27 posts tagged “hiking”

I've had many intentions of posting my latest cooking experiment, but the millet feta patties never quite 'pattied', and ended up a tasty but ugly mess.  And the balsamic reduction over grilled fruit wasn't that pretty.  That and we'd finished it before I'd remembered the camera.

With my conference now over and a very slight lull before some other projects (and vacation planning), I'm at a loss for exciting adventures to post.  It's settled into a routine again - work, play, eat, sleep - and I'm not inspired enough to make my characteristic cynical observations.  Maybe it's the continued rain & clouds? I say I like the change from the incessant sunshine, but maybe the greyness is taking its toll.  In any case....

Our weekend was slightly stymied by the early onset of clouds & drizzle on Saturday, so we opted for a hike instead of a mountain bike ride.  We headed to the Desolation Wilderness to see how snowy the trail to Lake Aloha was.  It was mostly clear to the last half mile, and we would have explored further had the sleet and hail not hit us hard.  Since we had the dog with us, and she doesn't have a rain jacket - oh the humanity - we turned back.  It was a little under 13 miles, which is a decent hike, but not one that should have wiped the mutt out like it did. 

I think this is a sign she's getting older. 

It's been a few weeks since I've gone hiking.  Life, work and my boyfriend's injured foot meant more mountain biking and less time to commit to a long-distance nature walk.

So I was excited that I had Saturday to hike, and had grand plans to go to Lake Schmidell, located in the center of the Desolation Wilderness.  I hadn't banked on the gray changeable weather that greeted me that morning, but figured that we (the dog and I) would go as far out as we could until the rain/snow/windstorms arrived.  The early morning clouds did mean that I was rewarded with an awesome sunrise.

The brief bit of sun was quickly obscured by clouds, and then wind, and then some rain.  I decided to turn back a few miles from Schmidell, instead taking a long loop back via Fontanellis Lake.  It was there that I bumped into a few long distance trail runners, 2 middle aged guys with their dog who were running trails from Echo Lakes to Barker Pass along the PCT  - 20 some odd miles?  I was more impressed with their dog doing that run than with them, as that's a long distance for a dog.  Soleil was more impressed with her stick than the dog.

While evidence of last week's storm is visible on the north facing slopes, it'll be awhile until Dick's Peak is truly skiable.  I'm staying optimistic that we'll see another cold snap this month, as Tahoe's economy, so reliant upon tourism, could use an early and long winter season.

We made it back to the car right before the drizzle began in earnest, and while the Bayview parking lot had a number of cars in it, I only saw 3 groups of hikers - all in the last 3 miles - all day.  Which exactly why I love hiking in the autumn.

It was only Monday last I looked.  How did it become mid-September already?

The wind from our Labor Day trip to Mammoth must have pushed the time by all the quicker.  It's quite versatile, that wind.  Not only did it exfoliate my face with the help of the pumice that's native to Mammoth, but it kept thing exciting at our hotel, the Tamarack Lodge, by rattling windows and trees and gusting to ridiculous speeds (I heard 95 mph on the local weather).

Despite the unusual weather, it was refreshing to get out of Dodge for a weekend and enjoy some cooler temps, different scenery and see old friends.  N had spent Saturday morning doing maintenance on the Ski Club Lodge (a keeping it real quonset hut perched on some prime Mammoth real estate), so we stole a few hours in the afternoon to do a short hike.  That meant Mammoth frontcountry, which is polluted with people, many of whom have no clue about hiking etiquette.  N had words with some retards who insisted on cutting the trail, and the idiots acted contrite but continued to do so until he caught up with them again.  However, there was a lake within short distance which meant the dog could swim, so we suffered stupidity for her needs.

She amused the various groups of Japanese tourists (there were many) who weren't familiar with a dog prancing with a log.

Most people just hike to and from the lake, but we continued another half hour up the trail to the Mammoth Crest, which is well worth it for the views.

The best part of the hike was the descent - it took only 20 minutes to descend what took an hour to climb, and got us back to the Tamarack Lodge in time for cocktail hour.

A 19 mile hike through some rugged and gorgeous terrain in the Desolation Wilderness followed by a diving three-course meal at a local french restaurant.  All I need now are the palm frond wavers and the masseur to make it a three star kind of day.

