Golden Stars

I had a great six day trip through the Granite Chief Wilderness, plus some additional country to the north. I went in at Alpine Meadows Trailhead, and out at Squaw Valley Trailhead, with at least 67 miles in between.

Since some people read this blog for trail conditions: Five Lakes Creek cannot be crossed anywhere downstream of the PCT trail crossing, except on logs. The Middle Fork of the American River cannot be crossed at the Picayune Valley trail crossing, but can on a log downstream. The Five Lakes Creek Trail is mostly clear of snow. Upper Grayhorse Trail, upper Picayune Valley Trail, and upper Granite Chief Trail are largely under snow, but the trails can be followed with attention.

From the Alpine Meadows Trailhead, I went over the saddle at Five Lakes and down the trail, but headed off on the old trail down Five Lakes Creek, both because I wanted to see if I could follow it, and because I suspected it would not be easy to cross Whiskey Creek at the regular trail crossing. I was able to follow the trail about half the way, crossed Five Lakes Creek on a log just above Whiskey Creek. I picked up the old trail again and followed it to Big Spring Meadow, which it enters from the north side. I continued on the regular trail down to Bear Pen Creek. I went over to look at the gorge, which was quite impressive, the creek wall to wall where I’d jumped across in other years. I used a log just above Bear Pen to cross Five Lakes Creek, which is probably not crossable in any other way, and continued south, picking up the Hell Hole Trail. I went all the way to Kada Falls, again, to see what it looks like in flood. Impressive!

I then returned to my pack at Steamboat Creek, trying to follow the old trail up the creek, which I found at times. The trail meets a logging road, and I followed the series of logging roads up over the ridge and to the Grayhorse Valley trailhead. I then headed up and camped below the ridge. The next day I walked the ridge up to Mount Mildred, and then dropped into the Middle Fork watershed and eventually found the Picayune Valley Trail. I hung out at the water slide above the waterfall until the road drove me crazy, then headed down trail. The Middle Fork was in flood and impossible to cross at the trail crossing, but the log about 200 meters downstream works, other than having to fight the brush to get to it. I walked out to the trailhead, leaving the wilderness, then up the road to the saddle on Foresthill Ridge between the Middle Fork and North Fork.

Next day, I walked down the roads looking for the old trail into the Royal Gorge, which I eventually found though it is no longer signed. The trail is no longer maintained, and I discovered why – there is a huge landslide that breaks the trail. Ropes lead down on side and up the other. I continued down to the bridge (the “new” bridge, as Tisha says) and up the somewhat better trail along Palisade Creek. I camped on the ridge above Long Lake.

Royal Gorge from Mariah Point

Friday I spend time at Camp Winthers, an environmental education summer camp where I used to work, 1993-1997. I talked with Bill and Tisha Rugg, family members, and others, and just enjoyed being there. In the afternoon I continued east towards the PCT. I went cross-country, and enjoyed it, but it took much longer than if I’d followed the Royal Gorge Ski Area paths. I discovered what the ski area calls Mariah Point, probably the best view anywhere of the Royal Gorge. I camped at Rowton Peak.

From there I headed up the ridge towards Mt Lincoln. The ridge is much more up-and-down and rugged than I realized, so it went slowly, but I finally picked up the PCT. I walked south as far at the Granite Chief Trail, then headed out to Squaw Valley and the bus back home.

On this trip, I did not use the switchbacks on the PCT south from Five Lake Creek, nor the north-facing slope of PCT north of Granite Chief, so I don’t have anything to report about those two potential trouble spots. Next trip!

