What's in a name? Monday, 6/20/22

 

Okay, we all know the weather these days is weird.  Too hot, too wet, too cold, too dry, everywhere.  Climate change is altering the world's weather patterns.  A few days ago, we had to turn on our furnace; one last blast of cool before summer's heat descends.  We knew today was forecast to be warm, so Jimmy and I elected to head for the high country again, with our E-bikes, of course.  It's always cooler at 6,000' than at 3,000'.  We fancied an easy ride while up there, and maybe a nice lunch thrown in at Resort at Squaw Creek (we had a freebie card).

We dilly-dallied and didn't get an early start.  Three phases of road construction put us back even further, but we had all day.  Strange, tho, that gray clouds hovered over the higher elevation.  We weren't prepared for that!

We'd been here before for lunch and enjoyed sitting on the terrace overlooking the pools, with snow-capped mtns for a backdrop.  See how gray the clouds are between the trees?  Sunshine disappeared.  As we ate, we grew chilly.  And then downright cold.  I checked the weather app:  55 degrees.  

He looks happy.

Me, too.

After eating a great lunch, we rode back to the car where we store an extra shirt each.  Once we put them on, we warmed up.  As we rode closer to Lake Tahoe, the sun peeked in and out and the day felt warmer.  

This cute li'l Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel,

aka rodent, was busy running the trail!

This valley is so beautiful.  It just is.

Tree swallows.

The ski lifts above the valley sit silent now,

waiting for next winter.

Olympic village.  Squaw Valley.  No more.  Now called Palisades Tahoe.  The history, according to what I've read is this:  "Native American Washoe people used the valley as a summer tribal ground before the 1849 California Gold Rush. When westward-bound travelers first encountered the valley, they saw only women and children as most of the men were away hunting, and so called it Squaw Valley."  The word "squaw" is offensive, though to many it was just a name.  What's in a name?  The area became famous with the 1960 Winter Olympics and is known globally as Squaw Valley.  Personally I think Olympic Valley would have been a better choice than "Palisades Tahoe."

After riding around the village and valley, we took off on the Truckee River Trail, a 10.6 mile out and back paved path beside the river.  The river is chugging along.  Good for rafters.  Maybe we'll rent a raft this summer and join the folks cruising down the river.

The sun made an appearance and turned everything bright and pretty.  We really like riding on this trail.  There's always a fair amount of bike travel, too.

I didn't stop to take pics of all the wildflowers I spotted -- I saw so many!  Lupines and Blue Flax and colorful yellows and whites and pinks, late spring-early summer bloomers.  Only one lone Snow Plant was left as it's past the season for them, and one Spotted Coralroot Orchid, right, nearby.

A couple of kayakers in the distance, enjoying time on the water.

By the time we got to Tahoe City, it was 4:30pm, which kinda surprised us.  We decided to head back to the car.  What surprised us even more was seeing an "aid station," below.

We got off our bikes.  I had to ask.  "Is this a 200-mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe?" I asked.  "No, this is a 200-mile RUN around Lake Tahoe."  Good grief.  As you see, the station above was at mile 169.5 and we saw several people walk in and sit -- to have their feet taped and bandaged.  Burgers were served and I'm sure other foods and drinks.  Can you imagine running 200 miles in a set amount of time?  100-hour cutoff.  Talk about endurance.  Jimmy and I shook our heads and hopped on our bikes, glad it wasn't us limping in for tape and bandaids.  Wow.

(The Tahoe 200 is the first and only 200 mile single loop mountain trail race in the US. The event has 40,200+ feet of ascent/descent!  This incredible route circumnavigates the sparkling, clear blue waters of Lake Tahoe from the Tahoe Rim Trail.)

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice.  Happy summer to everyone!

Lake Natoma, Monday, 6/13/22

 

Jimmy and I like to finish what we start.  Probably you already know this.  We had one section of the American River Parkway left to ride in order to say we've ridden the entire 36-mile distance (one way).  We put our new bikes to the test by riding from Old Town Sac to Nimbus Dam on the first two days of June.  And today (Monday) seemed like a fine day to finish it -- from Nimbus Dam to Beals Point.  You'll see from the pictures that we picked an azure-blue-sky day to be Out and About.  Also warm.  A fairly brisk breeze kept us cool/ish, though sometimes that blowing in-your-face wind was a bit much.

