Saturday Morning to the Trailhead
What happens after a Friday Night Halfway? Say it with me: Saturday we go all the way. 😂 This morning we awoke in Auburn, having driven there last night and stayed in a hotel. I wish I could say knocking out 3 hours of driving last night (which was actually 4 because of traffic) helped us get an early start on our hike today, but I can't. I wound up sleeping in until after 8 because I spent a few hours in the middle of the night tossing and turning and sitting up, unable to fall back asleep. With breakfast and all, we didn't hit the road until 10am.
Checking for Fires
It used to be that when we plan a hike, we check the weather report. Well, we still do that, but now we also check the fire report. 😓 As of last night there was a fire burning in the north Lake Tahoe area, about 50 miles east of the Grouse Lakes Basin, but no smoke from it was drifting west. This morning we woke up in Auburn, even further west, and distinctly smelled wood smoke in the air. 😰 A quick visit to PurpleAir.com showed us the fire in Tahoe had apparently died down a bit but a new fire had appeared south of us in Placerville. The smoke we smelled in Auburn may have been from that. But air quality was still excellent near Grouse Lakes. 😮💨
Getting to the Carr & Feeley Lakes Trailhead
One nice thing about staying in Auburn is that it leaves us with only the nicest part of the drive up into the Sierras for today. We drove 40-ish miles up the mountain, heading east on I-80, then backtracked a few miles west on Route 20 past Spaulding Lake, then north on Forest Road 17 toward the lakes basin. The last 3 miles of the route are unpaved. The Forest Service recently put down a new layer of gravel so the unpaved part is more accessible to ordinary passenger cars. We probably could've taken the convertible but we're glad we drove our 4x4 just in case.
The Carr & Feeley Lakes trailhead is at the end of the road, around elev. 6,700' (2,040 m). And today it was crowded. The main parking area was filled to capacity... and the overflow area was filled, and maybe 20 more cars were parked along the side of the gravel road. This is about 4 times as many cars as I've ever seen at this trailhead before. I'm not sure what's going on.... Hedge Creek Falls was packed with 4-5x the usual visitation two weeks ago, now this trail at 4-5x. Did a bunch of our favorite out-of-the-way places suddenly become Instagram famous?
Keep reading: Starting the hike past Carr and Feeley Lakes (next blog)
Checking for Fires
It used to be that when we plan a hike, we check the weather report. Well, we still do that, but now we also check the fire report. 😓 As of last night there was a fire burning in the north Lake Tahoe area, about 50 miles east of the Grouse Lakes Basin, but no smoke from it was drifting west. This morning we woke up in Auburn, even further west, and distinctly smelled wood smoke in the air. 😰 A quick visit to PurpleAir.com showed us the fire in Tahoe had apparently died down a bit but a new fire had appeared south of us in Placerville. The smoke we smelled in Auburn may have been from that. But air quality was still excellent near Grouse Lakes. 😮💨
Getting to the Carr & Feeley Lakes Trailhead
One nice thing about staying in Auburn is that it leaves us with only the nicest part of the drive up into the Sierras for today. We drove 40-ish miles up the mountain, heading east on I-80, then backtracked a few miles west on Route 20 past Spaulding Lake, then north on Forest Road 17 toward the lakes basin. The last 3 miles of the route are unpaved. The Forest Service recently put down a new layer of gravel so the unpaved part is more accessible to ordinary passenger cars. We probably could've taken the convertible but we're glad we drove our 4x4 just in case.
The Carr & Feeley Lakes trailhead is at the end of the road, around elev. 6,700' (2,040 m). And today it was crowded. The main parking area was filled to capacity... and the overflow area was filled, and maybe 20 more cars were parked along the side of the gravel road. This is about 4 times as many cars as I've ever seen at this trailhead before. I'm not sure what's going on.... Hedge Creek Falls was packed with 4-5x the usual visitation two weeks ago, now this trail at 4-5x. Did a bunch of our favorite out-of-the-way places suddenly become Instagram famous?
Keep reading: Starting the hike past Carr and Feeley Lakes (next blog)