Tahoe Weekend
Saturday Morning: Left home at 7:00am, got a ticket on Hwy 17,
skipped the Nimitz because I was in San Jose, took the Sig Sigmund
(named for the same guy Sig-Alerts were named for)
over the Sunol Grade to CA-84,
through Livermore, found a Donut Wheel for breakfast, took the
Arthur H Breed, Jr, past the wind farms over Altamont Pass, over
the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Aqueduct
(and then the Delta Mendota Canal),
to the Robert T Monagan Freeway, through California's
Sunrise Seaport, passing by the Ort Lofthus Freeway, onto the
Carleton E. Forbes, (saw a few egrets and one pair of great blue
herons) through River City, and onto US 50 East.
Saw a gardener's pickup truck labeled Lawn Order
before I got out of Sacto.
Near Folsom, there are some metal cutout-style "statue"s
on a hillside -- a few rabbits, chasing a wolf.
Ran into ten minutes of totally stop-and-go traffic
(just like the weekend Highway 17 San Jose to Santa Cruz
Beach traffic) due to the stoplights in Old Hangtown.
Just for scenic variety, I took off of US-50 onto the
Mormon Emigrant Trail. Of the several trails and passes
over the Sierra that are called "[Something] Emigrant Trail",
this is the only one that I know of that led EAST.
The Mormon battalions were released from military service
and were headed back to Utah.
It was they who named Hope Valley (just east of Carson Pass) and
the nearby Faith Valley and Charity Valley.
Near the Blue Lakes, it's all the upper basin of the West Fork
of the Carson River. Beautiful country.
I stopped at Carson Pass (just over 8500' elevation) and took
a short hike, one mile south on the PCT
(just past Frog Lake), then turning off to head for
Winnemucca Lake.
Very nice.
But the big surprise for me was the outstanding yellow and orange
colors of the Aspen trees in Hope Valley. Any SF Bay Area or
Sacramento folks ought to consider going up there this week. I took
more photos than these few.
Visited my folks, and did the short hike from Bayview
Trailhead (above the southwest corner of Emerald Bay),
over to Cascade Falls. Climbed a 500 or 700 foot high
knob of granite south of Cascade Creek, and got a fantastic
view of Cascade Lake with a strip of forest, and Tahoe and
the east-side mountains beyond. Sorry, forgot my camera.
On the way home, one field south of Sac'to had about
10 egrets in it.
1:14:41 AM
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