Snow, anyone? Monday, 2/20/23

I can show you some snow!  Quite a few "Atmospheric Rivers" dumped tons of snow on NorCal from last December right up to now, with more coming this week.  We've been reading about all the Sierra snow and wanted to see it for ourselves.  With nothing else on our schedule (hooray) and a sunny day forecast, we hopped in the Prius mid-morning and drove the 60 miles uphill to Truckee ... and lunch there in town.

We exited the freeway at Soda Springs and drove to Truckee on the old Lincoln Highway (Rte 40), amazed to see these sights!  I asked Jimmy to stand in front of this snow pile for show 'n tell.  Wowzers!

I don't know exactly what this is, an opening to a dwelling?  

Rte 40 parallels I-80, but this winding highway is much more interesting.  You see Donner Lake in upper mid-photo.  Fluffy white snow completely covers those nearby polished granite boulders.  Mountains deep with snow.  Looks like a postcard. 😊

Ah, the "China Wall, where Jimmy and I have hiked numerous times.  See the flat, sort of rectangular thing in the center?  That's the Wall, near the Snow Sheds (not visible).  If you enlarge the photo, you'll see people below the Wall and lots of sledding (or skiing) tracks down the slope.  We allowed as how we didn't need to hike up that slope today!  

The Rainbow Bridge

with a red truck crossing it.

Reflections on Donner Lake.

We stopped at Donner Memorial State Park for a few minutes.  Behind Jimmy is the famous Pioneer Monument, built to commemorate the California emigrants traveling west during the mid-1800's.  The VC features exhibits that illuminate the Emigrant Experience, the Donner Party, the Land of the Washoe, Chinese construction of the railroad, and early motoring adventures over Donner Pass.

Basketball court turned ice rink.  Check out that roof!

Oh heck, I forgot to take a picture of lunch.  Because Monday was a federal holiday (Presidents Day), Truckee was crowded with visitors.  Lots of families were Out and About, having been sledding or tubing or skiing with the kids.  Restaurants had waiting lines.  However, we enjoyed our lunch at Moody's Bistro located in the Truckee Hotel (established in 1873, it's seen its share of wild west figures, adventure seekers, foodies, actors, and musicians).

Red-breasted Nuthatch nibbling pine seeds.

We thought a little hike on the fairly level Truckee Legacy Trail would be okay.  It was a bit sketchy getting down to the trail from the parking lot, and then you see the path (above) wasn't clear of ice and snow.

However, it was mostly dry where it wasn't shaded.  We tread lightly on the icy sections and walked maybe a mile before coming upon a treacherously icy incline, and we turned around.  The temp was in the low 50's, sort of neither hot nor cold, but it was nice to feel the sunshine.

A plaque celebrates "Our Truckee River Legacy Trail."

The snow resembles meringue before the broiler.

Here's the river!

We thought these snow-topped structures were crazy, and the patterns of the snow kinda cool, but how can the roofs withstand the weight?  My fav is the pic on the lower right, a Dumpster with a giant marshmallow on top!  Kidding, of course, but good luck emptying that Dumpster!

In August of 2020, we climbed Castle Peak, a grueling eight-mile R/T, but which was also kinda fun, go figure.  We're pretty sure this is Castle Peak, dead center, above, but forget about hiking today!

Heading home from Truckee to Nevada City on I-80, and we've never seen the surrounding mountains so beautiful, chock-a-block full of needed snowpack (and the road nice and clear), and another series of storms on the way.

Speaking of on the way, I suppose we could've just stayed home and waited for flakes to fall here, as the weather folks have predicted, beginning tomorrow (Tuesday), and lasting days on end.  The difference is -- we didn't have to shovel snow in the Sierras!  Thank goodness.  Looks like we have a series of humdingers headed our way.  By the time this ends, we'll be MORE THAN READY to head for South America!

Over the Summit, Fri, 8/7/20

The 7,000+ ft Donner Summit in the Sierra Nevada Mtns can get 35-40 ft of snow a year and sometimes 40-60 ft. Snow drifts can be dozens of feet high. And then there are avalanches! When the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869, it traversed these mountains. Snow sheds were built to protect the track (people and freight), first of wood (fire hazard), later of concrete. Still later, this track was abandoned; the trains moved along a track further south.  But the sheds remain.  Jimmy and I have walked inside these sheds a couple of times, but not all the way.  We've even brought friends and relatives to see/walk the sheds.  But, curious citizens as we are, Jimmy and I have wondered just how far the snow sheds run, as in how many miles?  Today we'd find out the answer.  Inquiring minds want to know ....

