport just take I-80 W to the Truckee, NV exit.
Since most people from from the Bay Area, the directions are just as simple take I-80 E towards Reno get off at Truckee. It should take you 3 hours. If you are like my brother and picking someone up at the airport, don't lose track of time in the Reno Casinos this tends to upset people unnecessarily.
The Hill
No review of Clair Tappaan Lodge will be complete without a mention of the hill. The very first thing you see when you get to the lodge is a very very very steep and long hill to get to the lodge. You are parking on the highway and the lodge is up a hill, you have to carry you stuff up this hill, and then up two flights of stairs to your room. Keep in mind Clair Tapaan lodge is at 7,000 feet above sea level so you are already going to be out of breath just from standing, add a very snow covered climb, with luggage and you are in for a very scary first impression.
Recommended:
Yes
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jckatz
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Member: Joe Katz
Location: chicago
Reviews written: 153
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