Irresistible ... Friday, 6/4/21

 

It seems to be a given that, come spring, Jimmy and I would make our way to our favorite Sagehen Creek Trail just north of Truckee CA on Hwy 89.  Since our first hike here in Aug, 2012, a few short months after moving to NorCal, we've enjoyed being on this trail nearly every spring and sometimes in autumn.  It's an easy hike, following feisty Sagehen Creek, and it's chock-a-block full of delightful sights, plus wonderous smells, and what's not to like about hearing birdsong and listening to the wind high in the pines and an ever-present gurgling creek.  Can you tell this little slice of the Sierras is irresistible to us?

Off we go, past the willows -- Jimmy's winding through the Aspens,

and here the trail is a single track.

We might be a week early for maximum wildflower bloom, but we saw a bodacious number of flowers today!  This has been an exceptionally dry year for NorCal, with a low snowpack.  Last year, too, and if you combine the two years, the outlook is grim.  Maybe there won't be a superbloom this year.

I was surprised to find an unusual Brown's Peony (Wild Peony).

Such a pleasant way to spend a morning or afternoon.  In our case, afternoon.  We really need to get an earlier start because the temp rose to 80°+, and it was too hot to be Out and About in the heat of the day.  Sagehen offers plenty of shade, but at that temp, I overheated.  Whether it's warm or cool, pine trees up here (6100') smell heavenly.

Lots and lots of color!  Clockwise from top left:  Crimson Columbine, Seep-spring Monkeyflower, Sierra Shooting Star, and velvety Pussy Paws.

The star attraction is the profusion of yellow-flowered Woolley Mules Ears, which literally paint the hillsides yellow!  It's mind-boggling to see this many gorgeous flowers on one hike.  There's a fragrance in this area, too, an almost-herbal scent to the air.

Along with the Mules Ears, the Bitterbrush shrub was in full bloom -- their small, creamy yellow flowers lined much of the trail, as above.  Three women (with their dogs), can be seen, center, as they make their way toward the lake (Stampede Reservoir).  From here they look like ants!  The trail varies from wide to single-track and in this area, we're on an old roadbed.  It's already kinda dusty, too.

Yup, tent caterpillars make their webs covering the leaves and stems of Bitterbrush.  We saw several "tents" on shrubs as we walked along, and those things make my skin crawl.

I like this better!  I'm not sure why, but Dandelions in the high country are brighter and taller and prettier than their flatland cousins.  A Checkerspot butterfly is checking out one, above.

We ate our lunch of granola bars and a Gatorade while sitting at the old sheepherder's hut (ruins).  "Let's see if we can get to the lake," I suggested.  We could see it in the distance.  In years past, that lake (aka Stampede Reservoir) has been a short walk to its shoreline.  Purple Penstemons add color to the dry lakebed.

We walked down to tiny Sagehen Creek.  We'd follow it to the lake.

This Killdeer didn't object to us too much.

We saw something dart downstream and stop with a splash.  We followed and spied a couple of Kokanee Salmon resting after their dash.  We began looking in the creek more closely and then saw lots of small salmon, either darting or resting.  Small as in 3"-5".  This water is mere inches deep. 

Undulating thru the grasses, Sagehen is on its way to Stampede.

It was hot here in the sun.  This is as close as we got to the lake, and we turned around.  Sagehen enters the lake above, center/right.  I checked my step counter, and we'd walked close to a mile from the sheepherder's old hut to this point, to get to the lake.  We were walking on a dry crunchy lakebed.  So dry.  Water's so low.

Return the same way, or ??  Sagehen was too:  too wide, too deep, too muddy, too far across, too high a bank on one side or the other.  We finally crossed where the light-colored chunk o' wood is, with a wide, quick jump, and a scramble up into the grass and neither of us got wet or muddy.  Now we could go back to the trail on the other side of the creek.

We could spot this white stuff from a long way off.  Dead shrubs in the dry lakebed.  Not sure what it was, but what it is now is dead.  Even in death it has a color all its own.

On the trail again, and still admiring the bright and abundant wildflowers.  We passed by the beaver pond again, but saw no action there, except for mosquito-eating swallows flitting about.  Sagehen is one of the area's most popular hikes, roughly five miles R/T, and we saw quite a few people on our way to the lake, but only one couple on our return to the car.  Of course, it was late afternoon. 😮  I bet a person could see bunches of critters on a dawn/dusk hike.

Nearing the car, I handed Jimmy the camera and asked him to take a picture of me at the creek, "to prove I was here!"  If I look hot and tired, I was.  Trying to get to the lake added a couple of extra miles to our hike, making it a seven-miler, and apparently we've gotten soft in the past few months.  (smile)  We were mighty happy to hop in the car and turn on the A/C ... shower and raid the fridge for cool pasta salad leftovers when we got home at 5pm.

Sagehen Creek will always be a go-to hike for us.  There's an aliveness to everything here that stirs the heart.  It's easy to feel a bond with the natural world in this Eden-like jewel.  Lucky us that it's only a hop, skip, and jump from our own backyard. 💖💖💖