Hat Creek 2012

Michaela and I spent the Canada Day long weekend at the Hat Creek ranch. We enjoyed the tour of the old road house and the native village. We also took a drive to Marble canyon. Our favorite part was the ride on the stage coach.

The view of Lower Falls.

The trail was snow covered after 8.5 Km.

A cold morning.

Our Camp kitchen.

A small patch of sand in the snow.

A nice place for lunch.

Lots of creeks to cross.

A rest stop waterfall.

Nick with his 25 lb pack ready to go.

Friday Apr 6, 2012.

Nick and I started our hike at 9:30am from the Gold Creek parking lot in Golden Ears park. Nick's pack was 25lb and mine was 35lb. The weather was cool around 6c and the sky was overcast. We started hiking up the hill on the East Canyon horse / hiking trail. There were lots of small creeks crossing the trail that we had to cross on rocks and logs. After 30 min we stopped to layer down and enjoy a small waterfall. An older couple walked by and asked were the trail went and how to get back to the parking lot. After showing them what trail they were on with our map they turned back to find their car. We continued on to the Viewpoint Beach fork (4.5 Km) and the last outhouse on the trail. After a quick rest stop we decided to hike farther down the trail before making our lunch stop. We found a nice gravel beach around the 6 Km mark and stopped for lunch. We ran into another backpacker at our lunch stop, he was planning to camp at the same beach as us that night. He said that he was on the trail the week before and the trail was covered with snow from the 8 Km marker and he had to turn back.

After lunch we continued on toward our goal of the sandy beach at the 10 Km marker. There were lots of trees across the trail and we had to crawl on hands and knees in a few spots to get through. As we had been informed the snow started to get bad at the 8.5 Km mark. Rout finding was a bit of a challenge but we worked together to find the markers and we made the camp spot at around 3:00pm. The sandbar we planned to camp on was covered with snow except for a small tent sized area. I set up the tent and Nick scouted the area to find a good spot for cooking. By 6:00 we had eaten our dinner and it started to get cold and windy. We went into the tent to play cards and watch a movie on the iPhone. I was asleep by 9:00pm

Saturday Apr 7, 2012.

I woke up several times during the night to a chill. It was -2c in the tent and I was using my 0c summer sleeping bag. Nick was warm in his -7c three season bag. The morning was cold -5c so we put on our frozen boots and broke camp quickly. We didn’t cook breakfast, we just ate some trail mix and hit the trail. After one hour of hiking we could feel our toes and fingers so we looked for a place to stop and eat our breakfast. We found a nice sunny gravel beach and set up the stove to cook our oatmeal. I heated water and Nick filtered water to fill our water bags for the hike out. We ate a quick meal of oatmeal and coffee and were back on the trail by 10:00. The hike out was warm as the sun filled the valley and we enjoyed the many views of Gold Creek. As we were nearing the end of the hike we decided to take the side trail down to Lower Falls and take the lower trail back to the car. The trail was muddy and crowded, but the view of the falls was worth it.

Wow It's been a whole year since we made the trip to California. How depressing that we are not going back this year. Michaela wants to try to go again next year so I guess I had better start to put some money away.

Dinner

Floating the Lazy River

Sprinkler Play

It's hard to believe, it's the last day! Yesterday the weather changed, it was hot sunny and no wind. We spent the day by the pool baking in the sun. The kids finally got to play in the giant sprinklers making grandpa Wayne happy. Russ and Lyn visited us for a dinner of steak and prawns, vacation life is tough. lol Now we are all packed and ready to fly so we will hit the pool for the last few hrs before our flight. We are spending the night in Seattle tonight and doing our last minute shopping tomorrow before crossing the border and getting back to reality.
We want to thanks Wayne and Val for making this wonderful trip possible, we all had so much fun. To bad it must come to an end. Thanks to all who took the time to follow us on our journey through this blog. We will see you all when we get home.