Nee's Journeys

Trip Logistics      When - July  16– 17, 2016      Desolation Wilderness – Echo Lakes to Waca Lake      Total Elevation Gain – Approx 1000 ft.      Total Mileage – Approx. 16 miles; Partial off trail Pictures Desolation Wilderness, as most know, is hardly Desolated so I’m always looking for places that may not get too much foot traffic.  After studying the map I bit I settled in the area to the South of Lake Aloha - Channel Lakes, American Lake and Waca Lake.  Since Waca Lake was a bit further from the trail I chose that as our weekend destination.  From Echo Lake this is about an 8 mile hike with minimal elevation gain - less than 1000 feet.  I couldn’t find many trip reports about this lake and what was the best way to get there.  I saw one report from someone who took a less than ideal route and spend much longer trying to find the lake than needed and another report from a f...

When – June 14 – 15, 2014 Tahoe National Forest – Sugar Pine State Park to Lost Lake – Trail Elevation gain from Sugar Pine to Lost Lake – approx.  15 00 ft One way hike from Sugar Pine to Lost Lake – approx.. 8 miles Lost Lake – approx.. at 7500 ft Pictures -  https://www.flickr.com/gp/57882009@N02/049o92/ This was an unexpected destination.  I had originally planned a trip in Desolation Wilderness on the west side of the Wilderness.  Unbeknownst to me there had been a huge wind storm the fall previous to this trip and it had knocked down several trees in the area that we were suppose to hike.  While I love the online permit system for Desolation it would have been nice if it had been able to restrict the permits in that area since there was no estimated opening date and the area as far as I know did not open all summer...oh well.  I figured this all out a week before the trip and we were set on backpacking so I began to search for alternatives. ...

This was my third time doing this wonderful loop trip.  The trail starts at Upper Highland Lakes and makes it way to the PCT, then breaks off to go over a saddle and into Paradise Valley before climbing up Disaster Creek and back to the trailhead.  The entire loop is about 16 miles.  I organized a meetup with Bay Area Backpacker Women's group & 3 others joined me on this trip.  This trail is great with lots of nice views but the real star of this trip are the wildflowers.  On Friday night we stayed at the Bloomfield campground which was extremely empty...us, the host and one other group.  I was really surprised given it was the 3rd week of July and the others campgrounds we stopped at were packed...oh well at least there was more peace and quiet.   We got to the trailhead around 9 AM and with beautiful blue skies we headed out.  Given what a light snow year it was I was really worried that we wouldn't see many flowers.  However, we were...

Carson Iceberg Wilderness – Paradise Valley Loop – July 17 - 18, 2010 & July 24 – 25, 2010 See the photos I actually did this trip twice in back to back weekends but figure there is no need to write about it two separate times. I have only done one other trip in Carson Iceberg and that was many moons ago. All I can recall from that trip was that it was freezing…it was already October and we came across a small bear crossing the trail. I had decided that I wanted at least one of the trips that I was leading with Sierra Club to be a wildflower trip. I searched and searched for some options and finally came across what seemed to be a nice loop trip in Carson Iceberg off of H4. Since I didn’t have much experience in the area and the fact that I like to actually do the route before taking a group out on it I decided to give it a dry run with Curtis and Andrew the weekend before my trip. I was also uncertain whether or not I would run into much snow since the high point go to about 1...

Tahoe National Forest – Warren Lake – August 22 & 23, 2009 In mid-august I led a local Sierra Club trip in TNF to Warren Lake. I hadn’t been to Warren Lake before but I had visited Paradise Lake, which is just on the other side of Warren years before. I ran across this hike reading a book about wildflowers and thought the trip sounded really nice with the potential of wildflowers and a nice challenging hike in and out of the lake. I did not expect to see many other people on this hike because of the effort at the end of the hike to get to the lake. There is about a 2200 foot gain followed by 2100 feet of loss in about a mile. The total one-way length of the hike is 7.5 miles. I was excited about this trip because I had hiked with everyone before and they were a really great group. It took us a little re-navigation to make it to the trailhead, which is on the south side of I-80 at Donner Summit because there was a bunch of construction going on. We headed out and went throu...

Yosemite National Park – Ten Lakes – September 12 & 13, 2009 This was my third time into the Ten Lakes area and this time I was leading a local Sierra Club trip. I really enjoy hiking in Yosemite in September because the weather is so nice and in general the trails are less crowded. I probably saw the most folks I’ve ever seen hiking in September this time around. There are no pictures with this blog because I decided to skip having a camera given this was my third time here. The start of this trip did not go as planned due to some unexpected delays related to logistics but things got sorted out. The hike into the basin was very enjoyable and we had nice weather. By the time we hit our high point on the trip the clouds had built a bit and we did get a little rain. When we got to the lake the weather cleared and we looked for a good spot. There were several people already camped out and we didn’t spend too much time looking for a perfect spot since the group was more intereste...

