On Wednesday we took some time to get organized at the condo
and then headed out for a day of skiing at Heavenly Resort at the southern end
of Lake Tahoe. The condo was just a couple minutes from the Stagecoach Base and
even with a slow start, we were on the mountain by ten. It was a beautiful blue
bird day of spring skiing with temperatures hitting above 60F even up at 9500’.
The views were incredible and we just kept marveling at the vistas around every
corner. The only bummers were that a lot of the lifts were closed for the
season, which limited the terrain, and it was so warm that the snow was pretty
slushy and inconsistent. We had a picnic lunch on a warm deck in the sunshine
and drank in the warmth. After lunch explored the mountain a little more before
heading back to the condo to relax.
We met up with Steve, who went to the Coast Guard Academy
with Eben, down at Nevada Beach on Lake Tahoe later that afternoon. The area
was still in off-season mode and there were hardly any people there even though
it was a warm and gorgeous afternoon. The lake was pretty chilly, however, and
there is no way you’d catch any of us swimming in it! Steve came over for
dinner and we played cards and caught up.
We skied again at Heavenly on Thursday, this time with
Steve. We got there at opening and got a lot of good runs in before the snow
started slushing up, which felt invigorating. It was fun to take a bunch of
pictures and videos to capture what an awesome day it was up on the mountain.
It couldn’t have been a better day!
After catching up to so many other rafting groups, we knew
the take out would be busy, so we woke up early and tried to pack up camp
quickly. This was hampered by Eben’s need for first aid after a wicked stubbed
toe. But everything came together in the end and we launched at 9:00 on our
final morning. We passed a few other groups packing up camp as we floated by on
a fine, warm morning with flat water and no wind. The final five miles
continued to be scenic and interesting, including the old Birch Creek Ranch
that is now run by the BLM. The take out had a couple small groups there when
we showed up. It was actually pretty nice with some grassy areas and shade
trees. Best of all – our Tahoe and boat trailer were there – something I always
worry about until we see it with our own eyes.
We worked hard to offload the gear, clean the raft, unstrap
the frame, and to reorganize everything to prepare for the second half of our
spring break (skiing) and the end of our boating days. By the time were done
with all of that (about two hours), about six or seven more groups came in and
it was pretty hectic by noon when we left.
We had heard that the drive from the
take out back to the main road was almost two-hours long and that four-wheel
drive was needed. As we learned firsthand, that was very accurate information.
We took pictures and video to prove it. When we finally had finished the road
and made it back to a gas station, we noticed that a trailer tire was punctured
and close to flat. Luckily Eben had a spare (so prepared) and there was a
helpful clerk at the service station who plugged the puncture so that we still
were able to carry a spare.
We put down a bunch of miles to get down to our friend Steve
Casey’s house in Truckee, California, on the north end of Lake Tahoe. We
visited with him and his wife, Annie, and dropped the trailer off to keep in his driveway before
heading down to our condo at Heavenly by late that night.
This was our most adventurous and scenic day on the river,
by far. We began by waking up early to find a layer of frost on all our stuff.
We grabbed bars for breakfast and hiked up to the base of Lambert Dome. The
route took us up a dry creek bed and into a narrow slot canyon. It was cool to
see the different layers of old lake bed sediment as we hiked. The white color
sediment felt like chalky clay while the black sediment was fine and most each
time), and put on the river at 9:30. The kids are really helpful around camp
and have a bunch of jobs and tasks that they do to pitch in.
The wind was mostly gone today and it was also warmer than
the previous day – a perfect combination. I paddled a lot more and started
feeling more comfortable with maneuvering the boat. But it was still pretty
heavy and sometimes difficult for me to get it quickly into a certain position.
We had our biggest rapids of the trip this morning. It started off with the
Whistling Bird Rapid that was formed when a piece of canyon wall detached and
fell next to the canyon wall on river right. Water pushes into the wall and
behind the rock flake as the river takes a sharp left turn. At high flows such
as the level we were at, it was pushy, but pretty simple to stay left and avoid
the whole thing altogether.
The canyon walls now closed in and felt much taller than
before since they were so close. The rock was a beautiful red color. The
gradient was pretty consistent through the canyon and there were a number of challenging
rapids – most notably “Rock Trap,” “Squeeze,” and “Montgomery” all between
miles 32-34. Eben had great lines on all of them and they certainly were
exciting. We stopped for lunch at the “Cliff Side” camp just after those rapids
and marveled at the feeling of being so small next to the steep, high walls. A
few miles further down the river valley opened up again and we passed a few
really nice camps, each one spaced about a mile apart. We had a couple smaller
rapids (Nuisance and Morcum Dam) between miles 39-40 before the river settled
out and was pretty tame. During that stretch, not on a rapid, but in due to a
sneaker rock in the middle of the river that we hit sharply, Charlotte got
knocked out of the raft and into the water. She popped up quickly right next to
the raft and Eben pulled her in. She was shaken and cold, but regained her
composure after a few minutes of cuddling with me and taking some deep breaths.
We were aiming for the Greeley hot springs and one of the
three camps just down stream of it around mile 45. We scouted the hot springs
only to find them underwater at the high river flow and all three camp spots
taken. As there were only five more miles left, we wanted to camp quickly but
there weren’t any other named spots until three more miles downriver. So we
ended up scouting and finding a small, unnamed camp, on river left at about
mile 46.5, that we can call “Lower, Lower Greeley.”
The camp was in a beautiful canyon with pointy red rock pinnacles poking
up through steep, grassy hills littered with basalt boulders. There were even a
few trees by the river’s edge so that we could set up our hammock for the first
time. After setting up camp and relaxing a bit, Charlotte decided to climb up
to get to the base of some of the rock formations. She did it! She looked so
small climbing up the hillside. She returned, drank water, and then wanted to
head up again to go even higher. She and Eben went up all the way to the
pinnacles and canyon rim! We ate some yummy burritos when they returned and had
another campfire before tucking in for the night.
