TR 8/12-14/22 Just for the Hike of It N of Donner

[giantbrookie]

"The lake, while interesting, is not particularly outstanding. However, the route to it is. The trail contains a 3-mile rambling traverse of a multifaceted, glaciated basin that is reminiscent of Washington's Northern Cascades, conveying a sense of unbridled wilderness not found in most of the Tahoe Sierra" (Jeffrey Schaffer, Tahoe Sierra 3rd Edition, 1987, Wilderness Press).

I read that comment in the late 80s and have been tempted ever since. Still, 8 miles or so (listed at 7.7 miles in Tahoe Sierra from near Donner Summit and various modern estimates with the new trailhead S of I80 range from about 7 to 8 miles) and >2000' of elevation gain to a cul-de-sac location had me thinking of other options so I dayhiked in with Judy in October of 1995 on a hike that fought through what I rank as the 4th worst brush I've ever hacked through. My notes from 1995 said "need to spend full day here" (ie backpack), but it took 27 years to take the plunge and backpack in the "conventional way" from Donner Summit.

Spoiler alert. You notice no lake names, so you can probably guess that I encountered some fish. As they say in classical Chinese novels "If you'd like to find out whether fish were caught, turn to the next chapter" (usual asynchronous report at end). However, not naming names in this case is prompted more by the quality of the destination and hike itself and the fact that the trail and lake receives fairly light use, even though it is not in a wilderness and therefore not subject to wilderness permits let alone the associated entry point quotas. I suppose the 8-mile-to-dead-end thing will continue to keep down usage, given that was sufficient to keep me away, but I don't want to spoil or out this terrific destination. And, by the way, I disagree with "The lake, while interesting, is not particularly outstanding." I'd put it near the top of the list in the Tahoe Sierra in terms of scenic beauty.

I took off at 510 am from my East Bay home and headed to the S side Donner PCT trailhead, where I arrived at 747 am. Longtime backpack buddy, Todd, who is usually as punctual as a watch, had agreed to meet there at 8 am and I had a text saying that construction on CA-20 had delayed him and that he'd be a few minutes late. In fact, he rolled in at 8 sharp. We were hiking by about 830. The hike begins by heading E through the woods south of I80 then joining the PCT where one turns left (N) and heads through two tunnels in series that pass under eastbound and westbound I80. One ascends a tad then encounters another trail junction (with the Summit L trail) where one turns right (E) instead of left (to PCT). The junctions are nicely signed for the most part but each sign seems to leave out one of the directions. After a small amount of ascending through the woods, another trail junction is reached and one follows the signs to the trail of choice that climbs moderately northward through the woods to reach a saddle that marks the beginning of the storied 3-mile traverse quoted above; this is at a point a bit more than 3 miles from the trailhead. It is an amazing transition from the highway noise of I80 to real wilderness with terrific close-in vistas of the east side of Castle Peak and long lines of sight to the east and south.

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The rambling traverse heads north starting with a big, moderately steep descent and then a pretty steady ascent from the low point. That east-facing slope is quite lush with multiple rivulets running even at that date (ie August) after three dry winters. No doubt there will still be water into September. The wildflowers associated with each streamlet and many of the slopes were wonderful even though the bloom was past its peak based on the fact that most of the numerous lupines had finished their bloom. Several weeks earlier that traverse would surely have had wildflowers to rival the Carson Pass area. Of course, nature strikes balances. Peak wildflowers commonly coincide with bad mosquitoes. We encountered few mosquitoes on this trip, even during periods of still air in the evening; my total number of mosquito kills for the trip was 4. We had ideal conditions in nearly every respect. The weather was fairly warm (highs in 70s) but we had a good breeze blowing most of the day. We had wonderful clear skies, too.

The traverse ends with a supremely steep descent to the lake where one loses more than 1000' in a mile or so. As soon as the lake came into view ,we remarked to each other that the assessment of "not outstanding" didn't do the lake justice.

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As older hikers we descended slowly to avoid falling, but it still took little time to reach the partly wooded, partly slabby, southern shoreline. The only human occupants of the lake on arrival Friday (sometime before 1 pm) were a friendly couple with two dogs. In spite of the apparent light use, there are an enormous number of campsites at the lake, partly because there are so many convenient flat spots. As usual, we chose the one highest above the lake with abundant space, shade where we needed some, and plenty of natural granite "furniture", including a large slab that worked as the kitchen and dining area. After wheezing and coughing to keep up with my son Lee it was nice to hike with a fellow 60+ person in Todd. Like me, Todd has had his share of health challenges this year, including a gum operation and battles with back spasms. Whereas he set a much mellower pace than Lee, our hiking was efficient enough to give us plenty of time to enjoy the lake on our arrival day. In fact, our measured pace, particularly descending, contributed to my lack of soreness the day after return from the trip, in contrast to aches and pains after three dayhikes with Lee (felt like I had returned from a week-long backpack after those dayhikes).