Some sections of the trail have good signage.  This one did not.  With so many side trails, it was easy to veer off on the wrong path and have to backtrack.  We didn't mind too much.  Heck we were just out enjoying a bike ride in the fresh, clear air.  We ended our ride with 26-27 miles, since we added extra miles when we were "lost." We weren't the only ones scratching our heads and looking at our phones to see which way to go, either!

We parked at Beals Point, 'cause it's closer to our house, and we were surprised to learn that Beals Point has a campground; good information to tuck away.  We rode from Beals to Nimbus Dam on the north side of the river (Lake Natoma), and on the return, we pedaled on the south side.  In effect, we circumnavigated Lake Natoma. 

Above is the American River Parkway map.  Sacramento is to the left, and Beals Point at top right (lavender check mark).  Nimbus Dam is at the other lavender check mark.  Lake Natoma is formed by Nimbus Dam.  Another dam upstream at Folsom creates Folsom Lake.

Folsom Dam spillway, and the convergence of two bike paths.  Which to take?  We went right, uphill, and rode into a hilly neighborhood. (Gotta love the pedal assist!)  After a couple of miles, we turned around to find the parkway!  Returning to this point, we took the left trail, which was right. 😁

Folsom Dam.  No water being released.

The very fine Folsom Truss Bridge with its rickety wooden deck.  Built by San Francisco Bridge Company in 1893, it was rehabilitated in 2000.  The metal sign stipulates crossing violations:  "$5 fine for driving over this bridge faster than a walk.  $25 fine for driving more than 20 head of horses, 50 head cattle, or 200 sheep, hogs or goats over this bridge at one time."  Nothing about bikers!  I see Jimmy (orange shirt) and one other biker, so we were safe.

I paused to look down into the water.  Lots of people were taking advantage of the river in the warm sun.  Some were IN the (cold) water, others on paddle boards, in kayaks or boats, all enjoying the water on a bright summer day (it is almost summer!).

This scene looks calm and pretty (above), but I have to wonder what the river and its environs looked like before the gold rush and California's rapacious need for water (below).

The American River here is called Lake Natoma, framed as it is by two dams, and to our right was a high bluff (see photo below, too).  During the gold rush, this river was scourged by hydraulic mining using high pressure water monitors.  The lure of gold was all consuming; no stone remained untouched.  The high bluff was created.  As we rode along, we saw tons of river rock piles, mounds, mountains on both sides of the river.

Danger:  Steep unstable cliffs.  Keep off.  Duh!

Parked in our comfy saddles, we rode and rode.  It was fine.  We rode into Folsom and saw where we'd had dinner one winter afternoon, while Nannie and Bubba were visiting.  Passed by a Mel's Diner, didn't stop this time, thought we just might return another time and get a burger.  Back at Beals Point, we packed it up and took off for the hour's drive home.

You can probably tell that we really like these new E-bikes, and we do.  Maybe a short jaunt to Reno, which has a great bike trail along the Truckee River, or a quickie to Monterey where we could ride the 17-mile Drive -- you might see either of these in the next couple of weeks.

This stuff is called St Johns Wort and it's part of our front yard.  It came with the house.  It's terribly invasive and I mostly don't like it -- simply because it's impossible to contain or get rid of.  But this June, this year, it's aglow with yellow flowers.  We haven't seen a megabloom like this since we moved here ten years ago.  Pretty now, isn't it?  Guess we'll keep it (like there's any other choice)!

The summer solstice is one week away!

Chalk Bluff -- Sat, 6/4/22

As part of its Celebration of Trails, Bear Yuba Land Trust (BYLT) was offering guided hikes on Saturday, one of which was to Chalk Bluff Preserve. Jimmy and I were interested -- we'd heard about Chalk Bluff, but we'd never been and didn't really know where it was or how to get there. Turns out the bluff wasn't that far away as a crow flies, but having a 4-wheel drive vehicle would be an asset, as it's in the boonies and getting there was another story. A small group of ten met at the local Safeway parking lot at 9am, and one couple (Nancy and Dan) had room in their Subaru for me and Jimmy, so we left Smartie behind. We much appreciated the ride.

Do you see the white/ish line running horizontally near the bottom of yonder hill?  That's the chalk bluff, which we'd explore today.  Below that is what's left of the almost-ghost town of You Bet, established in 1852, and the gold mining diggins'.  Like much of the foothills, the You Bet area was mined to a fare-thee-well during the Gold Rush era, much of it by hydraulic mining (dislodging gold bearing ore from hillsides by high pressure water monitors) which was prominent in the early gold rush days.  By 1918, an estimated $3 million in gold (about $175 million at 2015 prices) had been mined.

