Archive for January 2007
You are browsing the archives of 2007 January.
Jenkinson Lake - Southshore Trail
(Click photo for all 59 photos)
Candace and I headed east to the foothills to hike around Jenkinson Lake, which is part of the Sly Park Recreation Area. We parked at the western trail head sign on Morman Emigrant Road and then started walking along the shoreline. I’m sure there was an actual trail around there somewhere, but the water was quite low, we ended up walking on the lake bed for a ways. I’ve never hiked here before and every time I’ve passed this lake on the way to somewhere else, it’s been in the summertime and it’s a very very popular and crowded lake. However, in the winder, it was very quiet–no campers, no water skiers and very few people on the trails. Past the second spillway, we found the trail and followed it. We veered off trail for a bit to find a geocache alongside an old jeep trail. We found the cache and decided to follow the extremely overgrown jeep trail until we realized it wasn’t leading us back to the lake. We scrambled back to the trail and continued on. As we neared a finger of the lake, we saw that it was covered in ice for a good ways out. We walked to the shore to check it out and all the mud was frozen like little post-piles and very weird to walk on. As we stood their checking it out, we heard it creak and groan and pop.. very cool. Park Creek was half frozen and after checking out the frozen ice cubes in it, we turned around and headed back instead of continuing around the lake. We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather for a hike and it was great to see Candace and catch up with her again.
GPS Stats: • Odometer: 7.73 miles • Total Time: 5:14 • Moving Time: 3:16 • Overall Average Speed 1.4 mph • Moving Average Speed: 2.4 mph
Pardee Lake - Eagle Tour
(Click photo for all 69 photos)
Last year, I found this little blurb on the internet about East Bay Municipal District (EBMUD) offering a boat tour on Pardee Lake to tour eagles and I thought how cool and made reservations for my friend Lisa and I. However, a huge storm hit our area and they cancelled the tour because it wouldn’t be safe to be in an open boat during 30 mph winds. This year, I got us reservations again and even though we’ve been having unusually freezing cold weather lately, there were no storms on the horizon to cancel this trip. They only offer this tour twice a year on two weekends in January before the area is open to the public. Ranger Steve was our tour guide today and had a goodies bag for us, some brochures, an eagle identification chart and other miscellaneous stuff. As we were boarding the open air boat, we saw an osprey dive into the water, snag a fish and fly up on to a telephone pole to feast–a fantastic way to start a bird watching tour! We headed out across the lake, spotting gulls, grebes, ducks, cormorants, geese and of course, bald eagles. At one point we saw three juvenile bald eagles together; they were flying and diving around each other and gave us a great show. Ranger Steve told us that last year was the first year that bald eagles at nested at Pardee Lake and it’s neighbor lake, Camanche, so they were very pleased to see eagles here again this year. We didn’t see any adult bald eagles, which are the ones with the white heads, but the immature ones are quite impressive too and it’s thrilling to see our national bird coming back from the brink of extinction. Folks in the kayaking group have been excitedly reporting sightings of the bald eagle at other lakes in the area too. Next we went down a canyon finger of the lake that was really pretty. The recent freezes had left ice flows in some of the crevices and there was all this pretty lichen on the canyon walls. When we reached the end of the canyon, Ranger Steve hit the gas and took us back to the marina at full speed and at that speed it created a 25′F wind chill factor, so it was one cold ride back! A great trip and I got to see where the longest 2 mile wildflower hike in April will be held–gotta sign up for that one too. LOL
Folsom Lake SRA - Sweetwater Trail
(Click the photo for all 46 photos)
Theresa, Frank, Cassandra, John, Steve and I hiked in the Folsom State Recreation Area today. I’m outta shape, so I’m looking for relatively flat hikes and this fit the bill. Not having hiked there before really, I found the trail map and we chose to start from the new Salmon Falls Bridge and take the Sweetwater Trail for a few miles on the south side of the American River South Fork feeding into the lake. The water level was surprising low and the trail kept us some ways away from the water’s edge; this will probably be a different story in the spring after all the rains. There were geocaches along the trail and everyone was excited to give geocaching a try. We worked as a wonderful team and found 7 caches hidden along our trail. I’d get us to the general vicinity of the cache and someone else would actually find it. Cassandra had never tried caching before, but she’s a natural at spotting them… WTG! On our way in, we met Eric on his way out. It was good to see old friends and meet new friends today. Thanks for an enjoyable hike. 
GPS Stats: ? Odometer: 6.51 miles ? Total Time: 5:07 ? Moving Time: 2:54 ? Overall Average Speed 1.3 mph ? Moving Average Speed: 2.2 mph
Willow Hills Reservoir Community Park
(Click the photo for all 24 photos)
Happy New Year!! It’s a new year and a time to make resolutions. I took a walk around the new Willow Hills Reservoir Community Park in Folsom today. It’s a relatively new park behind Folsom High School and some new geocaches had been hidden out there, so a good near-by place to take a nature walk in the middle of the city. Took a nice quiet walk, looked for caches, contemplated life, watched the geese and generally made no big life changing resolutions. I need to get out of my funk, I need to get out and exercise and hike more and I just need to have a generally good new year… Happy New Years all!