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Lee had bought me some near gear to try out, including my first down bag (REI Magma 15). As someone with a lot of allergies and mild asthma, I think I tested sensitive to various feathers during allergy tests as a kid, so my dad always bought me synthetic bags and I followed this trend as an adult, assuming that bad things would happen if I slept in a down bag. Recently, having lived for the first time in my life with an indoor furry pet (cat) for over 10 years without any noticeable increase in allergy symptoms, I thought about challenging the assumption of allergy to goose down, and Lee must have read my mind. He also got me a superlight/high loft/very compactible Nemo Tensor sleeping pad. Collectively these gear upgrades gave me much more room in my pack. Such extra space wasn't needed on this two-night trip but will come in handy when I get back to taking long trips next year.

After settling in to our fine campsite we had a relaxing afternoon and evening at the lake. Part of this involved exploration of the lake perimeter, including evaluating whether or not a trail actually got to the lake from the north---no sign of that. For culinary endeavors, see the next chapter. Although the evening seemed to bring a comfortable level of chill, we both found it uncomfortably warm when we tried to sleep. Part of this for me was that my new bag was much warmer than my old one. Another issue was that I had spaced out and put my sleeping bag head toward the foot end of the tent and Todd had followed suit. This was no doubt poorer for air circulation and cooling off and it also contributed to another issue of "inverse gradient" (foot end higher).

We slept poorly and couldn't wait to pop out of the tent at about 6 am Saturday morning. At that point I assumed I had pitched the tent with the head end pointed downhill and stated that I'd "180" the tent in the mid afternoon after various morning and early afternoon activities that included a scramble up the rugged slot canyon to the trailless lake perched above us to the south. I had done that scramble with Judy in 1995 as a part of our bushwhacking dayhike and I recalled it was quite steep, which it is, but the talus is mostly quite firm and one can easily avoid brush thickets. The lake above has nice massive granite slabs above it but lacks the attractiveness of its larger neighbor below to the north, mainly because the water is pea soup green from algae growth. I'm not sure why some lakes seen to have this. Round Lake north of Carson Pass is like this, too. The biggest perk of climbing to the upper lake is the view back down while descending. Upon return we both felt like a nap, owing to lack of sleep but we forced ourselves to stay awake so as not to ruin our second night of sleep. I pulled up the tent pegs and prepared to 180 the tent then realized that the bags were backwards, so we 180'd the bags, put the pegs back in and forecast better sleep, which we obtained.

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Fully rejuvenated by a really good night of sleep, we packed up fairly early, and hit the trail a bit after 830 am, nearly spot on with our hike in start time. The steep climb out of the lake showed me my ascending strength to still below my standard even after the crash workout Lee put me through. I led and put everything I had into it. Todd stayed right with me. We made the ascent which Todd's GPS watch put at a bit over 1000' of gain and 1.3 miles in 48 minutes which wasn't so terrible for older folks, particularly for one carrying a rather heavy pack (for explanation, see next chapter). In my prime years I counted on being able to do better than 1500' of gain with a full pack per hour, but climbing Koip Pass from Alger Lake with Todd to open the third and final day of "Yosemite Inside Out" in 2014 had reset my expectation to 1000' of gain per hour.

As we hiked the traverse section, we noticed features that we hadn't on the hike in such as the one section of trail that follows the crest of a narrow ridge made up of knobby volcanic mudflow deposits. The bottom of this marks the beginning of the last ascent going out and it concludes the last truly steep descent in the outbound (southerly) direction. Perhaps we let up on our guard because the difficult descent portions were ending, but I had a piece of volcanic bedrock in the trail crumble beneath my feet, launching me on a fairly spectacular fall in which I didn't stop when I first hit the ground. There was some bouncing and relaunching before I crashed to a stop below the trail. It probably looked scary to a viewer, but being unhurt except for a few bruises and skin abrasions, the fall seemed absurd and amusing. No sooner did I stand up and start walking, then Todd, who had reached a point where the gradient eased nearly at the bottom of the downgrade, slipped on loose rocks in the trail and fell hard, also bruised but otherwise uninjured.

