Nevada Rambler

Photo Album

A Thanksgiving Day hike to Hunter’s Peak for some geocache maintenance.  The new Sun Valley Regional Park picnic area and trailhead is very nicely done. This track mostly follows the many trails and roads in the area, but has a couple of cross-country segments. There are many ways to the top of the peak.

Photo Album

Last chance for a hike in the mountains before the snow is too deep without snowshoes. We took the Tahoe Rim Trail from Spooner Summit on Hwy 50, then cross country up to Duane Bliss Peak. This 8660-ft peak has great open 360-degree views of Lake Tahoe and the Carson Valley, and it’s only about 3.5 miles one way from the TRT trailhead. The only drawback is the very steep slope through the forest up from the TRT. All it needs is a good switch-backed trail to the summit.

Duane Bliss Peak is on the Tahoe OGUL peak list. 15 down, 48 to go.

Statistics:

6.90 mi (3.18 mi uphill, 2.84 mi downhill, 0.83 mi flat)
1700 ft total ascent – 15.8 % uphill grade, 117.6 % downhill grade
4:44:38 total time (3:45:55 moving, 0:58:43 stopped)
0:32:43 pace (1.8 mph average speed, 21.6 mph max speed)
15.333 difficulty, 25.608 effort

Photo Album

Hike up Adams Peak, in the Diamond Mountains east of Frenchman Reservoir near Chilcoot, California. This is a fairly remote forest area, but because Adams Peak is on the Tahoe OGUL peak list it gets a fair amount of traffic. I didn’t know about the list before, but this is my 14th peak out of  63 on the OGUL list. We took forest roads, and some “roads” on the USGS topo maps that turned out not to be roads anymore, from the west side near Frenchman.  There are signs of old mining activity in the area. There’s an ATV trail beyond the end of the mapped roads to the saddle point pictured above, then it’s a scramble over boulders and through Mountain Mahogany thickets to the top. Nice views from the top, including Lassen Peak, Sierra Buttes, Stateline Peak, Petersen Mountain.  By picking different forest roads, one could drive farther up than we did to start this time.

Statistics:

11.76 mi (4.93 mi uphill, 5.33 mi downhill, 1.44 mi flat)
2170 ft total ascent  - 14.9 % uphill grade, 109.2 % downhill grade
6:37:44 total time (5:35:29 moving, 1:02:15 stopped)
0:28:30 pace (2.1 mph average speed, 6.1 mph max speed)
22.884 difficulty, 41.504 effort

Photo Album

We drove up to Susanville to walk the Bizz Johnson Trail, a Rails-to-Trails project along the Susan River. Nice fall day.

Statistics:

14.88 mi (4.77 mi uphill, 4.87 mi downhill, 5.20 mi flat)
650 ft total ascent  - 5.9 %  uphill grade, 10.0 %  downhill grade
5:13:53 total time (4:55:56 moving, 0:17:57 stopped)
0:19:52 pace (3.0 mph average speed, 15.6 mph max speed)
5.133 difficulty, 10.517 effort