On your feet! Friday, 9/27/24

Wow, it's been a year since Jimmy and I have tied on our hiking shoes to wander over the Sierra Nevada mountains, other than bringing Tergel and the bikes up to Lake Tahoe in early August.  Ongoing road construction on Highway 20 and I-80, with delays and stop/go traffic, has kept us away from traveling into the high country.  We hoped the road repair work on I-80 was finished, and thought we'd give it a try today.  Well, Caltrans is still at it and we got caught in down-to-one-lane, stop/go freeway traffic today, both coming and going, but not TOO bad.  Phooey.  One can always hope ....

Last year, we tried to hike the Donner Peak Trail, but (ho-hum) I had it wrong.  This year I made sure to study the map so we could REALLY get there, and even then, it wasn't easy.  But we found the parking lot and -- voilà  -- hit the trail! 

Look, a bit of autumn leaf color lined the trail start. The day was sunny and forecast to be warm, bordering on hot, un-autumn-like; we carried plenty of water.

Oh, yeah, we remembered the rocky, steep switchbacks from our Mt Judah hike back in 2018. Both trails begin at the same place.  The first half-mile is like this, stairways built of large rocks, arduous, and you really had to watch your footing, but we took our time.  It was doable.

At this point the trail evened out somewhat, so we could admire the scenery without tripping and killing ourselves.  Placid Lake Mary amid the trees.

I believe this is a Gray Catbird, perched atop this snag,

and singing his heart out.

Above Lake Mary, we heard a train coming up.  Oh boy, we love trains, so we waited for it to appear, left, above.  We watched for a while, then speculated on how it would continue, to our right and around the mountain, or perhaps to the left where it might find a lower pass up'n'over the mountain?  Trees blocked our view.  We watched and discussed and, by gum, could not figure it out.  Where did the train go?  Haha, it wasn't till we climbed much higher that we saw the top of a tunnel (right)!  No fair -- it disappeared into a tunnel! 

We continued climbing, much of it in the sun, sometimes shaded by tall trees, on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), aiming for Donner Peak.  Last time we were here, we took the Mt Judah Loop, and today we'd tackle the peak trail.

A few goodies to see.  Pretty tree fungi, and pine cone city (!), top; cute li'l Woolly bear caterpillar, and tiny pink posies atop the peak.  Apart from a small showing of asters, all the wildflowers had gone to seed. 

Aha!  Donner Peak, straight ahead.  Looks like some rock scrambling is involved.  The elevation gain for this moderately challenging hike is over 900 ft.  The peak is at 8,019 ft.  I'm always flabbergasted at junipers and pines finding a toehold in solid granite and growing, albeit slowly, under harsh mountain (winter) conditions. 

Beneath the yellow x people are gathered!

We're still not at the top.

But now we are!  And the views!

Mt Judah in the distance.

Donner Lake, 1,000 ft below.

Can you imagine our surprise to encounter a group of 20 first graders at the summit? They climbed up here the same way we did, on shorter legs, too!  These kids are from the Sierra Expeditionary Learning School, and (believe it or not) this was their fourth mountain hike this month!  Amazing.  How wonderful for these kids.  We compared the relative ages of first graders vs two really, really close-to-80-year-old's hiking the Donner Peak:  Win-win for all!  The only elementary school field trip I remember was to the Nabisco Shredded Wheat plant in Niagara Falls.  Definitely not the same.  But we were given a package of Triscuit crackers, a favorite to this day 😋.

All the rocks up here appear stacked, like a multi-layered cake.

And there's our old friend, to our north, across the way.  We conquered that one four years ago, woo-hoo!  Click here to read about how much fun it was.

We so appreciate hiking in the woods, with its cooling shade.  There seems to be something magical about these mountains, breathing the rarified air and feeling so alive and well as we step along.  I've been missing the connection this year.

And then it was back to the rocky zigzag steps on our way down, but going downhill is always much easier than uphill, and takes less time.

What a great hike.  It's supposedly 3.7 miles R/T, but the way we operate, going all over the place as we do, we managed to put five miles on the fitbit.  Yes, our legs will feel this tomorrow, but they'll get over it.  You have to know how grateful we are that we can still hike peaks like these.