After the jarring falls, we trudged up the long uphill to the crest out the precedes the steady descent to I80. The view to the south includes the pointed volcanic summits of the Granite Chief area and on a slightly more easterly azimuth the distant Heavenly ski runs and Freel Peak. One can see Boreal Ridge a bit closer at hand but we were still far enough away not to hear the highway noise so it still felt like wilderness. As we descended to the crescendo of highway sounds it seemed to more starkly outline just how nice the previous three days in the wilderness had been. The drive home in super thick Sunday-on-westbound-80 traffic drove home that contrast still more (drive home more than hour longer than drive up). Nothing that a shower and a good IPA couldn't fix upon arrival, however. Owing to schedule and subpar physical condition, long and interesting backpacking trips have not figured into my 2022 plans, but this trip illustrated that simple on trail backpacking trip in the not-so-high northern Sierra can bring ample pleasure. For more pleasures read to the next chapter.

Fishing? Two lakes were visited on the trip. The CDFW surveyed the trout populations of both lakes on Sept 11-12, 2019 and found large brookies in one lake, and large brookies and one large cutthroat in the other. Given the time of year (mid August) and my recent battles with the dreaded midsummer slump I told Lee before I left that I believed the odds were something like 60 percent that I'd be totally skunked. For that reason I had multiple plans in place in case of skunkage on day 1 and the morning of day 2, for hiking out, driving somewhere else and hiking in to a different target.

I didn't skunk so we didn't have to execute Plan B, which led to a more relaxing trip. Fishing was slow, though with a total of 5 fat brookies caught in 3 days. I had a total of probably about 10 additional strikes and two fish that were hooked, fought and came off. The five brookies ranged from 14 to 19".

The 19-incher is easily my PB brookie, significantly besting the 18.3" "maybe PB" caught May 31 of this year, as well as multiple large brookies in the 17.5-18" range I had caught dating back to 1989. This fish felt like bringing in this heavy branch (many of you have done this) except that the branch had a jet motor and it would make these rocket downward runs. It is the 2nd heaviest fish I've ever caught, exceeded only by the 32 inch mack caught 22 years ago out of that special lake in Deso. Landing this powerful, energetic brookie was quite a challenge because the cliffy casting spot did not offer a place to net this fish and the fish was clearly too heavy for a hoist. I had to scramble laterally across this steep granite slab, holding my net in one hand and doing my best to keep my line tight. After climbing and sliding to a good netting spot I briefly lost tension and I reared back on the rod. I was relieved to find the fish still on. Although I now had a good netting position the anxiety mounted, because I had a super bad track record of finishing when it came to large fish, dating back to losing PB cutties on three consecutive trips last year and the super skunk experience with Lee two weeks earlier (again lost PB cutty and several other large ones). Now in a good netting position, I still couldn't get the fish steered into position. In fact, I couldn't even get the beast into view. I pumped the rod vigorously as if battling a salmon, but as much as I pulled upward, the monster countered with head shaking dives. When I finally brought the fish into view, I initially questioned the size, probably because the hugely thick fish didn't look as long as it really was. Even after getting the fish into view, it continued to make sizzling runs and was simply too strong to steer to the net. Eventually after a good five minutes (maybe more) I steered it to a perfect netting. Only when I saw the fish in the net and felt its weight as I lifted with my left hand did I realize how large the fish was.

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The lunker was saved for a family dinner because I knew it could easily feed all four family members even though we have voracious appetites for fish, and it was much too large for me and Todd to consume. A 16-incher amply provided for Todd's and my main course for Friday night. I cooked this in peanut oil with salt, pepper and some sage I had picked up during the traverse. All of the brookies had deep orange meat and superb flavor with a texture like salmon with big firm flakes. As always, we plan to have a non-fish course, too and Todd did a really tasty freeze dried pasta with pesto and chicken. But that wasn't all. We hadn't tried a freeze-dried desert before and Todd brought Mountain House apple crisp. Yum, no wonder I didn't lose any weight on this trip. After we finished Todd realized that he forgot to serve the naan that he had brought and I forgot that I had brought a lemon to have with the fish. We agreed to add these items to our Saturday menu. A smaller 14-inch brookie anchored the Saturday meal. I cooked this one with salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried basil, and lemon slices and served with lemon slices. Outstanding. Better yet, Todd brought out the naan with which we mopped up the leftover oily goodness in our cups and the pot. That would be total decadence even at sea level. Todd followed that with mac and cheese with the remainder mopped up with another slice of naan.

Three large brookies were wrapped in my usual "fish towels" to hike out. The lunker alone would have made my return pack heavier than my hike-in pack, but all three made for a pretty heavy pack to carry up those upgrades and to support on the steep descents. My base pack weight is never light as it stands, given all of the various comfort items I take and huge lure selection in three different lure boxes (good for peace of mind on a trip that I lost 7 lures).