My mother came up to visit us last weekend, and while we tend to steer towards hiking and enjoying the area's natural attractions, I wanted to show her the other side of Lake Tahoe, that of the area's culture (don't laugh) and history. It's a side I don't usually explore, to be honest, but one I wanted to learn about.

Thursday night we had tickets to see a celtic duo, Men of Worth, at the Valhalla Boathouse Theater.   Being that the boathouse is located on the lake, I suggested a picnic beforehand, and the champagne, sushi & other nibbles at the lake's edge set the mood for the evening.  The performance was surprisingly enjoyable for me, a non-celtic music lover, a balance of classical Irish/Gaelic songs and Irish banter.

The next day we drug Mom up to D.L. Bliss State Park, just north of Emerald Bay.  I'd never been there before, primarily because dogs are not allowed on the hiking trails, but we wanted to do a short hike with minimal elevation gain and maximum views, and the Rubicon Trailhead, located in the heart of the park, fits the bill.  We even climbed up to the anticlimatic lighthouse that looks surprisingly like an outhouse.

Part of the reason for the short hike was because we had tickets for an afternoon tour at the Thunderbird Lodge, a fantastic lakefront mansion built by an eccentric millionaire on Lake Tahoe's east shore. 

Having only done this tour once before in the autumn, I wasn't aware that it was so popular with the geriatric set.  The 3 of us (we met a friend of mine for the tour) brought the average age of the shuttle bus-- including the deaf but adorable driver -- down by about 25 years, and I'm still disappointed I wasn't able to surreptiously snap some photos of our fellow tour-takers, as they were almost as fascinating as the lodge itself.  This news would no doubt disappoint our tour guide, an older snazzy gentleman who was concerned enough about his coiff to break out his comb multiple times during the tour to comb back imaginary stray hairs. He was able to keep his banter/schpiel going during this, however, which was pretty impressive.

I didn't take many photos of Thunderbird, primarily because watching everyone else snap away fatigued me.  I did, however, capture the Thunderbird boat, a gorgeous mahogany yacht that has a story and history of its own.  It's stunning.

Thunderbird is available for hosted parties and weddings, so I'm hoping that one day I get to attend something held here, as that's the best way to enjoy the gorgeous location.   Anyone got a party coming up and need a venue?

After all this history and culture, I was exhausted - this is obviously something I need to work up to.  So I got out of cooking dinner and we instead watched the sunset on the patio of the Fresh Ketch over ahi tuna and drinks.  Definitely not a bad way to end a cultural marathon 24 hours!

A friend called me yesterday to invite me on a full moon/sunrise hike up Mt. Tallac, and while the notion of waking up at 3.30 am wasn't all that thrilling, the idea of hiking in cooler temps was.  So I sacrificed a few hours of sleep to make the 4 am trailhead call.

Not many photos were taken, primarily because once the sun came up it was pretty hazy. However, in between climbing up 3,000 feet and batting away the $#&# early-rising mosquitoes, I did capture a few of the sun rise.

Hiking in the Swiss Alps is a humbling experience in so many ways.  Here the trails are steep and narrow and sometimes exposed, leaving you with a clear view of the river/precipice/gorge below.  Here switchbacks are for the weak, and trails climb steeply upward, making mileage a useless measure of distance – which is why trails are marked in number of hours instead of number of kilometers.  Here you find people of all ages, including the old and the infirm, and all appear to nimbly make their ways up and down the mountains.

 

I found this tour both exhilarating and hugely humbling.  Having done the Tour du Mt. Blanc some years back, I figured that this one, entirely in Switzerland, would be along the same lines in terms of trails.  Either I blanked out some scary moments while circumnavigating Mt. Blanc or that tour was truly easier.  Using the Tour de Mt. Blanc as a reference point, I didn’t do a whole lot of research outside of looking at an English guide book (which made cursory mention of hand-guides, those chains that are attached to a rock face when there’s a steep drop off), and in hindsight, ignorance was bliss.  Had I known what we were gonna get into, I probably would have chickened out.

As it was, the worst parts of the overall tour took up about an hour while descending the Pas d’Encel gorge near the town of Champery.   We had been open jawed for most of the morning, with the all encompassing views of this mountain chain, its glaciers and the high elevation pastures.  Rounding the corner to this gorge we saw Champery literally underneath us, and it didn’t dawn on me how we’d actually hike down until I crossed a bridge and noticed that N was no longer in sight and there was what looked to be a cliff a few feet in front of me.   It was actually a rock step, and the first few were amusing, but after a couple more steeper ones, including one where you had to drop about 20 feet before you saw any trail, I started to get nervous.  Ironically enough I have a fear of heights.  Just as my nerves started to get to me, a family of 6, with 3 small kids and an older grandmother type, cross our paths as they made their ascent.  That jeered me into continuing without having a full-fledged panic attack, but just barely.