I don't now how many acres or square miles in the Sierra foothills contain old diggins' or mines or their remnants -- the You Bet/Red Dog/Chalk Bluff area is one example.  Fun to explore, but many are on private property and not accessible.  For others, like the preserve we visited today (which is on Tahoe National Forest land), an experienced guide is needed.

The red check mark on the left is near where we live; the mark at right is Chalk Bluff.  No straight road will lead you from one side to the other!

From the You Bet overlook, here's another view of the bluff in the distance, and the diggins' -- looks like giant anthills.  I think we're looking east or east-southeast.  The sky was overcast, a gray morning with almost a chill to the air.  I wore my windbreaker, but by early afternoon, that thing was off!  The hike was scheduled from 9-Noon, but we'd only completed one section, with a visit to a grotto (really?) in the offing from Noon to 2pm, and everyone was game to continue.

After parking and walking a short distance on the road, we're fixin' to climb that hill to our right.  Jimmy in red and white checkered shirt is veering in that direction.  Honestly, if a trail existed, it was nigh onto impossible to find, but we followed our guide.

We paused here to listen to David Lawler, our geologist guide, talk about the "chalk."  White like chalk, soft like talc, but he said it was rhyolite, explosively blown and deposited from vents in the Sierras millions of years ago.  Many feet deep, and covered in spots by small stones, in places it was hard to get a footing.  I slipped and landed on my heinie as we made our way further.  Haha, I wasn't the only one.

Mixed in with the rhoylite were lots of tiny fossilized twig pieces, with the occasional chunk of branch, as above.

Though NorCal is drought-dry, a goodly number of wildflowers were blooming out here, including lots of Harvest brodiaea, above and Wally Basket, below.

Hiking toward an overlook beside the chalk bluff.

David, the geologist, was the perfect leader for this hike. Aside from explaining about rhyolite, he showed us remnants of an ancient Amazon-sized paleo river channel and associated fossil remains of a 50 million year-old tropical rain forest. We learned a lot -- this was an outstanding example of the entire geology of the western Sierra Nevada.

Of course, I noticed the flowers. Yellow ray blooms upper left, and Lupine, upper right.  Small monkey flower, bottom left, Scarlet pimpernel (yep!) in the middle, and bush Poppy, bottom right.  We actually saw plenty of color.

Twig fossils in rhyolite.

Robin Milam of BYLT took a group photo.

Jimmy and I are in back, left.

We could see it with our eyes, but the camera had difficulty finding the Banner Mountain Lookout (fire tower) at the red check mark.  Jimmy and I live on Banner Mountain.  We sat for a bit near this spot to look and listen, parking our backsides atop aromatic creeping sage, and feeling quite content. 

I keep telling this buzzard "we ain't dead, yet!"

He gave up and flew away.

Know what this is?  Used to be an illegal pot farm (or grow).  These illegal grows pop up all over the county, get busted, and then it remains junky like this.  How gross.  This photo shows only part of the grow -- lots more of these round tubs were out of the picture.

We made our way down from the bluff and were on our way to the grotto.  David pointed out an early Native American trail through the growth.  Notice he has cutters in his hand?  We'd find out why in a minute.

We had to bushwhack through the undergrowth to get to the grotto.  Here the land was lush with ferns, even a type of fern that only grows in one other area of the state.  T'was hard hiking though, David was cutting branches out of the way, we were slippery-sliding on pine straw and pebbles, grasping at any firmly-planted branch or tree to heave ourselves up the slope, and several of us slid down on our heinies.  That was going up, coming down was worse!  But we all did it, no one got hurt.

This is the (dry) grotto, with only a dribbling of water falling. During a wet year, a 14-ft waterfall can be seen, but not this year! A unique hanging gardens drapes from the rocky overhang. I couldn't back up far enough to get a good shot. The last few severe storms kinda ruined any trail there might have been and blasted the area with dead trees and debris. Well, as John Muir said, "wildness is a necessity." It was pretty here, nonetheless, and very quiet, except for people slapping at mosquitoes!

 

I bet it's beautiful after we've had rainfall.  

What an interesting adventure, and a grand way to spend a cloudy Saturday.  While we were Out and About from 9 to 2pm, we put in only three miles, but with lots of up/downs; we'd probably feel it tomorrow (we do).  My sox were covered in foxtails and stickers, good luck getting rid of 'em, but I think I dodged any poison oak.  Thanks to BYLT for the opportunity to investigate Chalk Bluff, it was something we've wanted to do.  I'd love to come back to the area in a rainy year, I'm sure it would be gorgeous.

