Snowshoe 3 Lady Lakes

With the obvious drought-driven problems of high Sierra snow, it seems obvious that snow activities were not the way to go this year.  But one of our members, who received snowshoes for Christmas, was not to be deterred.  Humoring him, four of us headed to the pass so he could give them an inaugural try.  Up high, we were greeted by mildly cold weather and dirty, icy, Sierra cement.  The end-of-season detritus littered the snow: pieces of broken sleds, water bottles, candy wrappers, etc.  Gravel from I-80 had made it back to the trails in splattery spumes.  We trudged around on the potato patch of foot and paw prints, snowshoe and x-c ski indentations, and even snowmobile tracks. 

Fun?  Well actually yes, as our trudging got us into the back country where  there was smooth snow once we left the part that was parallel to the freeway.  The lakes were still frozen, icicles hung from rocks, and except for the need to go on steep side slopes, the going was less hard on the ankles.  We walked to some rocks above the east side of Lake Flora and ate lunch.  The view was stupendous, our beloved mountains, although somewhat covered in snow, will be hikeable soon. 

So we had hiked in a meandering loop about 4.2 miles as we had to circumvent jumping from cliffs in our efforts to find trails we could manage.  About a mile as the crow flies. We were exhausted!!

All of us fell.  Several times.

Gold Run Canyon Creek

Twelve of us headed to the Gold Run exit to try to find the plank crossing Canyon Creek we had crossed another year.  This time we would be more efficient as surely, we knew the correct trails.  But as luck would have it, we goofed again heading too far the other way from the ditch path.  We did see the huge drainage tunnel but this time we entered it from above rather than from below.  Frank pointed out the carbonized wood imbedded in the ceiling. 

We finally made it to the second tunnel and Canyon Creek.  A goodly number of hikers had no interest in going further to the plank bridge.  But Frank ran down there during lunch and verified it's existence, so we will try again with the smaller group.  The goal is to go down to the American River once we cross the creek.  We could see the trail on the way back.

Some of the trail was steep enough to either sit or be helped down.

Part of Canyon Creek comes out of this tunnel.

Today's hike was 5.3 miles with a 1163 ft. elevation gain.

We are still thinking about next week.  Right now we are considering a snowshoe hike  because one of our members got them for Christmas and has yet to use them.  We would hike the 3 Ladies starting at Boreal and will meet at the usual   place at 9 as the snow will be too icy if we arrive too early.