Donner Weekend: Tahoe Lake Bike and Mt. Judah Hike

This past weekend we did our usual: hop in van after work and head up the hill. This time, we met my parents at the cabin at Donner Lake.

On Saturday, they very kindly and graciously watched the doggies while we went on a long bike ride: we rode around Lake Tahoe! I didn't take any photos (forgot the camera in the van..), but my takeaway message is: I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I'll ever do it again.

The ride wasn't very hard, and it definitely has views of the lake that are amazing! We rode it clockwise. My least favorite parts were the section on Highway 50 east of South Lake Tahoe, where the road is 4 lanes, there is more traffic, and most of the time there is no shoulder (it felt like riding on the freeway to me--too scary). I also didn't particularly like the road coming into Emerald Bay, but that's my own dislike of heights (it's a little steep and cliffy).

BUT--I loved the ride along the east shore (less traffic great views) and I liked a lot of the west shore ride, too--good views (Emerald Bay is beautiful), interesting houses to look at, a good climb and some fun (not too steep) descents.

Saturday evening we went to a neighborhood potluck, which was fun with good food and interesting folks.

Sunday, we went hiking with my parents! We took my mom up to the top of Mt. Judah (on the Mt. Judah Loop trail). It was really fun and the wildflowers were AMAZING.

The photo isn't great but this is a hillside covered in Lupines, indian paintbrush, larkspur, penstemon, yellow and purple asters, and some mule's ears!

Monster big indian paintbrush.

Took this pic for my mom--the Phlox growing in the rocks is so pretty!

Some nice views! This photo has Anderson Peak and Tinker's Nob in it, with the PCT leading up to them both.

Us, with Donner Lake in the background (and the omnipresent I80 corridor..). 

Great weekend! Home now and Adam made us a delicious dinner while I put away stuff from our trip. Busy week ahead (like usual...).

Donner Lake, Granite Chief, Tahoe: Hike and Bike Sierra Weekend

Man, it has been a busy week!
I'm glad to reflect on last weekend and look forward to this one coming up.

Last Friday after work we hopped in the car and drove up to our family cabin at Donner Lake (near Truckee). This is a change for us as usually we use the cabin in the winter when camping conditions aren't ideal. It was nice to sleep with the doors and windows open in the house and not have to climb over 5 feet of snow to get to the front door!

The van hung out in the parking spot:

On Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast in front of the TV (the cabin has cable--WAY more channels that we get at home...although we usually end up watching HGTV endlessly...). (And yeah, that's a mattress on the floor...the pull out bed is bad and the floor mattress is only marginally better..)

The dogs hung out:

And look who we brought! Brucie!

We went for a short walk with the dogs, and then got ready to go for a bike ride. The dogs would spend the morning napping in the van while we explored the Tahoe area on two wheels! We rode from our cabin at Donner over to Truckee, rode around there looking for an elusive bike path (we found it, it was nice but short), then rode out highway 267 to Tahoe.

267 goes from Martis Valley (low) to Brockway Summit (high) to Kings Beach (lower but not as low as Martis Valley). That is one heck of a climb!! I'm glad I didn't really know what I was getting myself into! We then rode over to Tahoe City and then back to the cabin via Highway 89. Very nice, about 53 miles total. (And I gave myself bonus points for that big climb.)

The bike path we found near downtown Truckee. Good place to walk dogs!

I was out of breath while taking this photo.

After our great ride, husband ate some lunch and then left me at home with the animals to go to a truckee-river-float-themed batchelor party for a work friend. I had the afternoon to myself to rest (and, work! I had a bunch of stuff to do relating to my job as a board member/secretary/editor for a local non-profit). 

So, I set up a mini home office in this wonderful setting:

But first, I was starving. 

So I got out the ancient retro-cool blender.

And filled it with strawberries I had frozen in late spring, plus frozen sliced bananas, a little vanilla ice cream, and some milk.

Retro-cool blender still works pretty good! I'm sure this machine is older than I am.

Perfect lazy afternoon work snack. 

Views from my weekend home office (in real life there is more lake)

Weird dog chilled out in the cat bed.

Lazy dog chilled out on our bed!

The dogs and I went on a couple of walks around the neighborhood to stretch our legs. 

Relaxing neighborhood walk. Off leash!

Ahhhhhh.....so nice.

Views of Donner!

Then Adam came home. He got some snuggles from Dude:

Adorbs!

That night we made *amazing* dinner: smashed potatoes with blue cheese, 

grilled pork chops, grilled summer squash, and brownies. 

The next morning, we relaxed and I made some buckwheat pancakes, 

fresh eggs, bananas, and jasmine green tea. 

After that, husband went out to wash the van...our water at home is so hard that it coats everything with mineral grime, so washing at the cabin is a good choice since the water is much better there!

