Hiking with Heidi

I love making goals when the new year rolls around, when everything feels fresh and clean. It feels sort of like hitting the re-set button and starting over again. I always include some kind of goal for better health, but last year I also included a hiking goal -- to hike 50 miles in honor of my 50th birthday. Fortunately, I didn't specify whether it had to be all in one trip or not. Last summer was a crazy, busy one in our family so a multi-day backpacking trip wasn't going to happen. It was much more realistic to log 50 miles over the course of numerous day trips. Even that took some planning and scheduling, but I made it and did some great hikes! Probably my favorite one was the day after my birthday with this big group to Sierra Buttes Lookout -- it was awesome!  And to get to drag along two of my kids was extra fun! Now, on to 2015, hmm, what to do...I could add another mile and hike 51 miles for my 51 years, but nah. I "bagged" a few peaks in 2014,...

Hike Details: Elevation - 8,857 ft. Location -north of Sierra City, up above Packer Lake Mileage - 5-6 miles Hiking time - 4 hours Route - see map below, from Hwy. 49, turn onto Gold Lake Hwy, then follow signs to Packer Lake, when you reach Packer Lake, take a left at the Y intersection to continue up the single-lane paved road to the trailhead Weather - a little on the toasty side -- it was over 100° in the Valley, so we were happy to be out of that, but by the middle of the afternoon it was easily in the low 90's up where we were This will be one of those posts with a TON of pictures (I took my "big" camera because I knew it would be worth the weight), though pictures will not do justice to the incredible scenery and views from this hike! But here goes...