Nee's Journeys

06/20-21/2009 - Tahoe National Forest - 5 Lakes Basin The first backpacking trip of the summer…it’s always so exciting. This was a Sierra Club Loma Prieta section trip that I was leading with Sanjeev. Since it was mid-June we decided to have the trip at a relatively low elevation and made it easy for those who needed to brush off the backpacking cobwebs….like me. So we chose 5 Lakes Basin which is located in Tahoe National Forest close to Emigrant Gap and about 20 miles east of Nevada City. I had hiked in this area a few years before in a heavy snow year at that same time in June luckily the snow level was below average this year so we could go higher up. We headed out on Saturday morning after we had a pre-hike weigh in contest. Two of us had packs that weighed 27 pounds and no one was above 35 pounds so we were set to go. Our entry point was the Carr Lake trailhead and there was no shortage of folks headed out. The weather was cool and partly overcast which I think played in o...

06/27/2009 - Emigrant Wilderness - Leopold Lake Where do I start with this trip? It was definitely an adventure for the books. This was the second trip of the backpacking season for me and definitely more challenging than the trip the week before. The plan was to start out from the Crabtree trailhead in Emigrant Wilderness and head up Tom’s Canyon x-country and head over to Leopold Lake. I had heard and read that this lake was really beautiful and I couldn’t wait to check it out. This trip was also an opportunity for me to try out my new Garmin 60cx which we would all soon fall in love with. We got an early start (early for me). We headed to the Serene Bean in Pinecrest to get our fill of coffee and unhealthy breakfast foods. We picked up our permit from the Summit ranger station where we were warned that there was snow above 8300 and that Chewing Gum Lake was surrounded by snow. Our destination sat at 8800 feet….hmmm should be interesting. After weighing our bags and trying de...