Retirement! Wed/Thurs 6/1-6/2

 

I don't think this was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but it was close.  We've been on this parkway before, several times in fact, and we've always enjoyed it.  This time, we told each other, we could ride and ride and ride, all the way to the dam and back.  I called CalExpo in Sacramento on Tuesday afternoon to see if their RV park had space for us for a couple of nights and heard, "yes, we do."   We booked the next two nights, Wednesday and Thursday, and then got busy.  We wouldn't take much, but we did have to pack the RV with essentials, like coffee.  The drive from our house to CalExpo is only 59 miles, but that area is relatively flat, especially compared to hilly Nevada City where we live.

We didn't get an early start anyway, but no matter for such a short distance.  Too bad the first day of June (Wednesday) would be the hottest day of the year so far!  After setting up, the time was 1:30 or 2pm, and the sun was brutal.  But we wanted to ride, so we unloaded the bikes, donned the bike shorts, slathered sunscreen on our white legs, and took off for a short ride from CalExpo to Old Town Sac.  

This is the best map I could copy and paste of the American River Parkway, aka the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail, a fairly well-renowned paved trail that winds 32 miles from Discovery Park in Sacramento to Folsom, paralleling the American River.  Throw in an extra few miles and you can ride to Old Town Sac, which is what we did.  Huge Cottonwood trees provide shade along the way, but not enough on a hot day.  The header photo was taken close to Discovery Park, showing lots of boats, and even folks in that cold water!  We did 15.6 miles round trip; the temp was a blistering 93°.

In late afternoon, Matt and Evie were in the CalExpo neighborhood, so they stopped by after Jimmy and I'd ridden back to Tergel.  Visiting with them was delightful -- Evie loves our Tergel, it's probably a giant playhouse to her.  Dinner was suggested (Jen was at work), and Matt drove us (we'd only brought our E-bikes, no car) to Zocalo, a "modern" Mexican restaurant with muy delicioso food.  Really glad they came by.

Jimmy, ready to roll.

Thursday dawned with overcast skies (surprise!).  It was forecast to be a bit cooler, but we were prepared to get out early and beat the heat.  We hit the trail at 9:30, with nothing else to do today but ride our new bikes.  A fresh breeze blew in our faces.  It was a lovely, lovely morning.

Riding has never been about speed for us; it's the joy of being Out and About, stopping when/where we wanted, the rushing wind keeping us cool.  The fast riders on bikes with skinny tires whizzed past us like lightning bolts, disappearing into the distance.  Our pedal assists performed Perfectly whenever we needed to crest a hill.

A number of beautiful parks are laid out along the river, as well as fishing access, like above.  Fellow E-bikers stopped at the same time (comparing models) and snapped our pic.

Free entertainment, too!

Lots of wildlife to be seen.  With close to 5,000 acres bordering the river and multiple types of vegetation, critters have plenty of places to hide ... or be seen.  Mom and her brood, above, had just crossed the trail to get to the other side.  (I don't know why!)

From our site at Cal-Expo to Mile 6 on the parkway, we rode to our destination of Nimbus Dam at Mile 23.  Hooray -- a round trip of nearly 40 miles!  Of course, we also had some backtracking to do and a jaunt across the river and UP the hill to Bob's Cycle Shop in Fair Oaks (where we bought the bikes) to get a minor adjustment.

Part of this trail is called an Urban Forest.  Homes are peppered atop river bluffs and behind the levee where you can't see them, but access to the trail can be had at many points.  We passed through meadows filled with bright sunshine and forests with welcome shade. 

We spied a number of Yellow-billed Magpies, hopping through the grass.  In this shot, the birds have an overseer!  Haha.  Birdsong from many different species accompanied us the entire distance.  I loved it.

One of the crossing-the-river bike bridges as our trail switched from the north to the south side of the river.

A refreshing and wonderful two-day "vacation," though our heinies still feel tender from a long ride such as this -- I guess we need to develop calluses on our cheeks!  All in all, a couple of A+ bike rides.  Maybe if we can find a cool stretch of temps in the near future, we'll return.  The section from Nimbus Dam to Folsom needs doing.  We're game.  You betcha, we're having fun!

When I think about my Dad and my two deceased brothers dying before or at retirement age, before they could enjoy life beyond work, I am doubly grateful for my life today. 

Retirement:  Ain't it grand?