Sold Jetta

Bye little car. Just sold it to some guys from the internet after posting on Craigslist. I think I got a decent price. It was a young kid and he'll fix the car up and probably drive it. I told him to be careful.

Exploring Bowman Lake Road

Drove up 80 to 20 then Bowman Lake Road. I was hoping that enough snow had melted so I could hike to Spaulding Lake over the route I'd taken in snow shoes a while back. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Still I backtracked down the road a bit to a forest service road that gave access to the major granite. We explored the road and followed it past a small, unnamed lake and back to BLR. We hiked up BLR and then got back on top of the granite overlooking the small lake and bushwhacked back to the car. It wasn't a bad off trail trip and I'm only a little scratched up from a few parts where I had to scramble through mesquite or pines. The rock is beautiful. Mostly reddish but with swirls of color. I'm going to guess volcanic and iron. It's also interesting to see the granite layered (successive volcanic flows?) and then pushed up so the layers are vertical. We enjoyed lunch on some rocks under a sickly looking bristecone pine and then headed home.

Long drive to around Foresthill

Drove up Mosquito Hill road and environs to see if enough snow had melted to get to Granite Falls. It hadn't. Hiked along a forest service road and scrambled around in the brush following some cow tracks. Then tried to drive up Ralston Ridge to French Meadows. The road was good to the French Meadows road but it rapidly deteriorated with snow. It was getting late so we turned back. We took a brief look at the "Georgetown District History Tour" stop 15 which proclaimed that this was Blacksmith Flat and a "nearby" trail would lead to some mines. I could see where the old miners had blasted away the hills but couldn't find anything that looked like a trail or a mine. Still, it was a pleasant drive and two nice strolls.

Pluses and minuses of the new Ford Escape

Pluses: The way the back seat bottom folds makes a great place for the dog...it maximizes his comfort and minimizes the amount of fur. It's comfortable on long trips. The AC works great! The cupholder is well placed and so is the middle storage thingie. That middle storage thingie is huge so it stores a bunch of crap. The V4 is completely adequate for my needs. I was able to climb hills and accelerate onto the freeway with no problem. Visibility is great...huge windows, no big "things" in the way.

Minuses: The cruise control on the steering wheel is positioned so that if your hand is at 7 o'clock you can inadvertently turn the CC off. Also, the CC is a little slow at accelerating on hills. I'm not sure how well the 4x4 works. I was trying to climb a hill with not very much snow (1/2 foot) on pavement and I couldn't make it. I'll have to compare it to the Saturn to see if it does better. Or maybe I don't have snow tires.

Meh: Seat belt adjustment is better than some, but I still can't keep it from attacking me in some positions. Why can't they invent a shoulder harness that is TRULY adjustable for short, tall, fat, well endowed, flat as a board people? Why do they insist on black for some of the dashboard trim? Black is too hot, especially in CA. I'm not in love with the white, still, I can claim some eco cred because white is a better color to prevent global warming (or global climate change or whatever).

Bought a new car

Thanks Edmunds.com for the hours of time I spent researching various cars. Looked at the Scion XB, Honda Fit, Element and CRV, Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Frontier and Rogue and finally settled on a Ford Escape. I decided I wanted a somewhat boxy car that I could camp in and that was suitable for driving on local forest service roads. Most of the low gas mileage cars were too freaking low to the ground. I did really love the Fit though, and if it had just been higher off the ground I would have bought it. What sold me on the Escape was the price, high clearance, lack of crap dangling from the bottom (that can get damaged from rocks), simple looking engine, 0% financing combined with cash back. The dealership was okay with nothing too smarmy happening to make me ill. We'll see how it performs this weekend.

North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River Trail

I've been meaning to take this trail for a while, but I've avoided it for several reasons. First, it's name is longer than the trail. Second, it's at a low elevation so it's usually hot. Last, it's the type of easy to get to place that is usually too crowded for an enjoyable wilderness experience.

This weekend was perfect. The weather is unsettled with heavy storms predicted so I didn't want to drive too far. It's also nice and cold. The trail looks worse than it is at the beginning with a short rocky slope composed mainly of talus. It soon gets onto actual dirt and levels out in the typical oak, slash pine, manzanita, tick infested terrain of the 3000 foot elevations.

There are constant views of the river about 300 yards below. With all the recent rain and snow the river was very noisy and flowing hard.

We trekked along happily and only had to scramble over one mud pile where a tree had fallen and taken some of the hillside along with it. Someone will need to come in and repair this section a bit.

The trail ends at the river along a granite curve with plenty of rocks to bask on in the hot summer. I stayed up on the trail's end where someone had built a nice granite platform and fire pit. Commando hung around for a bit and then went off to dig in the ground.

It was perfect timing because just as I was finishing my drink it started to rain! I'd recommend this trail for people with older children who want to end up at a nice picnic and swimming area in the summer. It's only a mile long so it's not much of a challenge otherwise.

Snow at Icehouse while sick

Drove up to Icehouse expecting 8 feet of snow after the most recent storms. It looks like I need to go higher because, although the scenery was nice, there was not 8 feet of new snow. I'm feeling sick so I didn't go far...just along the bank to the end of the campground and then back through the campground. I rested often and sat on a rock overlooking the lake for quite a while.

Commando enjoyed running in the snow...running full tilt along the bank biting the water with his patented scoop mouth technique...and chasing a stick that he'd found when I was obliging enough to through it for him. He got lots of exercise and I didn't but enjoyed the day anyway.

American River

Just about 3 weeks ago on an evening walk with the dog along the river we stopped at the "secret" beach. The water was so low that we could walk along the side all the way to the not-so-secret beach without getting our feet wet. The water was so low that the hound was able to chase sticks into the middle of the river.

Today the secret beach is gone. The path leading to the secret beach is gone and the water level is about 2 feet up the sand cliff. There is standing water in the overgrown gully.

What a difference the heavy rains are making!