After having gone out and bought hiking boots, a backpacking pack, a warmer sleeping bag, and all that jazz, it seemed like we ought to go out and go backpacking so I could put it all to use. Since we had a doggy backpack for Navi, it made sense that Navi should come along, too. By pure coincidence, my coworker, Jordan, said that we should go mountain biking or hiking and then stop at his house in Sacramento on the way home Sunday night for a nice dinner. The only hesistation I had was that I had a nasty cold that was in its worst phase of ooze and gooze...but when Tim was really enthusiastic about the idea, I figured I could bring along a truckload of tissues and deal with it. We decided we'd try a hike in El Dorado National Forest in the Sierra Mountains from Caples Lake to Emigrant Lake. I saw it in a book of dog hikes that I have and it just seemed like the right distance (9 miles, round trip) for a first backpacking hike with the dog. It also involved a nice climb, which can only mean nice views. After a last minute friday night run to REI for a bear canister and a rain jacket for me, we packed and left on Saturday morning. I'm not really sure what we were expecting...but we weren't expecting anything that happened.
We stopped at the Ranger's station along the way for a camping permit, and they warned us about possible thunderstorms and snow. We shrugged it off because it didn't really matter to us...we've seen nothing but blue skies and sunny weather so a little rain and snow isn't about to faze us right now. We got to the trail head and there were all these fishermen sitting around Caples Lake with little fish pole holders. I never really understood that...it just doesn't seem worth it anymore if you have fish pole holders and you just sit there and watch. I'm not very interested in fishing, but doesn't having a fish pole holder take all the charm out of it? We walked Navi on leash until we were past all the fishermen, and then we let her off.
A few minutes later, we came upon a snowpatch that must have been something like 20 feet in diameter. Navi stepped on it, realized what it was a split second later, and went insane with delight!
She was trying to roll in the snow but it didn't go the way she hoped; since she had a saddlebag-like backpack, it was hard for her to roll onto her back. Worse, once she managed to roll onto her back, she was stuck there until she managed to defeat the backpack and right herself. We'd also throw snow, and she'd dart and hop around trying to catch the snow.
It was really cute. We probably wasted 30 or 45 minutes playing with this first patch of snow. Then we started hiking again, and we kept passing more and more patches of snow. Navi never lost her energy, and she treated each patch of snow as she treated the first; pure excitement. There was also a lot of mud around the snow because of the thaw. See all the mud on Navi's nose?
As the three of us wandered down this trail, the amount of snow kept increasing until it was very difficult to distinguish the trail. It was raining off and on, but this failed to dim our spirits because we haven't seen rain for a while. I was really thankful that I had picked up a new rain jacket at REI last night because if I was in my other rain jacket from the bike trip that has no hood, I would have been miserable. After wandering through the woods along the lake, we started climbing, and eventually we could no longer see the trail. Then it started to hail! Navi tried to catch the hail as it bounced up from the ground. Tim and I had to stop and take photos of the hail that was smashing down. He didn't want to take out his nice camera so we used my old crappy point and shoot that we brought along for this purpose.
After Tim's triumphant pose in the hail with the dog, we managed to find the most difficult way up the mountain possible. We knew that if we walked high enough we would eventually see the basin with the lake where we planned to camp. We abandoned all hope of trying to follow the trail and just kept walking up. Tim's legs fell through the snow a few times. The whole situation was so absurd that I kept giggling when he fell through, so he wasn't a big Perry fan for a while. Then I fell through some snow, too, which seemed to make him feel better. We got to a nice little overlook where we could see Caples lake which was the first lake we'd walked around. We still couldn't see Emigrant lake so we had to go higher. At the overlook, Tim took a neat photograph of all the storm clouds moving in over us.
We kept wandering up the mountainside and we saw a lot of pink snow. I had heard of pink snow before, and I knew there was something bad about it, but I could not recall what it was. Tim had never heard of it before, but as I brainstormed what it might have been, he said something about about whether or not it was some kind of bacteria. When he said this, the sudden realization slammed into my brain that I had been watching Survivor Man on TV when he said that you should never eat pink snow because it was filled with a bacteria that would make you very sick. Navi didn't seem interested in the pink snow, so we had no problems keeping her away from it. Soon after, we saw Emigrant lake! It was a very pretty sight. We were in the bottom of a basin where the lake was, and the mountain shot up almost vertically all around us. We didn't have a view of the nearby mountains from where we were, so we looked for a place to set up camp before trying to conquer more mountain in order to see the view. You aren't allowed to camp a certain from the lake shore, so we had to back track and find a nice flat place to set up our tent. After wandering around we found a nice area. Navi ran around and played while Tim and I set up the tent and made a nice wind shelter out of various sticks, twigs and logs that we found around. Tim said it was so windy the last time he went backpacking (when I was in Rochester) that he couldn't sleep since it whipped through the tent all night. We hoped the wind shelter would help.
You can see the wind shelter we made in this photo. You also see the wonderful view we had a chance to wake up to in the morning. After setting up camp and having a bite to eat, we were so cold that we all ran into the tent (Navi included) and curled up in our sleeping bags to dry off and warm up. We put our rain clothes down on the floor so Navi could sleep on them and have some insulation from the cold ground. I hadn't planned for her to be so wet, so I was concerned that she wasn't warm. I fell asleep even though it was probably only 6 or 7 PM, but soon after Tim woke me up and complained that he couldn't sleep. He wanted to climb up the ridge and see the view. I couldn't get myself out of my sleeping bag but after a while I finally climbed out and we trekked around with the dog a little more. The dog is fearless and sometimes it makes me so nervous. She doesn't comprehend that we are at the edge of a mountain. One misstep and you have a long way down to fall. Whenever we were at a summit area, I would hold her collar or put her on the leash in order to still my heart. It was an incredible view, and the storm clouds made it even more impressive.
We then wandered back down, and fell asleep. In the morning, we climbed another portion of the ridge, and even though it was pretty much the same view, the blue skies made it look completely different.
After a while, we headed back down to camp, ate breakfast, packed up, and wandered back down. We saw the trail at the top, so we followed it down and...it was much easier than the way we took up. It was much warmer, so lots of water was rushing down in the rivers. We found a few cool waterfalls, and had a fun time wandering down. Navi played in all the snow just as she had before. By the time we got back to our car, I was very tired and ready to go home. We drove to Sacramento and stopped by at Jordan's place where we tried out a tandem bike. It was fun, but we were very wobbily and not coordinated. We'd need a lot more practice, and neither of us will be buying a tandem soon. Jordan's wife made some fun pizza and they had some other friends over. Everyone was very interesting and very fun to talk to. Navi just sat under the table and looked for crumbs of food. After a while, we packed up in our car again and headed home. Fun!
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