This is close to where we finished up, overlooking beautiful Donner Lake.  You see motor boats zipping through the blue water.  Donner Summit is to your left out of the photo.

But this is where we began, at the western end.  Rather than one very long snow shed, these are broken into sections.  The one above serves as an overpass for a local road.

Graffiti?  Yes, everywhere.  Some artistic, others just a "Kilroy was here" type.  We've decided that ladders must be hidden somewhere so the doodlers don't have to 'em lug up and down the mountain every time.  They paint high.  Two of the tunnels (snow sheds) were wet down the center as above, but the sides were dry, so our feet remained dry.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

If you're willing to do a bit of boulder-hopping, you can explore further.  Behind Jimmy is one of the sheds, but we were looking for a different trail along the willows, which we found and which led only to the next shed.  Oh well.

Free entertainment along the way, too.

Watching rock climbers always makes me catch my breath.

The trail by the willows was ablaze in summer flowers.

You see people atop the cliff next to red x in above photo?  We've stood there ourselves on past hikes looking down at the China Wall where we were standing today (below).  Makes for a nice, fairly lengthy loop hike.  More folks are hiking up the rocks bottom center.  The road is Historic Hwy 40, leading to Rainbow Bridge.

This might be the longest shed:  Tunnel 6, which ran 1,659 ft through the summit ridge at Donner Pass.  Truly, it seems to go on forever!  Jimmy stands at the China Wall base and the tunnel entrance.

Plenty of natural light in this section.  You see what I mean about a ladder?

Out the other side now, and gazing toward from whence we came.  The straight dark line is the long snow shed.

Butterflies (including attractive Lorquin's Admiral) on Western Hemlock.

The sheds were built into the mountainsides where possible.

Some are cathedral-like in their interior "design" and hushed atmosphere.  All are cool/ish.  Today we encountered throngs of visitors at the beginning.  The snow sheds had been advertised in the Sac Bee newspaper as a swell day trip with/for the kids, and, Holy Moly, they came in droves!  This was our first experience with COVID crowds.  Some wore masks (we wore ours when near anyone); many chose not to wear any.  As we suspected, when the tunnels and darkness wore on, folks got tired and bored with it and turned around, so we were left with relative peace and quiet, like above.  I used a flash on this pic.

Aha!  We got to the end.  No more snow shed, just a wall.  This was it.  Roughly two-and-a-half miles of tunnels one way.  That being said, initially many more miles of sheds were built, but all have been dismantled.  We had to go back the same way, which made it a five-miler.  Now we know.

I took a few photos on the way back (yes, we were walking on railroad rocks the entire time, hard on the feet).  This walk in these tunnels was really interesting, not for the graffiti, but for the history.

This entrance was kinda creepy, but the tunnel sides and roof changed as we went along, when the engineers switched to cement slabs instead of native rock.  Good thing the area isn't earthquake-prone.

Aiming for the tunnel entrance at the end of the gravel path.

Layer upon layer of paint.  In some places, we could smell the paint spray, so our masks came in handy!  First time we've ever smelled fresh paint.

The best one, in our opinions.

Here I've stepped out of a tunnel to look around, and I spied the previous tunnel entrance (red x).  Large openings were spaced every now and again in the tunnels (which made me feel better, I can tell you), probably to evacuate people if needed.  So ... that was our day.  Fun for us.  What'll we do next week?

Ambitious? Friday, 8/24/18

Thank goodness, our days have shifted from hot mid-90's to the mid-80's, a really welcome change.  It made us want to get on our feet and enjoy the splendor of the mountains.  Last week we tried a new trail ... this week I consulted Julie Carville's Tahoe's Spectacular Wildflower Trails to find us a hike we'd never attempted.  I knew we were too late to see great swaths of wildflowers, but the trail itself sounded intriguing.  I just didn't know if we could do it.  Apparently the Mount Judah Loop trail is heavily trafficked, which to me means "if they can do it, we can do it."  What the heck, I said to myself, if it's too much, we can turn around and head back to the car.

Julie Carville begins her trail description by saying, "The Mount Judah Loop follows the Pacific Crest Trail along the ridge of the Sierra with breathtaking views of distant mountain ranges, while below, Donner Lake sparkles in the afternoon sunlight."  That's enough to make roamers like us tie on our shoes!  So, we set out toward Donner Pass Road.  I shot the above picture on my camera ... where the map is rubbed clear is where we began, near the RR track ... at 7,100 ft.  I ignored the Mt Judah summit number.  With plenty of water and enough grub to keep us going, we started climbing.

