Month: February 2010

Snowshoeing at Donner Pass

Wednesday night a few inches of new snow fell at Donner Pass. Thursday morning Linda, Ray, Duke and I went snowshoeing there. We parked at the snow park on the frontage road south of Interstate 80. From there we headed generally southeast to Azalea Lake. 

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The trees were all covered with fresh snow and as we hiked every so often we would hear a womp as a pile of snow fell off a tree. Some times a little bit of snow would fall  and roll down a hill. I Iiked the cinnamon roll effect you can see in this picture.

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Azalea Lake was covered with ice and snow. It is through the trees in this picture.  Really!

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Here is the GPS detail of the trip. If you would like to see all my pictures they are available on Flickr here.

GPS detail

One Man’s Wilderness – An Alaskan Odyssey

I haven't been doing much reading lately but today I finished One Man's Wilderness- An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith from the Journals and Photographs of Richard Proenneke. 

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In 1968 Richard Proenneke built himself a cabin on lake in Alaska 40 air miles from the nearest people. One Man's Wilderness is the story of the building of the cabin and his first 16 months living there.  The book was originally published in 1973. I read the 1999 edition. It is a wonderful book which makes me almost want to move to Alaska and live in the wilderness. The wonderful color pictures are worth enjoying even if you  don't read the text of the book.But the story is wonderful and engaging too. It is a great book.

According to Wikipedia, Proenneke lived in the cabin pretty much full time most of the next 30 years, coming to the lower 48 states only occasionally to visit family. I didn't read the introduction very carefully so as I was reading I assumed that he was in his 30s. Actually he was 52 when he built the cabin and lived there until he was 82. He died in 2003 at he age of 86. What an inspiration!

Here is a great quote from the book. Words to live by.

"I have often thought about what I would do out here if I were stricken with a serious illness. if I broke a leg, cut myself badly, or had an attack of appendicitis. Almost as quickly as the thought came, I dismissed it. Why worry about something that isn't? Worrying about something that might happen is not a healthy pastime. A man's a fool to live his life under a shadow like that. Maybe that's how an ulcer begins."

Two Great Snow Shoe Hikes not Far From Reno

Tahoe Meadows to Chickadee Ridge

One of the wonderful things about living in Reno is that there are great opportunities nearby to hike in the summer and go snow shoeing in the winter. Last Thursday I went for my first snowshoeing outing of the winter. My friend Linda had only been on snow shoes once before and agreed to go along on what I told her would be an easy hike. We snowshoed from Tahoe Meadows to Chickadee Ridge. It was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun reflecting off the snow reminded us of the glitter our friend Pat sometimes uses.

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The only thing was that the hike turned out to be a much more difficult than I remembered. It didn't help that we started just below the top of the Mount Rose Highway at about 8,550 feet altitude or that by the time we got to Chickadee Ridge where we could see Lake Tahoe we were at almost 9000 feet. We still had a wonderful time and Linda was a great sport even when I am sure she wasn't quite sure what I had gotten her into.

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We stopped for hot chocolate and snacks on the ridge overlooking Lake Tahoe

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Here is the view from the ridge.
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Here is the GPS plot of our route. I guess it was a bit steep!

GPS - rpoute Chickadee Ridge 

  If you would like to see all of my pictures from our trip they are available on Flickr here.

Donner Lake

In spite of our misadventures last week Linda and her husband Ray agreed to go snowshoeing again today. We snowshoed along the shore of Donner Lake in Donner Memorial State Park. It is a wonderful place to snowshoe. It is scenic and right off interstate 80 just west of Truckee. Our route was out and back and was a total of 2.3 miles.

Donner Lake GPS route

It was overcast today and we even had a bit of wind and snow falling but it was a lot easier than last week. and we had a lot of fun.

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If you would like to see all my pictures form today's hike they are available on Flickr here.