Historically, Lee doesn't get too excited, even with the largest fish I take home. He was reasonably impressed with the large brookies brough home at the beginning of June, but his eyes popped out when I unwrapped the monster brookie. Even though he caught a beefy 20 inch cuttie last summer, this brookie was clearly much bigger (heavier and thicker) and the toothy male jaw was huge. Lee was beside himself with wonder, even requesting I pose with the fish in the living room so he could take a picture. Then he took another photo looking into the T-rex jaw. He also had me text him all three photos I took of the fish after I caught it; he's never done that before. Lee asked what it was like to hook and land the beast and I recounted the story as he listened with far more than usual interest to yet another fish story.

Normally Lee cooks the fish but because Dawn and Judy had to get up early, I cooked it. I cut the monster into four sections: the tail portion, the head, and what looked like two salmon roasts. I seasoned and cooked the fish the same way I had on Saturday night except that I had a large frying pan and tools to flip the fish pieces so I could get the nice crispy side. I also added green onions. As a side dish I fried up some Brussel sprouts with fresh garlic, a smidge of black pepper, and 2/3 of a Thai chile. All of this was served with steamed Japanese rice. Judy and I had cans of Tioga-Sequoia's Cold Boi IPA, a superb seasonal special that I picked up the week before when I went down to Fresno to cut some petrographic thin sections of my Newfoundland samples. I had told Lee the story of the naan on Saturday night. Suitably inspired, he took some rice and mopped up the oil in the frying pan which he declared as especially choice. I did the more conventional finish of getting the final loose pieces of fish putting it on the rice and wrapping a piece of nori around it. Yes, those orange-meated brookies are as mouth-watering at sea level as they are camped out in the High Sierra. And we have another meal of them tonight. Lee's up as chef for that one.

So, was this trip truly "Just for the Hike of It"? I think you know the answer.

[texan]

Nice Brookie, any brookie over 18 inches is considered a great catch, congrats and thanks for sharing the TR like you always do.

Texan

[wildhiker]

That Castle Peak area is a nice little piece of wild country. We do a lot of day hikes there, but also have backpacked that eastern cirque. I agree about its wild qualities. Your special lake may get a lot easier to access in the future, because the Truckee Donner Land Trust is considering building a trail to it coming up the drainage from their new preserve in lower Carpenter Valley.
-Phil

[balzaccom]

Great report and super fish! Now you've added one more destination to my long list of places I'd like to go...

[jefffish]

Thanks for the great report! Nice to see big healthy fish in those lakes. Did you see any evidence of self-sustaining populations? Like anything smaller than the ones you caught? Or do you think those fish are the last of a once good population?

~Jeff

[giantbrookie]

Thanks for the great report! Nice to see big healthy fish in those lakes. Did you see any evidence of self-sustaining populations? Like anything smaller than the ones you caught? Or do you think those fish are the last of a once good population?

~Jeff

Brookies have not been air dropped there since something like 1951, so they're all natural spawn and the lake both lakes are self sustaining in brookies. The 2019 gillnet survey caught 11 brookies in the larger lake with the smallest one a bit over 10". I recall they caught more fish in the nets at the upper lake and the catch there includes some small ones with the top end being smaller than the lower lake but still respectable (something like 15"). Like many lakes with low population density I saw no cruisers and fishing with large lures tends to bias my catch high, so I figure the smaller ones aren't compelled to go after the lures (and they may have to lay low to avoid getting eaten by the big fellas). I fish a lot of self sustaining lakes where my smallest fish is really big--two western flank lakes out of Fresno come to mind (smallest fish of many last year caught in those lakes last year was 13" in one and 15" in the other).

[windknot]

Wow, that's a true giant brookie. Congrats on the personal best, and thanks for the photos and report. I agree with Schaffer, this area does indeed look like the Washington Cascades.

[robertseeburger]

Fantastic Brookie..

Texan says anything over 18 inches is a nice brookie....hell anything over 16 inches is a nice brookie!

I dont usually think of the area north of I 80 as very scenic.. The shots look beautiful as well.

[kpeter]

Yet another lovely area to add to my list of new places to go, which no matter how many trips I do seems to get longer rather than shorter! And what a fish!

[Harlen]

Congratulations on a successful trip, and on your monster fish! If you didn't take a net along, would you have been able to "slide" the giant fish up onto the bank? For all of the fish I've lost, I can't remember ever having the line (usu. 6 lb.) break in the "slide" up and out. Of course, I am not landing Giantbrookies. Thanks for another well-written and intriguing trip report.