Emigrant Wilderness – Gianelli Cabin trailhead to Toejam Lake – 07/11 – 07/12/09 On July 11 and 12th a group of six adventures headed out to Toejam Lake about an 8.5 mile hike. I was leading this trip as part of my local Sierra Club backpacking group. After weighing our backpacks and taking some happy pre-hike pictures we were off. The trail starts out gradually climbing through a forest and soon you come to the Burst Rock Lookout. From Burst Rock we had great views looking North at Castle and Cooper Peaks and the Three Chimneys. After taking a short stop at Burst Rock we carried on to Emigrant Pass. We then headed down the trail and came to a great slope that had a good number of wildflowers including some very colorful Paintbrush, Western Wallflower and Mule’s Ear. This slope would be a source of distraction and lots of picture taking on the way back, especially for me. We also saw lots of Lupine plants but they had about a week and a half to two weeks left before they starte...

September 14 & 15, 2008 - Yosemite - Ten Lakes There is nothing much better than taking a Fall backpacking trip. The weather is generally good and the crowds are home. About 6 years ago I took a trip to the Ten Lakes basin and I always wanted to go back. I am also thinking about leading a trip there in the next year or so so I thought it would be a good idea to go and scout it out. There are a number of lakes in the basin (10..ha ha) but I didn't really have a final destination in mind except that I wanted to try and visit something other than the 2 biggest lakes. We headed out around 11- after a breakfast of waffles and coffee outside the park. The parking lot at the trailhead did not have many cars which was great. The weather was very nice and we packed up and headed out and up...and up and up and up. This is one thing I do remember about this trail it's pretty much uphill. I would consider it a moderate hike...about 8 miles and 2000 feet uphill. I was also trying to br...

August 8 - 10, 2008 - Yosemite - Young Lakes Okay so this is over 2 months overdue...what can I say it's been a very busy travel season. This was my second time into the Young Lakes area I had been there the year before on trip to Upper Young Lake. This however was going to be my first time leading a trip with Sierra Club. I thought Upper Young Lake was a perfect place to go since it gets relatively little trail traffic and it's a really spectacular area. The plan was to hike to Upper Young Lake on Day 1 and then do a x-country day hike over to Roosevelt Lake that sits right below Mount Conness. I considered the trip to be a easy-moderate hike. It's only about 7 miles to Upper Young Lake with about an 1800 foot gradual gain. We had a great group assembled for the hike and no newbies everyone had been on a Sierra Club trip before. I drove up with Suzanne and Nancy on Thursday afternoon and we tried to get a campsite at Tuolumne Meadows but we were out of luck...not su...

August 16 & 17th, 2008 - Mokelumne Wilderness - Grouse Lake Some of you may have heard the term "bagging a peak" well for this trip we were bagging a Wilderness Area. My friend, Steve, Curtis and I were headed out on an overnight and Steve wanted to venture to a lesser traveled wilderness. Our real goal was to get to the Snowshoe Brewery on Highway 4 but I had a tough time finding any trails with a moderate level of difficulty and doing a 13 mile 3000 foot gain hike wasn't going to work on this trip. So after some browsing online I found a nice moderate hike (6ish miles, 1500ish foot gain) to Grouse Lake in Mokelumne Wilderness. Mokelumne is pretty small and lies between Highway 88 and Highway 4. Our hike was off of Blue Lakes road off of Highway 88. The trip started out as all good trips do...pulling into a campsite at midnight. In our case it was the Hope Valley Campground and quite possibly the smallest campsite I have ever setup camp in http://www.hopeva...

July 26 & 27, 2008 - Emigrant Wilderness - Crabtree to Granite Lake Another attempt at a partial off-trail trip and in a place that is becoming very familiar....Emigrant Wilderness. This trip would start out at the Crabtree trailhead close to the site of my first outing of the FY08 backpacking season. The route this time was a bit less ambitious than the last time but definitely an adventure. The route was the Crabtree trailhead to Bear Lake then cross country to Granite Lake. On the second day we would hike down to Y Meadow Lake loop around to Chewing Gum Lake and then take an unmaintained trail back to the Crabtree trailhead. The mileage wasn't much at 14 miles in all and about a 1500 foot gain each day but the off trail portion was sure to seem more than a 1500 foot gain. The trail out of Crabtree was nice and after a couple of miles we hit Camp Lake. There's no camping allowed between the trail and the lake so we didn't see anyone camped out there. We stopped an...

July 3 & 4, 2008 - Emigrant Wilderness - Kennedy Meadows to Relief Valley This was the trip that maybe wasn't meant to be. This trip had been in the works for awhile but it was definitely ambitious (I planned it - what else is new). The original plan had been to head up to Iceland Lake and then over to Emigrant Lake for a couple of nights and out. Did I mention that day 1 included 3000+ foot gain over 10+ miles and part of that being off trail oh yeah and it was Curtis's first trip out. So I know what you are already thinking....this isn't a good idea...but let us proceed. There is about a mile and a half of on-ish trail hiking that started the trip out from the parking lot through the Kennedy Meadows resort. A majority of the resort burned down in fall of 2007 and most of it was rebuilt by the time we went through. Of special note was the saloon which had many many...many beer boxes outside...hmm maybe I am not ready to go out into the backcountry. ...