{"id":537,"date":"2006-06-25T23:14:02","date_gmt":"2006-06-26T04:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=537"},"modified":"2008-04-19T10:16:20","modified_gmt":"2008-04-19T18:16:20","slug":"camping-by-lakes-and-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2006\/06\/25\/camping-by-lakes-and-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Camping by lakes and trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it was back to the Carr Lake Trailhead at Tahoe National Forest this weekend for a fun three miles to Penner Lake. Scenery was fabulous, especially for whetting one’s appetite for the jaw-dropping vistas of the High Sierra. We weren’t all that high — under 7,000 feet the whole way — but the air was thin enough to give the heart a workout on mild hills. I went with a group who call themselves Nor-Cal Hikers. I’ve been posting to their online forum for the past few months, so I had to show up for an actual hike so they’d know I was a real person and not somebody’s 9-year-old son posing as a balding, 40something white guy who has a bad hiking habit. <\/p>\n

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Feely Lake is the second lake along the way, after Carr Lake. There were many more along the way, each brimming with cold, clear snowmelt. <\/p>\n

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Biggest patch of snow along the trail. It’s just slippery enough to remind you you’re walking on little ice crystals. <\/p>\n

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The afternoon was sunny and hot — toasty enough to create billowing clouds that would evolve into thundershowers before the day was out. <\/p>\n

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Three of my fellow campers at Penner Lake. From right, Theresa, who organized the hike; her husband, Dale; and Cary, who obeyed the law which states that guys within inches of a shoreline on a Saturday afternoon must wet a line in a quest to snag scaly creatures from the lake’s depths.<\/p>\n

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He did hook one brook trout and cook it up for dinner. <\/p>\n

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The hardiest campers proved their mettle by taking dips in the freezing water. Paige kicks back in the hammock while her daughter Taylor tests the waters. I left my mettle at home. <\/p>\n

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Storm clouds build over the ridge beyond our camp site. Along about this time I realized the folly of leaving my tent’s rain fly at home. I knew it would rain for sure if I left my tent set up and my gear unprotected, so took it down, stuffed everything back in my pack and covered it with my tent’s ground sheet. I figured preparing for rain created excellent karma against rain actually happening; I was only slightly wrong — we got about 10 minutes of rain in big, splashy drops. My sense is some other campers beyond that ridge got a good soaking. <\/p>\n

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After dinner we attended to dessert for grownups: margarita snow-cones! <\/p>\n

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Chuck admires the campfire. <\/p>\n

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Sunset puts on an admirable show of its own. <\/p>\n

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I took this shot without a tripod, just resting my camera on my knee. Good thing tequila is such a natural born muscle relaxant, otherwise I probably couldn’t have held the camera steady enough. <\/p>\n

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Self-portrait. That’s my snazzy new hat with built-in bug net. Many a skeeter buzzed around my head in abject frustration. <\/p>\n

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Predawn, Sunday morning. Last night’s sunset was a warmup for an excellent sunrise. <\/p>\n

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I love it when my camera bolsters the delusion that I might know what I’m doing. <\/p>\n

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Alpen glow on the hillside beyond Penner Lack. I was fiddling around tying my shoes or something and looked up for a second and realized this picture had to be taken. A few minutes later a cloud blocked the sun and the glow faded away. <\/p>\n

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OK, one last sunrise pic and I’ll give it a rest. <\/p>\n

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I got myself (and fellow camper Karen) lost looking for this water fall, but we got ourselves found without too much trouble. <\/p>\n

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A fine, stately dead pine tree. <\/p>\n

A few observations about this hike:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It can get crowded early in the summer. We were told that 21 Boy Scouts were camped across the lake from us, which caused a fair amount of consternation early in the day, considering how noisy boys are at that age. After several margarita snow-cones we were yucking it up in such volume that we were half expecting the Scouts to come over and ask us to pipe down. <\/li>\n
  2. The trails are not especially well marked: don’t come out here without a map and a compass, minimum; all the better if you’ve got a GPS unit. <\/li>\n
  3. It’s quite not the High Sierra, but afternoon storms can happen just like in the high country. If you see big clouds building in the distance, get ready for a downpour. Don’t be a dunce like me and assume it won’t rain because the rainy season’s over elsewhere in California.<\/li>\n
  4. There are lots of places to camp near a place called Island Lake, which is only about a mile from the trailhead. Perfect excuse load up your pack with extra fun stuff (by which I mean, booze). <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is a great place to hike, camp, fish or walk your dog. It doesn’t quite share the jaw-dropping splendor of the ragged peaks you see elsewhere in the Sierra, but it’s plenty nice enough to cause unexpected urges to run away and live in the woods. <\/p>\n

    UPDATE: Expedition leader Theresa’s pictures are here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So it was back to the Carr Lake Trailhead at Tahoe National Forest this weekend for a fun three miles to Penner Lake. Scenery was fabulous, especially for whetting one’s appetite for the jaw-dropping vistas of the High Sierra. We…<\/p>\n

    Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}