We continued down on some genuine goat paths barely wide enough for my feet, let alone hips, and crossed the gorge.  Looking up I was hard pressed to find the actual trail we took.  Can you?

 

Happily the rest of that day’s hike was relatively benign.  A steep climb up an alpine pasture or two, a contour of the Dents du Midi’s flanks, and then finally, beautifully, the Refuge d’Anteme.  Located at 2,000 meters, just under the cliffs of the Dents du Midi, this hut is a small dormitory affair of the keeping it real genre.  However, they do serve pastis, which is what I promptly ordered upon arrival.  I figured with approximately 4,000 feet of ascent and 3,800 feet of descent (often on my ass) I deserved a most un-alpine like cocktail.  And it was damn tasty.

After a surprisingly relaxed flight, thanks to a dose of prescription drugs, I'm slowly recovering from jetlag with ample Swiss cheese, wine and chocolat.  We landed in Zurich yesterday morning, and after a coffee and a shower at N's mom's flat, went into town to hit the H&M sale and buy some maps for our hiking trip.  She and her husband live in a gorgeous old building that handily houses the school he teaches at.  From their place it's a short hop on one of Zurich's many regular trams into the town center, and it was comforting to see how familiar the places looked.  Bittersweet, too, for we learned that his mom's looking to leave Switzerland to be closer to family, so our regular trips to visit her may not come as regularly.  Quelle tristesse.

Views from the Zurich flat are nice...

 

A few photos from the Chasseral, as promised earlier.

 

 

And my feet hate me.  I'm trying to break in my new beefy Scarpa hiking boots for our upcoming trip to Switzerland, as we're planning on doing a 3 day hut-to-hut hike in the Valais region.  While I ordered the boots well over a month ago, a stupid foot injury has prevented me from doing much walking the past two weeks.  With our departure date looming I decided to get out there today, and hiked to Lake Aloha with the dog, starting from the Lily Lake trailhead.

The good news is that the boots supported the part of my foot that had been tender.  The bad news is that after 12 miles my toes were not all that happy.  They're still not talking to me 2 hours later.  However, I've got a back up pair of shoes I'm going to bring, and I'm hoping that planning-for-contingency results in no foot discomfort whatsoever.

Trail conditions are much snowier this year than last, and I got to test out the boots on a number of snowbanks between Susie Lake and Lake Aloha.  The dog was, as usual, thrilled, and seems to have recovered from any disappointment over failing Friday's audition.

Right now I'm feeling my age - and feet.  Twelve miles didn't used to exhaust me like this.  Dunno how I'm going to cope with 42 kilometers next month, but the promise of hiking in the land of chocolate will no doubt provide incentive.

Lake Tahoe has seen little to no real precipitation of note since March.  This week that all changed as an atypical storm cycle moved in, giving our part of the Sierra a bit of PNW damp and foggy flavah.  While it's been wet and a bit dreary the past few days, the storm really moved in last night.  We woke up to steady drizzling rain this morning, and as things were pretty wet already, figured a mountain bike ride was not the call.  Instead we packed up the mutt and headed to the Tahoe Rim Trail at Spooner Summit for a bit of exploratory hiking.  That was a good idea, for not 5 minutes into the hike the rain turned to genuine snow, making for much more enjoyable conditions.  The dog frolicked in the snow with various sticks and logs, and we were able to get out 5 some odd miles before deciding to turn back (there was shopping to be done in Reno).  Despite the fat flakes falling, the trail was pretty clear overall.

The added bonus for me was that I was able to further break in my new hiking boots, and only had noticeable foot pain in the last mile.  I'm hoping that this means I get can through 3-4 days of the Swiss Alps in these suckers in another month.  On va voir, as they say over there.

So it was all the nicer to receive a surprise pair of hand knitted socks in the mail today thanks to my jet-setting Grandmother, who's currently somewhere in the Mediterranean as I type.  New socks, a roaring fire and a glass of wine - the perfect end to an unseasonable (but fun!) day.