It's Friday! 9/16/23

 

I thought I knew what I was talking about, but I didn't.  I was sure we were on our way to hike Donner Peak, up in the high country, but we weren't.  By driving up I-80 and exiting at Boreal Ridge Rd, we'd park and hike up to Donner Summit.  Easy-peasy.  Wrong.  When we exited and parked, nothing looked familiar.  I guess I should've looked it up on AllTrails before we left.  Oh well.  We were all ready to go, so off we went, on the PCT, with an unknown destination because we didn't know this trail at all.

Sometimes the destination doesn't matter, as a journey into the Sierra's is always nourishment for the soul.  We were happy to be Out and About on this unknown-to-us, but well-trod trail.

The path itself was kinda sketchy in places, as you see above:  Roots 'n rocks.  Beneath the trees, we appreciated the soft leaf/needle compost underfoot.  We alternated sun with shade, and first we went down-down-down and then up-up-up, and then we repeated the pattern!

Look at this extensive granite "slab" littered with giant boulders!  This was next to the trail, not part of it.  Our elevation here was roughly 7,000'.

We passed several small ponds with clear, tannic water.  One had a large population of Bullhead Catfish, which isn't necessarily good as they can overpopulate and "stunt in ponds."  These guys were still small, maybe three-four inches long, but we saw lots.

Paralleling I-80, not close but within earshot, it became a background "white noise."  Eventually the trail turned south and the sound disappeared.  We saw a couple of day hikers early on and then we were alone.  When we finally gained the first high spot, we were sorta surprised to see Donner Lake, but then we realized where the trail would take us.  

Ain't nature's designs grand?

Not many wildflowers were blooming this late in the year.  I spotted a few Pink Spirea, including the flower with bee, above.  In semi-sunny areas, Indian Paintbrush and Checker Bloom still flowered, and Aster and Goldenrod color foretold autumn's imminence.

By gollies, here we are!  Three-and-a-half miles in and we're up top, overlooking Hwy 40 (old Lincoln Hwy, way down below) and the snow sheds and the China Wall, places we know from past hikes.  We knew how to get down to Hwy 40, but didn't need to.  Instead, this was our turn-around point.

Yup, we parked the day packs, sat on a boulder in the shade and ate our lunch.  Behind Jimmy is George R. Stewart Peak at 7,389'.  If I looked off to my right, I'd see the snow sheds and China Wall.  As we were leaving, a large group of young adults (kids, really!) bounded up the boulders from Hwy 40, nodded to the two old fogeys, and continued their caper up to Stewart Peak.  Just a lark, right?

The afternoon was perfect, warm with a fresh breeze, maybe 75/ish.  On our return, we were aware that all the downhills we had would now be uphills, and our ol' bodies protested, but no matter.  As we made our way, we marveled at the stamina of the PCT thru-hikers.  This is a really tough trail.  Being younger helps, I'm sure.  Meanwhile, we were treated to views (across I-80) of our big buddy from three years ago -- legendary Castle Peak.  Click on the blue link to read about it.

I'd listened to the weatherman the night before and he said "no thunderstorms for the Sierra tomorrow," and I believed him.  When we saw the gray clouds forming, I wasn't worried.  Nope, no thunder, no rain.

We love hiking up here.

Nice balancing act.

Like the brilliant red Snow Plant in spring,

these rosy Pine Drops always catch my attention.

Finally, we came back to the granite slab.  Hi Jimmy!  One nice thing about an out-and-back trail is you see stuff on the return that you missed on the way out.  We were so finished with the switchbacks and uphill/downhill, elevation gain/loss, and we were both tired.  We rated this ourselves as "moderately challenging."  Seven miles and our dogs were barking!  We didn't make it to Donner Summit (oops!), so we'll save that for another time, now that we KNOW how to get there!

I don't know if this map is of any use to you guys, but here 'tis anyway.  The Prius was parked where the blank spot is from everybody's finger pointing to it, and we followed the PCT (red line) down to about Lake Angela.  Our only time to hike exclusively on the PCT.  This entire map area is a great locale to get in some aerobic exercise!  Awful pretty, too.

