Saturday was supposed to be the makeup hike for the 2nd leg of the Tahoe Rim Trail. I got up early and made it to Roseville at 5:45am, but only one person was there. Luckily there was another hike meeting in Folsom, so me and the other guy drove over. This one was to Hawkins Peak.
The trailhead was at Grover Hot Springs, just outside the small town of Markleeville.
Overall it was a nice little hike. STEEP! It wasn't too bad until it hit the scree, then it was not only hiking uphill, but like hiking through sand. Uphill through sand, yup. The views were wonderful.
There were actually two portions of the hike. The first part was from Grover Hot Springs to Burnside Lake, which is accessible by car. From there, the second part is up a jeep trail to the foot of Hawkins Peak, which is a Class 2 scramble up some rocks. Only part of the group took the second leg, so we ate a late lunch at Burnside Lake.
Since I had planned on hiking on the TRT, I had the Tahoe Basin map with me. We found out that it actually had Hawkins Peak on it, so we were using it quite a bit.
The jeep trail was pretty steep. Once we got to the scrambling portion though, the fun really started.
It really is that steep. Climbing up the rocks is part climb, part hold, part pull yourself up by your hands.
In the end though, we made it to the top. Hawkins Peak is 10,024 feet high.
The views were pretty far-reaching.
We knew we would end up hiking back in the dark, so prior to the summit, we had them finish hiking back the other way. They picked all the cars but one due to it being a rental car with only one person able to drive(an important detail). They got the cars and met up with us at the beginning of the jeep trail.
When it was over, we ate at the Kirkwood Inn, a nice little place. After dinner, we drove back to Markleeville to pick up the one car at 10:15pm. The parking lot was locked. It closed at 8pm. This was not good, so we drove around looking for a ranger. No dice.
Back in Markleeville, there was a bar that was pretty busy. Two of the guys went in to see if anyone knew who we could contact to get the car. One guy who was pretty drunk said he had a key back at his house, so two of the guys (one of which rented the car) went back with him to get the key, while we went to meet them at the gate.
Back at the gate, who did we run into, but the ranger! We told him what had happened, and he wasn't happy about the situation. He gave us the lecture about how we should have thought ahead, what were we thinking, the whole drill. In the end though, he said he would open the gate. On the way, I commented that even though he opened the gate, we couldn't drive the car out without the keys, which were with one of the other guys.
The ranger actually stuck around long enough for them to arrive. Drunk-guy came and knew the ranger, so we were able to get the car and leave. It was at least 11:30pm before we were driving back. I got back to Folsom at 1:30am, and headed home from there.
Big fun that night! Oh yeah, my toes are doing pretty good, although they were bleeding a bit. It was still worth it. Here's one final picture that Marko (the rental car guy) took. That's my backside and camera to the right.
1 comment:
Hehe,
Greg hope you are doing fine. I was searching Markleeville on google and found this... awesome summary of the story Greg... I can still clearly remember (after 2 years) the whole day was a sequence of some quite improbable events that ended OK. To bad you did not go with us in the bar - where you could participate in bargaining with the locals and write some saucy details on that ;) .
Cheers,
Marko
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