Photos on Flickr

Topo! tpo file (right/ctrl click to download)

the divide south of Little Needle

As a new trip I went to Little Needle Lake which I’d heard other people mention but not been to. It is a shallow, alder and willow bordered lake in the volcanic rock below Little Needle Peak. It is a pretty setting, with soggy wet meadows surrounding the lake and a spectacular cliff above. The route is is a vague trail, and there are some seldom used campsites at the lake. To avoid the thick mosquitos at the lake, I camped to the north on a granite bench, where there were some really cool trees and a great view of the end of the day down the Middle Fork American River canyon. The next day I headed up onto the ridge and south, following the divide between Picayune Valley and Five Lake Creek, eventually reconnecting to the Picayune Valley trail a little east of where it climbs out of Picayune Valley. The ridge does not have a trail, but the going was pretty easy, with great views and a different perspective than I’ve gotten elsewhere.

I then went across to Shanks Cove and down to and west along the Hell Hole Trail. The part beyond Buckeye Creek gets worse every year, with more trees down and more vegetation growing into the trail. But it is still possible to follow it if you pay very close attention. People have started to put up little ducks along the trail between Buckeye and where it crosses the gully west of Steamboat Mountain. I really don’t like this practice – please see my comment on cairns and ducks.

After camping at Grayhorse Creek, I walked out the road that comes in to this point, just to see what it is like. It is truly a jeep trail, requiring not only 4WD, but modified jeeps. There is no indication that the road leads to a trail, but there is a dedication plaque that says it is maintained by a Sacramento area jeep club. It starts near an abandoned Forest Service guard station along the road down to Hell Hole dam. I don’t know why anyone would come in this way, but I can say I now know what it is like. The trail along the north side of the reservoir starts just where the road makes its last steep descent to Grayhorse Creek. It wanders through the forest, crosses Grayhorse Creek, continues across the road that leads to the “Tungsten Mine” (not much to see except highly mineralized rock), and eventually to where it meets the descending Hell Hole Trail at an obscure junction. Beyond here the trail becomes even harder to follow, probably never formally constructed at all, but heads into the lowest part of Five Lakes Creek.

Rubicon River Canyon

I then followed some routes (there are many, all poorly marked) over to the Rubicon River and headed up the river. Once past the bedrock area where the McKinstry Trail heads south out of the canyon, the river bottom becomes quite wide again, with many active and abandoned river channels. Sometimes the intervening area is forest, sometimes floodplains of boulders. It is all hard to navigate, but beautiful. Just before where Barker Creek comes down from the north, the canyon narrows again, with bouldery stretches and some pools that go from wall to wall. It is necessary to either get wet or climb way up and down again on deer trails. I did some of both, but having a backpack makes me reluctant to tackle the deeper parts. I had thought that I might be able to go all the way up the canyon bottom to the Rubicon Jeep Trail crossing, but the canyon becomes much more rugged where it has a sharp S-curve to the south, and I gave up. I think that the only way the canyon can be negotiated is down-canyon, by swimming many parts, and by climbing around the several major waterfalls that are found higher up in the canyon. You can see two of these large waterfalls in the S-curve, looking down from the canyon walls to the north.

Barker Creek Canyon from the cascades

After camping the night at an amazing geological feature, a radially shaped fan of columns from cooling in a dike (no, I can’t explain it, but I have started to ask geologists if they can explain), I climbed up out of the canyon to the north and dropped into Barker Creek. Barker Creek has an incredible variety. Some parts are like the Rubicon River canyon on a smaller scale, wide with floodplain, some parts have cascades over reddish metamorphic rock, some parts higher up are chocked full of granite boulders. In the upper section (of the canyon – I’m not talking about the upper part in the volcanics, which is again completely different), there is one fall of 30 feet, and at the head, a cascade goes down over the granite at a spectacular view of the entire canyon. There is no trail in the canyon, but obviously some other people have ventured here. From the head of the canyon, it is a short walk over the granite benches and past ponds to the sadly abused ORV network around the Rubicon Jeep Trail.

