Donner Weekend

In September we spent one weekend around Donner Lake, Mt. Rose, and Squaw Valley.

On Saturday Adam and his friend went on an epic mountain bike ride starting at Mt. Rose. While they did that, I road the Tahoe Sierra Century (with great views of Donner Lake!) and hiked the dogs in and around the meadows at Mt. Rose. If you haven't done the Tahoe Sierra Century before, I do recommend it. I've done the 60 mile route twice (wanted to do the 100 mile this year but didn't work out with our schedules). It starts at Squaw Valley and goes over Donner Summit to Cisco Grove and back. It's actually quite an easy ride--don't be scared by riding up Donner Summit! It's not steep and not even very long. They close the road so it's much safer and it's a fun descent on the way back. 

After our bike rides we had dinner in Tahoe City at Rosie's Cafe. I had a turkey burger and Adam had Hawaiian pizza. Adam also ordered us some drinks...after all that exercise the gin and tonic went straight to my head! Here I am looking awkward:

The Tahoe area was busier than usual that weekend because the Tough Mudder race was at North Star that same day. The guys sitting behind us were sharing their war stories from the race the whole time we were there. "Dude, when I was on the monkey bars..." Tough Mudder people were everywhere that evening!

The next day we hiked Castle Peak via Hole in the Ground trail. It was a good one, I hadn't done Hole in the Ground before but I had been to Castle Peak a bunch of times via the PCT. 

Here are a couple views from Castle Peak. It was overcast that day but nice. 

Good weekend! We even got home before dark--amazing!

Lake Schmidell Desolation Wilderness Backpacking

Earlier in August we did a one night backpacking trip to Lake Schmidell via Rockbound pass. It was awesome! (We had originally attempted this same trip on Memorial Day weekend.) The hike in is moderate (hiking over the pass was hot), and the lakes available for swimming were awesome. On Saturday we hiked straight through (just over 8 miles) to Schmidell, and spent the afternoon swimming and floating around in the lake. On Sunday, we stopped at Lake Lois, Upper Doris, and Maude for a swim on our way out. Our favorite lake for swimming was Upper Doris--it had awesome jumping rocks. Looked like there was some good camping in that area too.

Carex and Spencer (the dogs) came with us. This was Carex's first hike since her surgery and she did *great*! And, amazingly, she even went swimming with us three times, which was three times more than ever before! Totally cool.

Food details...(since we like to eat well and DIY) For lunch, we brought packets of salmon with dill triscuits. We brought our homemade dehydrated tacos for dinner--dehydrated black beans, ground meat, and salsa, all rehydrated with boiling water. We added a taco seasonings, a little shredded cheddar, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and chopped cabbage. On the side--margaritas. (Though, amazingly the lake was so warm it didn't do a very good job of cooling our tequila!) For dessert, chocolate pudding with powdered milk, graham crackers, and chocolate chips. Breakfast was oatmeal with powdered milk, whey protein powder, cinnamon-brown sugar, and dried fruit. Snacks included two kinds of trail mix, dried fruit, beef jerky, and homemade fruit leathers.

On the trail. In love with granite.

Hiking up Rockbound Pass.

After our first swim in Schmidell, we explored the lake a bit and then carried our gear to our home for the night. Note that we brought our sun hats! So comfy to wear around camp.

We used our Thermarests as lake floats. Adam went out on his first, then we decided to both use them to get to the rock island close to our camping spot. 

Just a little relaxin',

Sunrise.

Our campsite in the morning before packing up and hiking out.

On the hike out at Lake Lois. 

Canyon Creek Lakes Day Hike

After our backpacking trip up Stuart Fork and out Stoney Ridge, we decided to take the last day of our vacation and hike up to the Canyon Creek Lakes as a day hike. Mind you, we are a little crazy--this hike is about 17 miles round trip. We were really tired at the end of the day!!

We loved this hike. The Canyon Creek Lakes area is beautiful, and the river (when the trail is close or overlooks it) is gorgeous. We decided we'd definitely put this on our "we'd backpack this area to explore more" list. It's popular, but we did this hike on the 4th of July and only saw 2 tents set up! We did see a good bunch of people hiking, but it seems like there was plenty of room to spread out. We thought some of the sites along the river would be great if you just wanted to hang out by the river (possibly with your kids). It's not a difficult hike, and the way in is definitely a little more difficult than the hike out (downhill on the way out).

Here are a few photos:

At a waterfall below the first Canyon Creek Lake.

We took too many photos from the same location! 

But you can see the beauty of the steep granite surrounding the lakes:

Pioneer Trail, Wrights Lake Attempts

We had an epic trip planned for this holiday weekend.

The plan was:
Drive to Lake Spaulding area on Thursday night, camp.
Friday - Adam mountain bikes with Brian while I run the dogs on Pioneer Trail.
Friday night - camp either at Spaulding or drive over to Wrights Lake that evening and camp there.
Saturday thru Monday - Backpack Desolation Wilderness--prepared to walk in/on snow (a little or a lot) but enjoy otherwise mostly nice weather. Supposedly rain/snow was a slight chance Saturday morning but we figured we could deal with that.

What actually happened:
Camp and Spaulding Lake Thursday night. Chilly but nice. Awoke to snow flurries! Decide to see how the day goes and attempt our running/biking anyway.

