Backpacking:

	Ohlone Wilderness Trail
	South Desolation Wilderness
	Bull Run Lake

Trip Reports:

	Pinnacles 03/04
	Death Valley 10/03
	Reno 07/03
	Fourth of July 2003
	Memorial Day 2003
	Carson-Iceberg 11/02
	Yosemite 10/02
	Mt. Whitney 08/02
	Carson-Iceberg 07/02

Other Links:

	Birds
	Wildflowers
	Gear
	External Hiking Links

November 16 2002 Sierra Trip
(Friday, November 15 - Sunday, November 17)

Sarah and I left the Bay Area early on Friday to beat the awful getaway traffic. We made good time, getting to Tracy and I decided to take Hwy 120/108 through Sonora and Columbia rather than the more direct route of Hwy 4. We wound up bypassing Sonora on a pretty back road, then stopped in Columbia to get some incense and candles at their excellent bath & candle store. We arrived at the cabin and had a mellow evening.

We hit the road mid-morning on Saturday and drove up the pass to Bear Valley, where I bought a season sno-park permit, then continued to the seasonal road closure and had a great hike to Inspiration Point, which, having snow, was much prettier than last time I was there.

On Sunday we slept in, closed up the cabin, and headed west. Our plan was to go to Jackson, then drive out to the Black Chasm, a cave that I'd somehow managed to miss in the 20 years my family's had a cabin in the area. We took the very scenic route through Sheep Ranch and Mountain Ranch (both very little mountain communities) to San Andreas, then followed Highway 49 to old-town Jackson. We had a terrific lunch at the "Streetside Bistro and Upstairs Restaurant," browsed some of the botiquey stores, then headed east on Highway 88 towards the Black Chasm.

We arrived at the Black Chasm just before a tour left. It was a very, very cool cave, with large and crazy helictite formations, far more than I've seen anywhere else. I learned that the reason I'd not heard of it before is that it only opened in September of 2000, and they're going to be working on extending the walking tour down to the bottom of the main cavern where one will be able to see the beautiful underground lake close-up.

After the cave tour, we drove through the quaint little town of Volcano, then rejoined Highway 88 and continued east, as I wanted to see Silver Lake with snow around it. As expected, it was gorgeous at Silver Lake, and we spent a little while soaking up the great views. We continued further still, past Kirkwood, to Caples Lake, which was also very pretty. At this point, it was a coin flip as to whether or not it was faster to return to the Bay Area via Highway 88 or to continue to South Tahoe and return via Highway 50. I opted for the latter, and so ended our trip.

Links:

• Inspiration Point hike report
• Inspiration Point pictures
• Black Chasm pictures
• The Black Chasm's website
• Silver and Caples Lakes pictures