warmer higher/colder lower

3 photos from Clarence

Fall Creek Mountain from Frank - next week?

Carence:

An interesting day on the North Fork of the Yuba. We started our hike in the cold! Surprisingly cold! We saw frost and ice on the river and everyone broke out their jackets and gloves. There was no sun in the canyon for quite a while.
My GPS would not "acquire" satellites in the narrow canyon so I turned it off until lunch time.
Eight of us set a good pace through the miners campsite and on to the Cherokee Creek footbridge, where we saw the first of the swarm of Lady bugs. Evidently they like this area for winter hibernation. They were thick. We continued the rest of the way to our lunch spot at the junction of the Yuba river and Canyon Creek. There we saw even more Lady Bugs. They were crawling and flying at our lunch spot. Good thing these are not the vicious type!!
The dry Autumn leaves completely covered the trail at times. This made it slippery and very hazardous at times when the trail was steep. Instead of sliding, Priscilla had to sit down and "scoot" down the path at one point. Of course this cleaned the leaves off for the rest of us following! Thanks Priscilla !
In the afternoon the temperature was up and we were sweating by the time we finished our 8 mile RT to the cars.
Yes, we did stop in NSJ for the bargain priced ice cream cones. We had a few strong willed people that resisted.
For next week we should look for a hike with Fall colors. Dogwood and Maple trees. Ideas were for: Omega road, Rock Creek area, or Lang Crossing to Spaulding . . . .

Elly:

With Jim as our leader our group of 6 hiked 9 miles clockwise from the Carr/Feeley parking up around Island Lake, bushwacking through the Crooked Lakes, wandering through a forest of down and logged trees, finally coming to the Grouse Ridge Trail. After about a mile, we took another right just short of Grouse Ridge to head back past Milk, Round, Long, Island, Delaney, Carr and Feeley Lakes. We paid our respects to each of the lakes, wondering what with all the Crooked Lakes, how many we had seen on one hike. As usual, we kept up a pretty good pace except when we were walking on rocks, logs, and flesh-tearing brush. It was a beauiful hike, with the usual fall color, beautiful granite rocks, perfect temperatures, and air clarity offered by the Sierra.

Our group came up with a Fall Creek Mountain hike for next week. It is somewhat short but there is plenty of rock climbing to be had for the mountain goat tendencies of some of us. If we feel we have not done enough miles at the end of our loop, maybe we will go to one of Clarence's suggestions.