2 posts tagged “susie lake”
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.
With the 52,000 acre Moonlight Fire raging north of Lake Tahoe, we’ve had hazy skies all week. While forecasts have optimistically noted that the smoke would soon leave the basin, it has not, leaving us with hazy skies more reminiscent of Los Angeles than Lake Tahoe.
Regardless, the dog and I went hiking today, since the double whammy of Sunday and post-Labor Day meant far fewer people at the Glen Alpine trailhead. In the interest of Princess Wubber’s need for regular water, I selected a trail that would pass by 5 lakes – Half Moon, Susie, Heather, Aloha and Clyde. The latter is a favorite of mine, though it’s pretty far in, nearly 2 miles past Aloha over Mosquito Pass. But its relative distance means that in addition to deep azure waters surrounded by granite cliffs you get a lake to yourself, making the slog totally worth it.
The hazy sky gave all the lakes a steelier sheen than we usually see, and for some reason (global warming?) there were excessive clouds of buzzing gnats at Half Moon and the north end of Susie, something I’ve not seen before.
However, the water was refreshing, the dog sampled sticks of
varying sizes to complement her lake swims, and the few people we did encounter
were pretty nice.
Total mileage – 19.7 miles over a leisurely eight hours. Both the dog and I are pretty tired right now – she more than me though.
