I think it was a Wednesday afternoon when my friend from Reno called.

“Hey, why don’t you shirk off work and come play some disc with me?”

At first I resisted. I did, after all, have plenty of work to do.

After I disappointed my friend with a rejection and hung up the phone, I began to second guess my decision.

The new disc golf course at the North Tahoe Regional Park was supposed to be pretty cool, and despite it being right in my back yard, I hadn’t yet gone out and played a round.

It didn’t take me long to run out the door, get in my car and rush off to meet my friend at the first hole.

Even though the 18–hole course bordering the old ponds above the Regional Park wasn’t started until last fall, thanks to extensive volunteer efforts, fundraising and cooperation from the North Tahoe Public Utility District’s Park and Recreation department, the tee boxes, pins and hole markers are all in place. And thanks to some Boy Scout man hours, trails have been cut through the often thick Manzanita between each tee and the pin.

Speaking of Manzanita, the course is not out of this world difficult, but rampant underbrush makes lost discs fairly difficult to find.

The course runs along the ridgeline atop North Tahoe Regional Park, leading players in and out of lovely Sierra forest as well as through views of Tahoe, starting with the first hole, which tees off directly south toward the lake.

While the construction of the new soccer field at the park has caused a few of the pins to change location, the new holes are still quality routes and beside a little orange fencing, the alterations go unnoticed.

Not being a regular folfer, I spent most of my time hunting down sliced tosses and didn’t even keep track of my score. But the course was pleasant to walk, the holes were challenging but not completely undoable and in the end, strolling through the upper Regional Park under the cloudless Sierra sky was a much more pleasant way to spend a Wednesday afternoon than chained to a desk under incandescent light.



This story originally appeared in the Tahoe World on Aug. 21. The Tahoe World is owned by Swift Communications, tahoe.com's parent company.