Category: Hiking

Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Monday Hike at Donner Lakes

The Sierra Canyon Hiking Group hiked from Interstate 80 at Donner Pass through the Donner Pass Lakes to Old Highway 40 and back. The air was very smoky from wild fires burning in other parts of California but it was still a beautiful day.

Here we are in the parking lot getting ready to start out.
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We snowshoed on this trail last winter, across this lake. Look at the difference.
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The view from our lunch stop was stupendous in spite of the haze.

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If you would like to see or download other pictures from the hike they are available on Flickr here.

Hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail from Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade with the Sierra Canyon Hiking Group

A group of us who live in the Del Webb Sierra Canyon Development in Reno have decided to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail this summer.  As the name suggests the Tahoe Rim Trail is a trail on the mountain crests around Lake Tahoe. The trail is 165 miles long and we are planning to do it in 8 segments. Thursday we did our first segment from Spooner Summit on Highway 50 south to Kingsbury Grade.  It is the shortest segment (only 12.2 miles.) Fifteen of us completed it with no problem. It is an easy to walk on trail. It was a warm glorious day and there were stunning views.

Below are a few pictures from the hike. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures you can see them on Flickr here. There was a little snow beside the trail in a few places but most of the snow is gone.

One of the most surprising things on the hike were the beautiful red flower we found growing up out of dead wood in a few places. Since getting home I discovered on the Tahoe Country .com web site that the flower is the snowplant.

"A fairly common site in the Tahoe
landscape as the snow melts is the Snowplant (Sarcodes snaguinea), a member
of the Wintergreen family. This
strange asparagus-like plant does not photo-synthesize, but receives its nourishment
from parasitizing the roots of neighboring plants and other decaying organic
matter. It is protected by California law and there are heavy fines for tampering
with the Snowplant due to its extreme beauty and rarity (it is found only
in the Yellow Pine and Red Fir forests of California and southern Oregon)."

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The Humbug Trail at Malakoff Diggins State Historic paek – The Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Thursday Hike

Last Thursday seven of us from the Sierra Canyon Hiking Group went to Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park in California and hiked the humbug trial down Humbug Creek to the Yuba River.  It took us about two hours to get to the park from Reno.

From the park brochure I learned that Malakoff Diggins was the largest
and richest hydraulic gold mine in the world. Gold was discovered there
in 1851 and hydraulic mining began in 1853. Millions of dollars worth
of gold were recovered and 41 million cubic yards of earth were
excavated leaving an open pit over a mile long and up to 600 feet deep.

The hike was beautiful. We went down about 1000 feet and 2.5 miles to the Yuba River, had lunch by the river, and then climbed back up again. Afterward we stopped for a few minutes at the park headquarters where they have rebuilt the old gold mining town of North Bloomfield.

Marion at Yuba River 5-29-08 
Yuba river 5-29-08

Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Monday Hike East of Reno

Duke and I hiked with the Sierra Canyon hiking group on Monday for the first time in over a month. The group has done quite a bit of hiking east of Reno but this was our first hike in that area. It was also the first time I have been the only woman on a hike. Usually the women outnumber the men but on this hike there were six men and me. We started just a little bit north of the Mustang exit off of Interstate highway 80 (exit 23). and hiked about 2.5 miles up a dirt road to some towers with a great view of Reno. It was a cool and rainy day, really a perfect day for hiking. The elevation gain was 1100 feet so it was a good workout. If you would like to see all of the pictures from the hike you can see them on Flickr here.
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Hike near home in Toiyabe National Forest

Duke and I did a great hike today from Sierra Canyon where we live north up into the Toiyabe National Forest. We were on Forest Service Roads the whole time but the only vehicle we saw was one motorcycle. We went a total of just over 10 miles and went from an elevation of 5,313 feet to 6,587 feet when we turned around. The weather was beautiful, the wild flowers were out and we saw a snake. (not a rattle snake)
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If you would like to see all the pictures from the hike you can see them on Flickr here.