After cringing at the jeeps, quads and motorcycles tearing up the terrain, I decided I needed more wilderness, so I headed back in the Powderhorn Trail, camped near Whiskey Creek Camp, headed up Five Lakes Creek, went over Squaw Saddle, and went down Squaw Valley along the Western States Trail. This trail is completely sliced and diced in the upper part by the ski runs, roads, and bulldozer tracks of Squaw Valley, but is a bit better in the lower part from Squaw Saddle down canyon. Part are even quite nice, going through patches of undisturbed forest and flower fields. I still lost the trail eventually in a network of bike trails, but made it out to the mouth of Squaw Valley where I caught the TART bus back to Truckee and the train.

Photos from the trip are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondan/sets/72157624640504558/. My mileage for the five days was about 47, with about 8 of that being off-trail.

Powderhorn Canyon from crest ridgeline

I had a wonderful five day trip, one of my non-driving trips on which I took the Amtrak to and from Truckee. I walked from Truckee up to and along the Donner Lake Rim Trail, then headed south on the PCT past Donner Pass, Mt. Anderson, the North Fork of the American River (which becomes the Royal Gorge downstream), and into the Granite Chief.

I did some brushing work on the PCT, particularly the section between Five Lakes Creek and Twin Peaks that was completely brushed in four years ago and got me into doing maintenance on the PCT. So the trail is now reasonably clear again, though it needs brushing every year.

The funnest thing I did was to drop off the PCT at the southern wilderness boundary, into Bear Pen Canyon, first contouring around to the little dot of a pond that is on the maps. The pond is about two feet deep, about 50 feet across, and quite pretty. It is full of frogs that would call intermittently throughout the afternoon. They may have been mountain yellow-legged frogs, but I could never get a clear view of one to be sure. The call maybe matches, but I’m not a frog person.

From there I went along the bench and up to the ridge which divides Bear Pen from Powderhorn. What a wonderful world up there. There are great views into both canyons. The ridge is largely flat, with forest and openings, and further south great flower fields. The ridge gets almost no use, since the trail goes another way. Well worth exploring.

I walked out Blackwood Canyon after camping near the trailhead at Barker Pass, and caught the bus to Truckee and the train back to Reno, and back home on the bus. I like these no-driving trips, though they do take longer.

The snow is melting fast in the high country. Though some of the deeper snowbanks are still there and melting slowly, almost all of the shallow snowbanks disappeared in the last week.

Middle Fork American River at Picayune Trail crossing

I finally got back into the Granite Chief Wilderness this last week, doing a four day trip out from the Barker Pass Trailhead. The remarkable thing is how much snow there still is in the dense forests and north facing slopes. I spent a lot of time kicking steps in grungy snow, varying from sloppy to rock hard, and got tired of it!

I headed north from Barker Pass to the saddle at Granite Chief Peak, the northern boundary of the wilderness, doing a trail condition survey. There are some trees down here and there, but nothing that can’t be gone over or around. There is light to moderate winter debris. In several places the trail cannot be followed across the snow, though the general trend is clear and it isn’t that hard to pick it up again if you are paying close attention.

I walked out the Tevis Trail to the boundary and past to where the trail meets a primitive dirt road. I took a side trip to the saddle to the north which divides the Middle Fork American River watershed from the North Fork watershed. I then headed down the dirt road to Talbot Campground. This road is now used mostly by quad vehicles, and some parts are so brushed in a regular 4WD would be squeezed. The road is long and not very interesting, but at least it connects together the Tevis and Picayune trails. I then headed back in the Picayune Valley Trail (as I call it, it has differing names on differing maps). The Middle Fork of the American was in flood, and I had to cross it on a log well downstream and then fight the brush back to the trail. It is amazing to see this river, which was a very small creek the last time I saw it in 2008, roaring down the canyon and filling all the channels.

I camped up on the glacially carved rock bench where Picayune Creek comes down through a series of pools and waterfalls. It was also in flood, so I picked a place way up metamorphic rocks to the east to sleep, so I could get some sleep. That day and the next I spent a lot of time looking at flowers, ferns and rocks. This is one of my favorite places in the Granite Chief, and I’ll keep coming back.

