The Nilssen Family did our first long hike of the year today. On Friday Night the ward had a father son camp out. Horrible weekend to do the camp out, but Soren and I attended. It was at the Davis Creek Campground in Washoe Valley. I had never visited the campground before but they had a really nice group campsite. The forecast had been poor and I was a little hesitant to attend but it wound up being fine. I don't like car camping much. If I am going to camp I prefer to hike to a lake or hit a long trail, but kids still like it. Soren asked if we could cook Dutch Oven Pizza. There was actually a good video on YouTube on how to do it.
Dutch Oven Pizza
It was pretty easy. Soren and I were the envy of camp with our pizza.
One thing they stress in Scout Master Training is always push your comfort zone on food preparation when camping with the Scouts. Try and let them see that just because they are camping does not mean they need to eat bad food. I always get frustrated when the scouts cook a "foil dinner" on a camp out. You can actually do some really cool things.
The campground had a trail head to some really neat hikes. It was an area we had never hiked before. I did not feel there was time to do the hike with Soren on Saturday morning, but we decided to go back on Monday and do one of the hikes. The upper elevation hikes are still under a few feet of snow. The lakes are too cold to swim in, so this a great chance to do a new lower elevation hike. This area is called "slide mountain" based on a 1983 landslide where a large portion of the mountain was lost. The area has some interesting topography.
We hiked to the first lake, Rock Lake, which wound up being a longer hike than we had planned.
Wound up being around 8 miles round trip with a vertical gain of 2200 feet. All the kids did well which was a relief, but Liv was especially on her game. Liv and I were in the front the entire hike and Ashley stayed back to make sure Soren and Svea were still progressing. It really was not an ideal first long hike of the season.
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| The Group at the Trail Head! |
We all dressed appropriately. Good layers for a day where the high reached 55 degrees and we ran into some light rain at the end. We have almost all upgraded to Osprey Day Packs and find they are superior to the Camelbak.
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| Liv at the Trail Head - 3.9 more miles to Rock Lake |
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| High Mountain Meadow |
During the mining days the workers constructed "flumes" in the side of the hills which they would flood with water to transport timber down the mountain. You still find these flumes throughout the Sierra. The picture above is Liv in a tell tale "V" shaped flume.
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| Beautiful mossy waterfall |
Top picture is us in the debris from the 1983 landslide. An impressive amount of rock and debris. You can see now 35 years later vegetation is beginning to reestablish itself. There is also some larger trees on the edges of the slide that managed to stay upright. We had to cross the Ophir Creek in a few locations. Beautiful clear, cold and clean creek water. Nice of someone to construct some lashing bridges across the creek.
The above red "flowers" are actually fungi. The first time I saw them I referred to them as "California Snow Cones" due to their shape and red coloring. When we looked them up they are actually called "snow flowers." They are interesting and sprout up shortly after the snow melts. A sign of spring and the kids always get a kick out of them. These were the first of the year.
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| Water had used the trail as a path down the mountain so we had a challenging time staying dry. |
Almost there - 0.5 miles left. The trail was actually really well maintained and constructed. We probably passed about half dozen other hikers the whole day. Many hiking up to Price Lake which was another 1.5 miles. Liv actually said she wanted to hike up to Price Lake. She probably could have made it.
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| Still snow by the trail. Soren wasn't too happy with us as we approached the end of the long hike up to the lake. |
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| Finally Made It! |
Here is Rock Lake with Slide Mountain in the background. Amazing - the water was already kind of gunky. Looking at it I would think it would be dry by the end of the summer. There were some small fish which shows evidence the lake never completely evaporates, but I was surprised of the poor water quality so early in the season.
You will notice in the next photograph Liv is not wearing the same jacket. She slipped and went into the water. Landed on her back in about 6-inches of muck water. It was actually the 3rd time she had fallen in a body of water during the hike. The other kids managed to stay dry.
We did stop and get a geocache on the way back down. It required a detour off our main trail, but the kids are interested in Geocaching so we did it. The vista actually provided a great view of the entire Washoe Valley including Washoe Lake.
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| Svea wore this Eeyore tail most of the hike down. |
Really - the hike was too much. It took the whole day. Leave at 10:00 am and return at 7:00 pm. I had some things I wanted to get done on my day off, but I spent the whole time hiking. We look forward to getting more hikes completed this summer. Not sure there are many areas left we have not explored, but today was a new one. Pretty cool.