Yes, he's on top of the van. And yes, the van looks really big from this angle. And yes, the van is actually just really big.

After van washing we packed up the dogs (left Bruce at the cabin) and went for a hike out of the Alpine Meadows area to the Five Lakes Basin in the Granite Chief Wilderness.

This hike is a varied one, as we went through forest, exposed scrubby slopes, granite, and back into a green valley. The lakes basin isn't spectacular (a lot of folks don't realize they've passed all of the lakes)--but if you want to explore there are some good swimming areas. We went past the lakes onto the PCT and got some views of Sierran valleys. It was nice! There were a few mosquitos in the shady areas and around the lakes so I'd recommend bug spray of some sort if you go up there soon. 

Phlox (white/lavender) and Penstemon (pink).

Sierra valley views! Lovely.

Unfortunately this is as good as the portraits got during the weekend.

After our hike, we went back to the cabin and got Bruce and drove home. It was a very nice weekend! I'd recommend the Five Lakes Basin hike if you want to explore around some small (semi-hidden) lakes. You might want to go early, though--it was busy on the trail and we started around 9:30am. 

Looking forward to more weekends like this soon! Have a good week!

Eagle Lakes, Soda Springs, Meeks Bay--all in a weekend

This is what our Saturday mornings look like. Van, dogs, cereal...

We had another Sierra trip this past weekend. As always, it was sort of a whirlwind, but we did get some good downtime in, in addition to road biking, hiking, exploring, van camping, etc.

The dogs love our Auburn camp spot. Lots of small mammals, birds, and a coyote even ran right by us!

We started out driving to Auburn Friday after work and going to our secret van camping spot. In the morning on Saturday (after breakfast and wildlife viewing, see pics above), we parked the van in the shade (and turned on the dog ventilation system--some great window fans) and took our road bikes out for a hill-laden voyage. We miss hills and hadn't gone for a ride away from Davis in WAY too long!

One of my favorite hills, Baxter Grade, going up..

Mt. Vernon Road

After riding, we let the dogs out for a short romp then drove up the hill farther to the Eagle Lakes area. We wished we had brought our hike book (it now lives in the van along with our Sierra Natural History book), because we didn't have any great ideas of places to go. So, we ended up in an OHV area hiking on dirt roads. It was OK, except that we chose the wrong road and ended up not going to Eagle Lakes! We did get a good workout though, and the dogs loved it. I think this area would be a great start point for a backpacking trip--there are a bunch of lakes back in there!

The first mile probably averaged around an 18-20% grade...

Not the most amazing view, but we did agree that the I80 corridor is crazy--several
roads and train tracks make for a big swath through the mountains.

Dude cuteness on the trail.

After our hike, we drove up to Soda Springs Road, intending to drive to the end of the road to a trailhead so we could hike to Tinker's Nob on Sunday. Unfortunately, the road was very rutted and (after we got the van unstuck from a very tiny ditch) we decided to just find a camp spot and hike elsewhere the next day. Much to our surprise and excitement, we ended up here: 

With this:

(FYI: That is the same margarita mix we had at our wedding from
World Market, we really recommend it and we want to try the other mixers they make!)

Another pizza from the dutch oven: crust pre-made by me with tomato sauce, italian cheese blend, broccoli, pepperoni, and nectarine. The nectarine added and amazing sweetness that really complimented the other flavors! 

The camp spot had great views and the dogs LOVED it. Even Spencer was totally happy sniffing in the bushes. This video is probably only entertaining to me, but I also did a 360 at the end to show the views!

On Sunday we drove to Meek's Bay at Lake Tahoe and did a ~10 mile hike out to a couple of lakes. We hiked out on FR 14N42 (see map here) to a line of lakes. This area was a nice day hike (lots of flowers) and would be a good point for a weekend backpacking trip so you could see more lakes than we did in a day. Recommended! The second lake we reached was warm enough to swim and we had fun (Spencer swam with us and we forced Carex to give it a try..). 

Gilia (sky rockets)

Aquilegia (columbine)

Our swimming lake.

The face of a dog who doesn't like water and went swimming anyway... (this is
after she had the crazies and ran all over the place after swimming to shore!)

In all, we had a great weekend. We hiked out, got an ice cream cone on the way home and made it back to Bruce the cat at home before dinner!

Happy about swimming.

Until next time...have a great week!

Iva Bell Hot Springs

This past weekend we took a much needed (if short) vacation. This post should help you if you're thinking of doing a backpacking trip to Iva Bell Hot Springs, and it might be extra helpful if you are thinking of bringing dogs. Maybe it will also inspire you to take your own weekend vacation!

Carex in the granite on the way out.

We decided to start at the Devil's Postpile National Monument in Mammoth Lakes, CA. We hiked Fish Creek Trail (Starting at the Rainbow Falls trailhead) out to Iva Bell, which is 11.8 miles one way.