Next day I went over the saddle and down to Whiskey Creek camp, then south along the PCT again and camped up on the ridge. And then the fourth day, out to Barker Pass.

Photos are on Flickr.

Fireweed fall color

I finally got back into the Granite Chief this week for three days, going in at Powderhorn Trailhead which is just west of Barker Pass. Fall colors are coming, but the aspen trees which are often the brightest are just starting, and the vine maple seems subdued this year, as likely to be pale white or pale yellow as bright yellow. I don’t think there have been any freezes since August, and though the calendar says fall, the days were still summer, quite warm. And the mornings refreshingly cool. I did quite a bit of exploring, checking out Little Powderhorn and Laddie’s Cove, the lower end of the Five Lakes Creek gorge, and the mesa between Powderhorn and Little Powderhorn canyons.

The trailhead sign has been fixed up, with a new wilderness map and stock information, and the mileage sign was replanted in the ground. The road to the trailhead is becoming rough, especially past the Road 3-4 junction, so passenger cars might want to park at that junction and walk the 0.3 miles to the trailhead. I hope that this road is closed off anyway, because it serves no real purpose, it is a dead-end, and allows quadrunners into remote forest areas to tear them up. As I’ve said before, I am pretty sure the Barker Pass Road was intended to continue all the way to Foresthill, to carry the trees of Tahoe and the upper Rubicon out to the mills there, but since that didn’t and never will happen, it seems pointless to have the road. I suspect Sierra Pacific Industries has lost interest in this area as well since they have such a long haul distance to the closest mill, which I believe is in Truckee, though that mill is a fraction of its former size and maybe close to closing.

Though some birds are still active, and flies, and even a very few mosquitos, the fall quiet has come, with sounds distinct. Powerderhorn Creek, Five Lakes Creek, and Bear Pen Creek are low, but still flowing and about average for this time of year. The tiny creek near the postpile meadow is even still flowing.

The trail was logged out this year, so there is only the one very large tree remaining high up, and I suspect since the use trail around it is now well established, it will stay there. Some brushing was done by others, and I did a bit more, so though brush is beginning to intrude in a few places, it is still easy to get by. The thick patch of willows at the postpile area – the columnar basalt cliff and the meadow below it – was cleared two years ago and is still open.

I explored Little Powderhorn Creek, following the abandoned trail that branches off the Powderhorn Trail. This is shown on the old USGS map but not the current recreational maps such as TI-804. The junctions (an upper one close to the large meadow and another one well upslope) are obscure, as they should be, since the trail is obscure as well. I was able to follow it about 3/4 of the way to Little Powderhorn, clambering over downfall in places but strolling on others, but then lost it. When I reached the creek, I thought the right hand or more westerly fork was the main one, not having looked at the map closely enough, and so went up that creek into Laddies Cove. What a wonderful mistake! The cove is nearly surrounded by a steep cliff of columnar basalt, probably the best exposure of this geological phenomenon in the wilderness. Unfortunately I forgot my camera on this exploration, so don’t have a photo of Laddies Cove to share.

I even saw the trail crew, and was going to thank them, but they ran away. A mother and one cub, maybe two. Bears and other wildlife maintain most of the trails here, particularly the ones abandoned. If not for the bears, I probably could not have followed this trail at all. I don’t know whether the trail shown going up Little Powderhorn Creek and over the saddle down to West Meadow Creek can be followed, since I took the Laddies Cove fork, so I’ll check that one in the future. I’ll also try to find the trail past Little Powderhorn shown contouring around to the west and then into West Meadow Creek. It has been long enough since these trails were maintained that the cut logs have all rotted way, and many but not all of the blazes disappeared when the trees fell over. So bear maintenance is often the only way to follow. Of course the bears and other wildlife have their own agenda, and as wildlife trails diverge and rejoin it is often difficult to tell which trail is the “main” one, the one that was constructed and once maintained by people. I really enjoy the challenge of finding these abandoned trails.