The beginning wasn't auspicious.  Climbing on a rock field is hazardous, but we eventually climbed out of the rock-strewn switch-backs.  At every turn, we marveled at how much higher we were, seeing landmarks we recognized, other places we'd hiked.  Even though the sky wasn't perfectly clear, hazy from the fires still burning all over the west, the temp was a perfect 72, and we felt energized.

We looked and, by golly, we spied the Rainbow Bridge (at red check mark), glad to see it.  If you enlarge the pic, use your back arrow to return to this post.  In the past six years (since moving to NorCal), we've walked across the bridge several times, plus plied trails near it.

That's Lake Mary behind me, and that's about where we parked the Prius.  Yup, we encountered a number of people on the trail, coming and going, many with dogs, including one border collie with panniers to hold its own food!  The lady with that dog looked like she might be out overnight. (Imagine me wearing jeans!  I've been in shorts FOREVER.  Hooray, I was dressed just right for today.)

Love seeing these Jeffrey Pines growing out of the rocks,

their wind-blown branches pruned by fierce winter winds. 

I'm standing in a field of spent flower blossoms just off the trail.  I know this had to be a magnificent sight in late spring, early summer, but all of July and August have been hot, frying plants and people!  I was going to say brutally hot, but that's probably just me.  Also, one of Sugar Bowl's ski lifts is visible in the distance, barely visible.

Back on the path; up we go.

At this point, the trail loop begins.  Mt Judah to the left, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) straight ahead.  We turned left.  Lake Mary is far below now.  We ate our lunch in the shade of the trees to the right of the trail sign.

We trudged along in a mix of sun and shade, still ascending.

Approaching Donner Peak, we walked out on this promontory, wise to not veer too close to the edge. What a fine viewpoint!  A tip of Lake Mary can be seen way down there.  Jimmy (my mountain man) looks like he belongs here!

Cool-looking stump, like a colossal clothespin!

Ah, Jimmy is pointing to Donner Lake (red check mark), miles away.  In front of him is Donner Peak at 8,019'.  We could've walked to its summit, but didn't want to add any more mileage to our feet than what we signed up for!  (kidding about signing up, figure of speech)  Even in the haze, the surrounding distant mountains were remarkable.

I used my phone's AllTrails app to see if we'd gotten turned around (but, how?), as it seemed like we'd been climbing and should've reached the summit by this time.  Nope, we were on track.  We'd wound around the mountain and were again switch-backing, now on its eastern flank.

OMGosh, the summit is dead ahead on this undulating path.  A strong westerly wind blew across the ridge, so we had to hold onto hats, walking poles, anything that could vanish east into the State of Nevada.  At some points on the ridge I made sure not to be too close to the trail edge, because the wind was that strong, and it was a very, very long way down.

Made it.  Mt Judah summit:  8,243 ft.

Hold onto your hats, mate!

After climbing for two-and-a-half miles, gaining almost 1,150' in elevation, we were ready for the down hill.  On a southerly exposure, great piles of lava appeared.

Above is one whale of a lava pyramid.  I can only imagine this area in spring with thousands of bright yellow Woolly Mules Ears in bloom.  At this point we were on the PCT section of Mt Judah loop, and enjoying the descent, much of it gradual, so we could spend more time looking around.  Actually, the whole afternoon was super.  As far as I could tell, we didn't encounter any thru-hikers.

Look at these magnificent Red Fir trees.  We walked through sections of volcanic tuff along here (below).  In the Sierras, we see so much granite, it surprised us to see lava and tuff.  Jimmy is dwarfed by the trees, blends in well, too (above).

I caught my breath with these eye-catching lime-green lichens attached to the Red Firs.  In the sunlight, they appeared almost luminous.  Such color!

You didn't think for one minute that we'd turn around and head for the car, did you?  I didn't think so.  In the above pic, we're down the mountain and Jimmy is approaching the car.  Five miles up/down and over four hours and 1,150' elevation gain.  Sure, we were tired, but a pleased tired, and proud of ourselves that, at our age, we could make this climb.  Did we enjoy it?  You betcha.  I saw very few wildflowers, but that's okay, I didn't expect to see many.  We were happy to be in our "backyard playground," with its unlimited mountain vistas, scenery, and all the hiking you want!