Annual Girls Backpack to Island Lake

Posted by Karen on 26-Aug-2006

(Click photo for all 51 photos)

I joined Theresa, Tanya, Maria, Michelle, Cindy, Rebecca for the NorCal Hiking Group’s annual girl’s backpack trip to Island Lake in the Tahoe National Forest.  Francis, Maria’s son, and Gavin, Cindy’s dog, were the only guys allowed!  ;D

I had planned on hiking on Friday night after work, but I got a late start and didn’t arrive til after dark, so I chose to just go in first thing in the morning and apparently my choice gave me a much warmer night sleeping in the truck then they had out by the lake.  As the dayhikers hadn’t arrived yet and the campers were just rolling out of the sleeping bags, I enjoyed a peaceful early morning hike to the lake without really seeing anyone.  I bushwhacked my way in the last bit the campground and found the gang enjoying breakfast.  Most of us decided to hike up to Grouse Ridge and look for some of the solar system geocaches; a neat set of hidden caches all in perfect scale to our solar system and they use the Grouse Ridge Fire Lookout Tower as the center of the universe.  We headed out while Maria and Francis decided to stay in camp and do extended water testing of their flotation vests.  Following what we thought was the trail, we found an elaborate campfire site–someone had paved the ground and pulled logs around to make benches all the way around the fire ring.  Which was also about the spot where we realized we were on the wrong trail and needed to backtrack a bit to get back on trail.  The slowpokes in our group (me first and foremost) reached Grouse Ridge campground and decided to have lunch.  Theresa and Rebecca had already gone on ahead and were finding the hidden geocaches.  After they returned and we had lunch, we headed back to camp to swim, chat and just generally kick back and enjoy the afternoon and the sunset.

Distance: approx. 6.85 miles