This weekend we got to hike Bear Creek Trail to Bear Lake Basin up in the Shasta Trinity Alps, and it was the perfect weather for it! The trail was very scenic and fun to hike.
Hike to Bear Lake Basin in the Shasta Trinity Alps
Category: Hiking
Mount Diablo
After seeing all the photos of Mount Diablo with snow on it last weekend, Doc and I decided to go on a 12-mile loop starting and ending at the Mitchell Visitor Center / Parking lot. Well, there is no longer any snow there whatsoever. What a difference a week makes! It was almost hot, even.
But, at least everything was lush and green from all the rainfall we’ve been getting!
We had to do a lot of hustling, because yet again we slept in and got to the trailhead late in the day (12PM) but we made it! And we didn’t even get benighted.
Matt Davis Trail to Break in My New Sweater
I finished my new lopapeysa that I designed and I decided to celebrate by taking it on a hike. I have been really curious about the 7.5 mile Stinson Beach loop from the Matt Davis Trail to the Steep Ravine Trail to the Dipsea Trail, so we went there. Also, I hadn’t been to Stinson Beach in a long time and I missed it.
It was great going to Stinson Beach again, and the trail was a lot of fun. Very pretty with views of the sea and redwood forests and extremely easy. The sweater was perfect activewear for a winter hike like this – lightweight and very warming (due to the Icelandic wool).
And, with all the rains we’ve been getting in Northern California, there were many waterfalls to admire!
All in all, I would recommend it if you are interested in a nice, easy 4-hour hike with some pretty scenery through many different biomes. I was also interested in doing the 15-mile variation that also includes the Muir Woods Trail and the Coast View Trail, but alas I slept in this morning and we didn’t get to the trailhead until 1PM. But everything still worked out!
It was also nice to see how the Leaf handled those mountain roads, and I felt free to experiment because Stinson Beach has chargers. On the way up the mountain, it used a lot of charge and I was surprised – but then going down the mountain on the other side it recaptured at least 2 bars due to regenerative breaking. That was super cool, I had never braved a mountain like that before so I had never seen that.
The Stinson Beach chargers were great – I just arrived, parked, plugged in, went for a hike and came back to a fully charged car. It is always so smooth when that happens – which is why more trailheads need chargers. Honestly, those are the perfect places for them! Especially level 1 and level 2 chargers, because you’re going to be on the trail for 8 hours anyway, so it doesn’t need to be quick. It turned out I didn’t need to charge in Stinson Beach to make it back home, but hey, they were free chargers so why not? Also, when mountains are involved, sometimes it takes more charge to go one way than the other, so I didn’t want to take any chances.