In the afternoon I walked down Bear Pen Creek to Five Lakes Creek. Parts are easy to walk, jumping rocks or skirted little pools, but in places the riparian vegetation is so thick that I had to leave the creek. I then walked up to the waterfall area that is at the bottom of the Five Lake Creek gorge. I’d previously explored down the gorge to the big fall, so this was connecting the sections. Of course the fall and deep pools block passage, but it is possible to climb out of the gorge to the bench on either side and connect. The waterfall area has a number of cool iron seeps, some deep red and others lined with salts as well.

I ran into two horse packers at Diamond Crossing, who were in checking out their hunting opportunities for later in the fall. They commented that bear were a lot more common than deer here, which is consistent with my observation. The blamed the bears for pushing the deer out. I don’t know what is really going on, and I’d guess some complex interactions between historical grazing, hunting patterns, and exclusion of fire. A long while ago I worked in the Marble Mountain Wilderness which also had more bear than deer.

The next morning I hike out Powderhorn canyon but at the saddle turned west to explore logging roads and the mesa between Powderhorn and Little Powderhorn. The term mesa is not used around here, but walking along the rim rock and looking down into the canyons reminds me a lot of hiking in the southwest where the term is in common use. I walked all the way out to the point between the canyons, which has a pretty spectacular view and would make a create place to camp and watch the world go by, going either early enough that there are snow banks left or just carrying water. The mesa has been logged by Sierra Pacific Industries, selective in some area and clear-cut in others, but the end point and parts of the rim are undisturbed.

I walked out via the logging roads and back along the Barker Pass Road to my car at the trailhead.

I see an almost 20 degree Fahrenheit dip in temperatures coming Wednesday, with lows below freezing, so that may accelerate the aspen trees and heighten some of the other colors. Though temperature is only one factor affecting fall color, I think the lack of a freeze in the fall leads to mild colors.

Photos from this trip are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondan/sets/72157622467011332/.

Glad to hear you were out in the wilderness and noticed the hard work the crews have put in there so far. We have had a couple crews go in there – one was a fire crew we try to go in there together annually. They help us out logging out the trails as they work on some training exercises. We get alot of work completed with this 10-person crew for 4 days. They were in Big Springs area and working north-south and then also the Shanks Cove trail. Additionally, we had a volunteer group spiked at Diamond Crossing and they worked on the Hellhole trail for about 5-6 days. Lots of maintenance needed there. Then we had our regular trails crew on the northern portion of the PCT from Squaw to Five Lakes.

Washington Lily

On a four day backpack from Barker Pass, I did quite a bit of exploring off trail and on old trails. The snow has really disappeared since I was last in the wilderness in June, with just patches on or close to the trail now. And of course there are a lot more flowers now, except on the ridgelines where the flowers were already great.

I explored Grouse Creek from the PCT down to the Five Lakes Trail. In the upper part I stayed as close to the creek as possible, but in the lower canyon it becomes too difficult to do so, and the bear trail led me out onto the ridge to the northwest, with great views back up Grouse Creek and up and down Five Lakes Creek. Washington lilies were poking up through the manzanita thickets on the ridge, and down along the ridge a number of dry rocky plants were blooming.

After a swim in the pools of Five Lakes Creek above Bear Pen Creek, I headed down the Hell Hole Trail to Buckskin Creek. I was very much surprised to see that this section of trail had been logged out, along with quite a bit of tread work and some brushing and water control work. This trail had not been maintained in 10 years or so, and the maintenance changed it from a nearly abandoned trail to a fairly nice trail. I’m guessing the trail crew was Forest Service, probably either stimulus funding or a crew that couldn’t get into the high country some place else.