I ran the dogs on Pioneer..not sure how far but at least 14 miles. Was great. Pioneer is a gentle trail and was good to my knee.

The views during the boys' mountain bike ride.

Adam and Brian went off expecting to put in about 50 miles. But, within the first couple of hours, Adam had gotten 3 flat tires and had very few supplies left to fix any other flats. They told me this, and said they'd text me if they had problems.

Brian and the ceanothus!

They had flowers from the ceanothus everywhere!

I went back to to the van after my run and hung out for a couple of hours waiting for info from them, but had no service so ended up driving down the road several miles (after waiting for three hours--seems like a lot but when I caught them mid-ride earlier on the trail they had a lot of miles still to go so I wasn't surprised they hadn't come back). Upon getting cell service, I got a bunch of texts with the common theme of: "More flat tires, need rescue, wet, freezing, it's snowing, can't ride, come get us." So, I drove to the meeting place through a mix of rain and snow (I HATE being in the car when it's snowing, and I had to drive the VAN THROUGH SNOW! Ugh) to pick up two soaked, shivering boys! Blasted heat in the van, made tea, everyone was OK!

Monkey flower the boys saw on their ride.

So--day one was a little colder/wetter than we hoped for....after that, we decided to head to the cabin at Donner Lake for hot showers and a warm place to sleep. (Cabin was awesome: we made chili and cornbread and watched our "we're on vacation and have cable" tv show of choice: House Hunters which can entertain us for hours.)

Saturday: we debated a lot on what to do. Backpacking seemed a little crazy. Reports were that there actually wasn't that much snow in the backcountry..but we woke up to snow falling. Again, reports were that there would only be about an inch of accumulation. We decided to go for it.

At the start of the hike: had been graupeling for maybe 30 minutes at this point. Trees where totally snow-free when we arrived, and the ground is just dusted. 

No snow on the ground when we started at Wright's Lake, but it was graupeling. (Which was ok because it all bounced off and we stayed very dry! At first.). Then the snow started...and got heavier...and heavier....it was crazy! When we started around noon  the trail was essentially clear (but for the dusting of graupel). About three miles in we were slogging through the accumulating snow, which was up to 8" in some places! Nuts. If we had been there a week before...there would have been no snow in that area! We met up with some hikers coming out who said that it was piling up very quickly farther in. That, combined with the problem that I had developed a stomach ache that was getting progressively worse...we decided that we weren't having fun at all, so decided to ditch our trip and turn around. A hard decision to make for us, since we are usually pretty hardy folks! Particularly hard because all of the weather forecasts showed great sunny weather for Sunday and Monday..but we couldn't get past the snow falling fast on us Saturday....

Then in started to snow.

At Wright's Lake campground. Much less snow here than farther in!

When we got back from our failed attempt: I wish we had "before we started hiking" and "upon our return" pictures to show how great the area looked hours before this picture was taken!

Back at the van, everyone was wet and the van was covered with about 4-5" of snow (mind you, when we arrived earlier there was no snow!!). Adam started to drive and we slid all over the parking lot (I don't tolerate this well) and Adam luckily had purchased chains for times like this. We chained up, and drove out with no problems. Without the chains, we would have camped there and waited until the snow melted to drive out!

We got a steak dinner on the way home to console ourselves. :)

New Year, no snow?

Still no snow up in Tahoe. We've spent some time up there recently, started 2012 out with a hike and bike on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Biking! In Tahoe! On New Year's Day! Holy cow...

The boys mountain biking TRT on Jan 1 2012.

Sunset over Tahoe.

Happy buddies.

Waiting for the bikers to return from their ride.

Hope everyone has a wonderful 2012. Fresh starts and new beginnings. Cheers!

October Sierra Romps

After the early October storm we had, Adam, the dogs, and I went up to South Lake Tahoe for a weekend.

It was cold! And snowy!

Saturday we were at Echo lake.

We even got out the doggles!

After our Echo Lake snow hike (we just did an out-and-back from the Echo Lake trailhead..didn't go that far due to increasingly deep snow), we drove down to Hope Valley to camp in our usual spot. That night it got down to 28 degrees! In the morning we were treated to beautiful frosty sagebrush view. 

My favorite. 

How good weekends end: sleepy dogs in the van!

Mt. Rose Weekend: Cooking

A week ago we went up to Tahoe for the weekend. We drove up to Auburn and ran and biked in the ravine, and then drove up the hill Saturday evening. We drove on Highway 267 and, just after Brockway Summit, turned off the highway and drove out the (paved!) road to Watson Lake. We found the small (free!) campground and parked the van, and then went on a short hike to the summit of Mt. Watson. The campground is totally rustic (parking spaces and fire rings but nothing else), but it was quiet and scenic, and we liked it. 

Then, we cooked! 

We baked bread in the dutch oven. I had pre-made the dough in the bread machine. 

We drank tea, and made a chicken pot pie filling to eat with our freshly baked bread.

For dessert, I went all out and made blondies (read: butter, brown sugar, a little flour), with three kinds of chips: mini semi-sweet and regular size dark chocolate, and peanut butter. Yes!

The next morning...

We drove up Mt. Rose and Adam and Brian mountain biked, and I hiked with the dogs on the Tahoe Rim Trail. We saw two deer! Big ones. And some great views: 

I loved the meadow near where we parked.