Due to a last minute emergency for one friend, and two others being "called into work," we were a few members down, but still had seven folks attending. As we drove into Susanville, 20 miles east of our site, the dark, overcast sky, made us worry about rain. Locals confirmed that they'd had some the previous day. Mountain weather can be very fickle, but we wound up with clear, beautiful skies and warm/ mildly hot days.
Not much of a hike in, the trailhead was about a half mile from our camp. Still, a third of this was sharp incline and lead to an evening toast of-"Here's to the trail being as easy going out as it was coming in!" Spreading out far, so as not to glean too much from any one tree, some of us gathered spruce boughs for our beds. Camp was soon ready, and we set out to explore and marvel at yet another of the good Lord's works. For dinner, I brought a buffalo rump roast. Young David and my nephew Chris, discovered the huge number of crawdads and soon contributed several boilers stuffed full (25 in all!!!). After a good evening's meal, we enjoyed a bit of homemade wine and some shrub. Loosened up a mite, Erik entertained us with his harmonica and we were soon belting out song after song.
The nights were remarkably mild for 7,500 feet and all enjoyed the curative sleeping power of nature's silence and fresh, mountain air. Not much luck with the handlines, but still fun, we hiked, did camp projects, and had an afternoon of shooting in the valley. Overall, three days of truly enjoyable "down time!" We hated to have it end, but with an upcoming canoe trip in the works, goodbyes were much the easier!
*One interesting point of discussion was a Erik's proposal of a workshop to build period individual batteaux, and maybe another to build a 30' batteau for a river trip. He once had a boat shop and a few years ago built a number of period batteaus for a movie (click here for pics). All were very interested, and I'll post more details as I get them. |