Walking on Water, Monday, 11/2/20

As crazy as it may seem for the first week in November, the days remain sunny and warm, as in 80° warm (whew, bordering on hot!).  We know sunny and warm won't last much longer ... Friday the temp will pivot on its tail and drop 30 degrees.  Knowing that, you can bet your bippy that Jimmy and I would find our way to a trail outside somewhere.  The high country would top out in the more-comfortable 70's, and this might be our last chance to enjoy the mountains before snow and ice keep us nearer to home. 

In the past couple of years, we'd talked about hiking the Lake Van Norden loop trail, off Soda Springs in the Sierras, but never got around to it.  We assumed skeeters would eat us alive in spring, and summer's blazing sun would toast us.  Well, now it's fall and a near-perfect time.  The trail is essentially flat with an elevation of 6750'.  Flat is good.

You've heard me talk of the South Yuba River in previous posts.  The river "flows" into Lake Van Norden before heading downhill.  Although not today.  In fact, we couldn't find any water.  We also couldn't find a trail, so we traipsed through the dry lake, our footsteps loud on the crunchy grasses.  No water.    

Jimmy's standing at the far edge of the spillway cut into the dam some years back.  Before the spillway was cut, the dam ran straight across.  Funny to see this dam with no water behind it!  I Googled Lake Van Norden and learned that the lake held a vast amount of water years ago, giving you some idea of how much water it used to store.  Then, it got complicated with changes of ownership (PG&E and Truckee Donner Land Trust). "The Land Trust wanted to sell the valley to the Forest Service which would not take the valley with any lake. The Land Trust did not entertain any other solutions and so opened the drain and completely drained the lake."

2019 was the last year that Lake Van Norden existed. Destroying Lake Van Norden seems an odd move for a state that seems to always be on the verge of a drought.  We knew none of this till after we came home this afternoon.

No river, just a muddy puddle.

You do see interesting sights in the area.  The spillway/dam is in the background behind Jimmy, but this wheel apparatus remains a mystery.

Is that a bony hand clasping the rock?

With every step we trod through grasses, some ankle high, others up to our knees, and I was grateful that I had on jeans!  The golden grasses were lovely amid autumn's earthy tones -- the ochres, siennas, and umbers -- all of which made the hike really pleasing on the eyes.

We came upon these two poles buried in the "lake," and I was reminded of goal posts.  You see we scored a touchdown!  Ah, look in the distance -- Castle Peak towers above my hands.  We smile when we see Castle Peak, appreciating our successful accomplishment:  We conquered the summit!

Old rusty stuff.

Such a stellar peak.

In the (mostly dry) riverbed, we found pockets of water.  Where the sun didn't reach, the water was still covered with ice!  So, while the days are warm, frigid nights in the 20's keep the shallow water frozen.

This little hut is the Merrill Family Hut.  Snow country is dotted with huts like these, where people can get warm, take a break from cross country skiing or snowshoeing, or just sit and rest.  Jimmy went in the hut, but it was too hot today to do more than open the door and back out.  We sat on the steps to rest a bit, eat our granola bars and slurp some water.

Our Prius is parked at the top red X.  We turned around at the hut where the lower red X is.  In effect, we walked down the left side of the lake to the hut, and up through the meadow on the right side, partially on Snoop's Loop, to return to the Prius.  Four-and-a-half miles R/T.  We crossed the dry river at one point.  We saw no trail signs till we were almost back to the car, when we saw the Snoop's Loop sign.

The lakebed landscape was dotted with colorful willow bushes, so pretty.

This would be the South Yuba River.  No water.

The dark areas are damp mud.  What a shame.

Below are two pictures I lifted from the Internet, both showing Lake Van Norden in earlier days!  Obviously.  Looks so inviting!  No walking on water in the first picture.

The pic below shows a before and after, taken from above, but I don't know the years.  If I could've taken a pic today from the same place, you would see instead, golden grasses and reeds and shrubs showing off their autumnal finery in those classic earth pigments.

Well, now we've done our Lake Van Norden hike, not quite the way we thought it might be, but a truly fine hike on a gorgeous day.  Plus, nobody fell in and got a soaker.  The only things to fall into as we strode across the uneven ground were gopher holes and we dodged plenty of them!