Tahoe Area: December 2004 Archives

So, here's the thing. I forgot all about the photos on my computer from our Annual Thanksgiving Roadtrip Hiking Snowshoeing Skiing Climbing Camping Extravaganza. I've finally got around to uploading them to the photo album, and only a month late! They can be found here.

The trip was nine days long and went roughly like this:

Day 1: Snowshoeing and Skiing Castle Peak near Donner Summit with Paige, Steve, and Patrick
Day 2: Drive from Reno to Bishop, camp in Bishop. It was cold. I'm a wuss.
Day 3: Bouldering at the Happy Boulders and skiing along the road to South Lake (but not all the way to South Lake)
Day 4: Skiing to Mosquito Flat (along Rock Creek road) in the morning, bouldering in the afternoon
Day 5: Skiing all the way to South Lake along the road, bouldering in the afternoon
Day 6: Bouldering at the Sad Boulders in the morning, drive to Death Valley with a scenic stop at the Alabama Hills below Mt. Whitney. Also, Thanksgiving Dinner at Panamint Springs and playing on the dunes at Stovepipe Wells
Day 7: Hike up Wildrose Peak
Day 8: Drive the 4WD roads to Marble Canyon, hike in and around the canyon
Day 9: Hike the Panamint Dunes, then drive home

Then collapse and start planning next year's trip.

Paige took some wonderful photos on our Emigrant Lake snowshoe trip. You can see them here.

Saturday morning David and I met Paige up at Kirkwood Inn. We found a place
to park near the gauging station on Caples lake and threw on our packs. The
planned destination was Emigrant Lake, a lake nestled below Melissa Coray
and Covered Wagon peaks (close to the eastern boundary of Kirkwood ski
resort). The first few miles were simply along the shores of Caples Lake -
with the recent warm weather and rain we didn't venture too far out on the
ice, though it was quite thick in most areas. We followed the shorline to
the southernmost tip of the lake where the trail description said to follow
the Emigrant Creek drainage up to Emigrant Lake. Easier said than done,
that's for sure!

Due to the snow this past week there was no broken trail. Dave took the
lead and broke trail through some sinky wet snow. We had to pause
frequently to take our bearings (and catch our breath) - lets just say that
there are many possible 'drainages' that can be followed! Even with three
maps and two compasses we weren't sure of our exact location (I need to get
my GPS in to Magellan for repair!). The ridges and peaks around us were
mostly obscured by trees, and when we did get a brief glimpse of something
it wasn't enough to determine our location. What was really frustrating was
seeing so many things that fit the trail description in the Snowshoe trails
of Tahoe book. We were supposed to 'go to the left' of a certain landmark,
and we saw about 8 things that could have been that landmark!

In any case, we ended up setting up camp in a nice flat little hollow at the
base of a small rock wall without making it to the lake. Paige set up her
tent, I set up my Hex 2, and David dug a snowcave (yep, there was enough
snow and sunlight left for that). It was pretty warm out for a winter trip,
so we were able to stay up late sipping our hot and tasty drinks while
watching the stars come out. Of course, the definition of 'late' to
snowcampers is 6:00 - it was perfectly dark out by then! By 8:00 I was snug
in my sleeping bag reading a book, and off to sleep soon after.

In the morning we put out our stuff to dry and strapped on the snowshoes for
another attempt at Emigrant Lake. We thought it was just a little beyond
our campsite, but we were wrong! After going up and up for a while we were
ready to turn around, thinking we may have gone up the wrong drainage and
were in the wrong bowl, or perhaps even well above the lake. However, we
just wanted to check one little ridge on the way back and it ended up being
the flat clearing before the lake. I think it was 20% navigation skills and
80% luck that we found it! After a few moments at the beautiful snow
covered lake, we followed our tracks back to camp and packed up for the hike
out.

Since we weren't pausing to routefind and break trail on the way out, the
hike went quickly. We had a yummy lunch at the Kirkwood Inn and were on the
road long before sunset. This was my first snowcamping trip of the season
and I had a great time - I'm looking forward to the next outing! Paige was
the only one with a camera on this trip, and I bet there are going to be
some great pictures!