Aug 5 Snow Valley Peak Area

9:27am One thing it is good to do before leaving on any trip where you have to live outside is to find out the long range weather forecast for the area you’ll be traveling. Which I dutifully did before I left. Sun, sun, sun, scattered thunder showers, sun, sun, sun, sun. So I woke up this morning to scattered cloudy skies, I wasn’t surprised.

At 6:30 I got up to make coffee and within a few minutes it started to sprinkle. Right on time! I leisurely packed up, after a slow breakfast, then hit the trail at 8:00am.

The trail started climbing through fairly dense woods and within ½ hour I saw a smallish pile of bear scat with a hind foot print near. About 3-4 inches long. The scat was dry, but I started looking closer at the ground and in a few yards saw a front foot print 5-6 inches long. Yowza! Pretty exciting! On the other hand I did not want to surprise the bear in these close woods so I began my “hey bear” call. Every few minutes I’d call out to let any potential bears know I was there. It doesn’t do to frighten wild animals, four legged or two. They can be unpredictable when frightened.

By the way, I think I have solved an age old mystery. Without a doubt, bears do indeed shit in the woods.

7:50pm South Camp Bench 8,800’

After my slow start this morning I spent the first couple of hours traversing the west side of a big ‘ole hill. There were fields of Lupine and Sage-can you imagine that. Quite a nasal party. After that it was back into the woods and a steady 5 miles down to Spooner Summit. The water I had stashed for myself was still there-phew-so I filled up my four liters and was ready to tackle the next section by 2:30.

Spooner Summit to the Kingsbury Grade north trailhead is only 12.2 miles however it appeared that there were only two reasonable choices for me to camp at. The first at 3.5 miles in was possible, but the very best is the South Camp Bench. I was told by a day hiker today that it is the very best view on the whole Tahoe Rim Trail. So I humped it up to the junction on Genoa Peak Rd., only to see a swath of old logging debris and no where reasonable to sleep. I’m not really one to sleep on the side of a road-even a forest service road. So I cooked my dinner there and at 5:30 I took off for, what the guidebook called, “an unrelenting 800’ climb” Doesn’t make it sound appealing does it?

Well I already hiked 12 miles, what’s 2 more? So here I am in a nice, quiet nook just a stones throw from the trail, but unseen by the bike riders who are still out there. And the view? Stunning.

Talked to Char on my cell tonight and she is leaving Santa Cruz at 6am with the goal of us meeting up by noon. I think I will sleep in as it won’t take me that long to hike 7.1 miles tomorrow morning. Today’s miles 14