The Buckskin Trail is shown as a red dashed horse trail on the Trails Illustrated map, looping up Buckskin Creek and down Steamboat Creek. The Forest Service sketch map shows the same route up Buckskin but reaching all the way to road 48-14, and nothing on Steamboat Creek. Though the Buckskin Trail is not marked on either end, it was not too hard to find the trail by looping around the possible location. It shows signs of an old tread that was either well constructed or heavily used, and a few tree blazes, but no sign of maintenance in a long while. The trail leaves the wilderness just below a long dry meadow that heads steeply up the hill, and where the trail disappears. Section 31, just outside the wilderness boundary, has been heavily logged by Sierra Pacific Industries, and whatever trails might have existed there have been erased. I followed the welter of logging roads southwest towards Steamboat Creek, which has a flow of water under one logging road, but I did not find the upper end of the trail up Steamboat Creek. The next morning, I found the Steamboat Creek leg of the trail heading, but it was much harder to find. It leaves the Hell Hole Trail west of Steamboat Creek, has only a vague tread, and rare blazes. I did not follow it out because I wanted to head down the Hell Hole Trail. This trail should be removed from the maps.

Five Lake Creek Gorge

I dropped down the Hells Hole Trail, and managed to follow more of it than I had been able to last year. The two gullies are crossed pretty high up, and the third not crossed. This trail has a vague junction with the trail heading along above the reservoir shoreline from the “trailhead” west of Grayhorse Creek. I did worse than last year following the very vague trail eastward along Five Lakes Creek to Kada Falls, but once arriving there, all is forgiven. It’s a pretty special place and I enjoyed a brief swim. I then headed upstream along the east side of Five Lake Creek, following the ridges and benches, and of course following bears. The creek pours through a narrow gorge, so the route off-trail route stays up away from the creek for quite a ways. I eventually dropped down when the slope side slope became very steep, followed the creek up and down over huge boulders for a while, and eventually crossed over to the west side as the gradient begins to ease. Where the creek widens and Indian Rhubarb (Peltiphyllum peltatum) becomes common, I headed diagonally up the slope and rejoined the Hell Hole Trail close to Buckskin Creek.

After the off-trail adventuring, I headed back north to Diamond Crossing. I went a ways up the Powderhorn Trail, seeking the place the old topographic maps show a trail heading southwest to Little Powderhorn Creek. I finally found the trail by a tree blaze after trekking up and down through the forest on bear and deer trails. I’ll follow this one some time in the future. I headed up the Five Lake Creek Trail to Whiskey Creek Camp where two groups were camped with large fires going, probably to ward off mosquitos which were thick late in the afternoon and into the evening. Not wanting to be mosquito food, I kept going in the dark up the Whiskey Creek Trail and along the PCT southward. I was glad of the trail work I’d done last year clearing rocks and brush, which made it pretty easy to walk in the dark. When the mosquitos started to fade out, I camped for the night off the trail.

Sunday was a pretty uneventful day, walking south along the PCT back to Barker Pass, but this is one of my favorite pieces of trail anywhere, so it is an immense pleasure just to walk it.

Snow on the trail at wilderness boundary

On two short backpack trips from June 11 to 16, I surveyed the PCT from Barker Pass to Tinkers Knob. About half the trail was snow covered at the time, so I can’t say too much about tread conditions, but I did record the downed trees, of which there are a moderate number, some from last year (or several years ago in one case), and some from this year. Since over a month has passed since these trips, I won’t post the details about snow and trail conditions because they have changed.

There is a sign at the junction of the PCT and what I call the Western States Trail that says Tevis Trail and points at an angle for the trail departing to the west. I don’t remember seeing this sign before, thought it is well weathered, so perhaps it was on the ground and only recently placed back on a post. I still think this trail should be called Western States Trail since it seems to be the most common route of that trail over the years. The course for both the horse and running races has changed many times over the years.

Since the road to Barker Pass was still closed by snow, I walked up the 4WD road and back down the paved road. Once was enough, for both.