6.29.17 ... Bassi Falls ... it's my birthday so I'll hike if I want to!

Hike Details:

• Elevation - 5,075' - 5,575'
• Location - From Sacramento take Hwy. 50 East. About 20 miles past Placerville take a left turn on Ice House Road. Follow this road (very windy, but beautiful) for about 18 miles. (At about 12 miles is the Crystal Basin Ranger Station on the right--nice bathrooms, worth stopping!) Continue on until you cross a bridge over a creek. Big Silver Group Campground is on the left, and the turnoff to Bassi Falls is immediately across from it on the right. Take the turn, then when you reach a fork in the road, you can go left and drive up to within about a half mile from the falls. But we drove to the right and parked in a big open area where a trail headed down to the right towards the creek. It's about 2 miles to the falls from here, see the picture below with the sign.
• Mileage - 4.5 miles roundtrip
• Hiking time - 3 hours

I didn't make this map but it's pretty close to what we hiked. The green arrow is the turnoff from Ice House Road.

6.6.17 ... Carr Lake

Hike Details:

• Elevation - 6600' - 6800'
• Location - from I-80, take the exit for Hwy. 20 East, drive about 4 miles then turn right onto Bowman Lake Road, follow it for about 8 miles, watching for the turnoff on the right to Carr Lake. This is where the gravel road begins--sometimes fine, sometimes super bumpy. Then it's about 2 1/2 miles to the trailhead/campground parking area.
• Mileage - 3+ miles
• Hiking time - 2 hours

I was so happy my friend Melinda could hike with me! And not just because she always brings homemade chocolate chip cookies as trail food. ;) So our plan was to hike past Carr, Feeley and Island Lakes and on to Penner Lake.

But piles of snow changed that plan. We chatted with a Scout leader who was hiking in to meet up with his group. He told us the trail was about 95% covered with snow all the way to Island Lake.

We had to cross a little creek/waterfall to get over to Feeley Lake.

One side of the lake looked like summer.

And the other still looked like winter. Crazy!

We were up for a little snow hiking though and just did our best to follow tracks along the side of the lake.

After lots of little ups and downs on snow drifts, we thought we were getting closer to Island Lake, but saw there was yet another ridge of snow to cross. So we decided to turn around at that point and save the lake for another trip.

We headed back to Carr Lake to stop for lunch and enjoy the beautiful view.

I'll pick a sack lunch with this view over the finest restaurant any day!

On the way home on Bowman Lake Road we pulled off at the bridge over the South Yuba River to get a quick picture of the appropriately named Emerald Pools.There's just a short trail here but looks like a beautiful spot to check out sometime.

6.10.17 ... Hidden Falls Regional Park (again)

Hike Details:

• Elevation - 600-900 ft.
• Location - Hidden Falls Regional Park, Auburn, CA
• Mileage - 4-5 miles
• Hiking time - 2+ hours
• Route - map and information here

Just a quick Saturday morning outing with a group of kids from church as a pre-hike for a much longer "Pioneer Trek" (which will be 19 miles over 3 days in the Sierras). This was just a warmup to get them out on the trail doing some walking. Fortunately, it was a mercifully cool morning because otherwise Hidden Falls is a little too warm for summer hiking unless you plan to get wet in the creek (which one of the boys did accidentally, oops!).