'Tis the season for hiking!

So, I know it's been awhile since I posted anything, but with all the great weather we've been having I've been spending my time hiking. We've done some great trails lately; Upper Bidwell Park, Susanville ranch Park. and Heart Attack Hill (it lived up to its name!) I'll post some pictures with a quick synopsis of the hikes in this blog.

 This hike was just around the Lake Almanor shore, my own backyard. It was a beautiful but chilly day. We hiked about 3 miles that day and saw some amazing snow capped mountains. The girls thought it would be a good idea to swim in the very cold lake, but everyone is just fine. :-)

Here we are posing for a picture nearing the end of our hike around the Lake Almanor shoreline.

Here went for a nice stroll in the Susanville Ranch Park. About 4 miles that day. Nothing too tough, just more leisurely and fun.

The girls putting it into 4-paw drive for the steep climbs Upper Bidwell had to offer. About 5 miles that day.









Gotta stay hydrated!

 Group shot in Upper Bidwell. GREAT hike, amazing views.

And, Heart Attack Hill, our most recent hike. Here is a clip of what it's like to be on a desent with me. About 4-5 miles that day. The map is also of Heart Attack Hill.

Caching in January in the mountains?

I like my adventures on the rocks!

You better belive it! This winter has been the driest on record since the 1880's! So I'm taking ever advantage of the wonderful weather before the white stuff flies, then it'll be time for a whole different set of fun! 

A rare snowless January day near Lassen Peak

We went caching just about every day this last week... and we didn't just do the quick park-n-grabs in the City, we busted out the topo maps and headed out deep into the depths of our local mountain ranges. We started off up County Road A-10 (know to the locals as "The 10 Road" and got some amazing views of Lassen Peak with just a minimal amount of snow dusting. We snagged a couple caches that we've been itching to get to all Summer. Mud was our greatest obstical of the day. Tons and tons of thick mountain mud.

Lake Almanor

Later in the week he headed South on HWY89 to a little Forest Service road that winded around to 6,000+ feet and we ran into a very minimal amount of snow. We had some pretty darn good views looking North to Lake Almanor and Dyer Mountain.
We found a few more caches and created a (get ready for this) DUST trail on our way to the old town of Seneca. We came across a quick moving section of the North Fork Feather River on a very beautiful day. The Water was crisp and very cold, about the only thing up in these mountains that resembled what Winter really was.

Near the Ghost Town of Seneca

December bike ride

Nice day for a chilly ride

I know right? A bike ride in December in snow country? This year I'm totally thankful for, a so far, dry (yet very cold) winter. It's the first week of December and we have NO snow to speak of (hope I didn't jinx it). So I'm being sure to take advantage of such great weather. The other day we went for a small 2.5 mile bike ride and did a little caching. Including placing a new cache on the Almanor Recreation Trail.

A particularly evil cache I placed

Here's to hoping the weather holds out a little longer for some more hiking and biking opportunities. Happy trails!

Ok all my adventure following fans, all two of you out there in cyberspace. I’m getting ready to take on my annual JDRF walk to Cure Diabetes adventure and I need YOUR help! How can you help? Easy, just by donatin a few dollars to the cause to help support me in my goal (only $125.00 we can do this together!) Just click this link JDRF and it’ll take you to my personal funraising page wher you can learn more about juvenile and click the ORANGE button to donate. OF COURSE the girls will be walking with me. Together all of us can help stomp out Juvenile Diabetes

1000 caches found!

Well this was the big week that I hit 1,000 geocaches found. We picked a fun and exciting cache for #999 and #1000. #1,000 was a nocturnal cache called " Nocturnal Mission: Eyes of Bigfoot". We followed "the eyes" a little less than 1/4 mile into the woods, dodging lights from cars on a near by road for about 20 mins until we found the red eyes, and of course, the cache.

#999.. INSIDE the log, had to crawl in a ways

the big #1,000!

Geocaching has indeed lead me to some adventurous and fun times, but I must say that these two are in my top favorites. Not because of the numbers they represented, but because of the interesting fun they allowed me to indulge on.

Making our own trails..

My Adventure Guy and I decided to pack up the dogs, load our CamelBacks, and break out the hiking grear. We found this great spot last week while exploring our surrounding area.. We parked the car, grabbed the caching containers, the dogs, and started on our way across the creek.

A steep hard climb resulted in a great rewarding view

Once we got on the other side of the creek the trail (old forest service road) was looking in pretty good shape, but once we got about .5 mile away..the story changed. So we took a side jaunt up a ridge line to a rock outcropping to check the view. And it was pretty amazing.









After our side trek to the amazing overview, we headed back down and back on the track we were headed. The trail continued to degrade and eventually, vanished completely. So..we made our own path, we stepped into the creek and walked upstream...dogs joyfully splashing behind us.

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads

We placed a few caches along this beautiful area, took a ton of photos, and headed back to the car.  We had a wonderful time on our first hike of the season.

One happy Adventure Crew!

#900 caches found!

Thats right. On 6-29-11, this Adventure Girl officially found #900! I've only been at this 2003, but its the thrill of the hunt, not the number of finds that the important thing. But, I still having fun with the count!!

#900!!

Then after caching, we went exploring up a forest service road and quickly explored Rock Creek and the surrounding area. We scoped out the area for a near future hike with some geocaching placements.

                                                                       Rock Creek

We hiked half way up Star Butte and had some great views of the heavy flowing creek below. The area was very beautiful

The View from the middle of Star Butte