Potentilla!

We took off from work a little early on Friday, jumped in our van with the dogs, and headed to Mammoth Lakes. We slept in the van Friday night at a trailhead, and arrived at the Ranger Station before 8 am on Saturday to pick up our wilderness permit. We reserved a permit weeks beforehand online, so we just had to grab the permit and rent a bear can at the Station. Click here for more information about the Fish Creek trail and permits.

Hiking in.

Because the trail started in the National Monument, we had to take a shuttle to the trailhead (bought our shuttle tickets at the Mammoth Mountain resort--info here). Normally that would be simple, but with dogs, it's a little more involved and stressful! (Info on dogs in the Monument here.) We did survive. They allow dogs on all shuttles, but they have to wear muzzles. Our dogs (especially the German shepherd) aren't used to wearing muzzles, so that was a bonus fun factor (picture dog freaking out from being on full loud bus trying to madly scratch the muzzle off its face in very cramped quarters while you also hold a huge backpacking pack...).

There was a little runoff...(the trail is a stream)

Anyway, we made it to the trailhead in one piece (even the muzzles). The dogs wore their packs, and we had ours. The trail to the hot springs isn't particularly difficult, but it was hot and we wanted to do it all in one day. I'm not going to share exactly where the springs are--you have to find them like we did--but, this is a very handy resource: GPS track to springs. Sort of unfortunate that it's on the internet...but the number of people permitted on the trail per day is fairly low, plus the long hike makes it less likely the springs will be crowded. On the 4th of July weekend there were other folks out there but everyone was polite and quiet and twice we had a pool to ourselves!

Worth every step.

We hiked all 11.8 miles in one day (1 night camping at the springs), and made good time in and out (we'd approximate about 6 hours trailhead to springs). We are "pushers" though--we stopped for lunch and water but towards the end, when you really really want to stop, and your feet really hurt, and you just want to sit down...we kept hiking.

Dog bliss.

Wish you were here? Probably.

The springs are amazing--I have never before been to such a beautiful hot spring with deep and clear pools! Some are surrounded by meadows and some are in rocky areas (there are 4-5 pools total). The rocky pools are higher up and have amazing views of the John Muir Wilderness. Completely awe-inspiring! There are several nice campsites around the springs, we didn't get either of the best ones but ours was still good, a little farther from the pools but that kept it extra quiet.

Not a bad place to camp...

On the hike out we saw a bunch of wildlife! A deer, a black bear, and a rattlesnake. The bear was my first seen on the trail, and was actually a really good experience because I have an irrational fear of bears--the one we saw on this trip was totally scared and scampered off as soon as s/he saw us. Yay. The rattlesnake was also not dangerous as it had its mouth full with a bird! (Though rattlesnakes are a regular sighting at my place of work, so those aren't anything unusual to me.)

Siesta on the hike out.

On the way out we took it a little slower and stopped near a stream for a siesta in the shade. We rinsed off and ate and napped for a couple of hours, and refreshed hit the trail again. We got back to the Monument around 5:30 and walked by the Postpile (I hadn't been before) and took the shuttle out. We were lucky as the driver let us get on a bus going farther into the Monument (an empty bus!) so we could ride to the end and stay on for the ride back with our good seats (in the back, where our packs could go up behind our seats leaving room for the dogs on our laps/on the floor).

Camping Sunday night.

Once out, we got in the van and found a dispersed camp site to park at--it was amazing!! A large sagebrushy opening where we watched the sunset and made our dinner and explored. The next morning, we drove to Hot Creek, a geothermal area that used to be open to swimmers but is now closed. It's still a neat place to visit as the creek is in a beautiful canyon with a bunch of hot pools bubbling up around a very scenic cold water creek. We drove past the creek and found a spot off the road to park, and Adam set up the shower so we could wash off and make breakfast while the dogs explored. It was fantastic! Best morning I've had in a long time. Taking a shower in the warm morning sun of the high desert...not bad.

Hot Creek: apparently no hats allowed.

After our morning in the sagebrush we drove north on 395 to Virginia Lakes. We took the dogs on a short (probably less than 4 miles round trip) hike past three different high elevation lakes (above 9,000 feet), where we encountered more snow in that short hike than we had backpacking the previous two days.

Virginia Lakes: more snow, higher up.

After the hike, we piled into the car and headed home, north on 395 to Highway 88 back to the Valley. We saw some neat areas off of 88 that we hope to explore later this summer as we haven't been in that area yet. We stopped in a shady spot in some aspens for another afternoon siesta on our way home...we popped the top on the van and let the warm breeze through the car to sleep for about an hour (we tired ourselves out the previous couple of days)...again, heavenly! After all that, we still made it home by dinner time.

Castilleja.