Hike up Tunnel Creek Road

Photos from the hike on 4/24!

 

We're off and hiking....

Hike to Skunk Harbor on Wednesday, April 13th

Skunk Harbor

Skunk Harbor

Hike up Tunnel Creek on Monday, April 18th

View from Tunnel Creek

 

Picturees from Hike to Snowflake Lodge on 2/18

The group at the beginning. Don't know 

who "won",  but Lori was happy coming in last place!

Sun Setting!

Group at the top!

The stars were amazing!

Coming down the Mountain!

 

Showshoe to Snowflake Lodge

Well, we did it! We snowshoed up to Snowflake Lodge last night. Let's see, we had Sherry, Sandy, Jane, Jim (we FINALLY got to meet him!), Renee, Lauren, Andrea, Melanie, Monica, Scott, Helen, Jerrold and Kim (Helen, Jerrold and Kim must have been sipping down some wine because they didn't  see us taking up 1/3 of Snowflake lodge for this picture.) and me. Also pictured is our teacher/guide (the young lady in the front).  Before the snowshoeing , we met at the base lodge for peppermint vodka shots (thank you Lauren!) and other cocktails (not sure drinking was a magnificent idea before heading out on a 600+ foot climb when it's 28 degrees outside and the wind is blowing like it's training for a hurricane, but fun!) and to wish Patty Proctor a Happy Birthday! 

I'm not sure if any of us got pictures of the gorgeous sunset that we saw while hiking up the mountain. It was a bit chilly to take the time to take out your phone and snap a picture. Hopefully, it's etched in all of our memories.

So, Sherry and I won the heavy breather awards for last night (although, I didn't ask everyone the personal question of what their average heart rate was), but we were at 159 bpm and 166 bpm for the hike up! I won in the number of stops made to catch my breath on the way up. 

Once we reached the top of the mountain, we got nice little snack boxes (crackers, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, a chocolate) and a generous poured glass of wine. Some of us enjoyed our snacks inside, some outside. 

Our only blunder was that we were eager to get down the mountain (especially those who enjoyed their cocktails outside) and we put our snowshoes on and waited, but  for just a little bit (again, the wind was blowing hurricane force winds and the water in my water bottle (that I was holding) froze at the top of the water bottle!), and we left a few of our group behind. They made it down, together,  but we'll have to figure out something for our next hike to make sure we stay all together.  Our motto is "No Tessie Left Behind" and we had a burp in the plan last night. 

The next official snowshoe hike to Snowflake lodge is February 18th and the one after that is March 18th. Who is in?

First Snowshoe after the big storm

Well, it was Estel, Renee and I (and Buddy and Sierra) who got out the first day that you could drive after the big storm (the most recent big storm, that is!). It was Estel's first time snowshoeing, and she did GREAT! 

 

Snowshoeing tomorrow at 1:00 PM at the Championship Course!

Happy Holidays! Tessie's on Snowshoes!

Happy Holidays! The COVID that spread faster than holiday cheer at our Holiday dinner party is long gone now. Hopefully, just the memories of the good time we had together remain. 

Put on your long sleeve Tessie's Trekkers shirt and your new Tessie's hat (if you have them) and throw your snowshoes in the car! We'll meet around 10:00ish on Monday, December 27th. It'll depend on the roads, and everyone's opinion on where we should go. If snow levels are low, maybe we'll head to Sand Harbor for snow angel making and icicle hunting. If the snow levels are up higher, we can head toward Chickadee Ridge. The Championship course is always an alternative too. Feel free to add a comment on your preference of location.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

🎄⛄❆🏂🏔❅☃❄🎄⛄❆🏂🏔❅☃❄🎄⛄❆🏂🏔❅☃❄🎄⛄❆🏂🏔❅☃❄🎄

Not Hiking Related Question: Does anyone in our group like to play bridge other than Helen, Patty and I?

Pictures from First Annual Holiday Party

Who would've known that there were ELEVEN Tessie's Trekkers in town now! Well, there are! We had a great time last night. It all started out when we entered Estel's Winter Wonderland. Gorgeous house (alright, it deserves a better description but that sums it up).  All decorated already!  We all quickly ended up at the coffee table with lots of cocktails and appetizers. Then, there was the gift exchange. There wasn't much stealing...guess everyone was happy with what they got! (Truth be told, Andrea tried to steal my gift but I held on tight enough that it didn't get stolen). Then, it was off to dinner! We had a Mexican theme and you can see from the photos that we had just enough food for the 11 of us (JK!). We had a delicious meal.

 

As most of you know, there's not a lot of snow on the ground right now, and we've discovered some of us are in town. So, we've scheduled a hike for next Friday, December 10th. I hope you're in town! Details are yet to be determined... 

 

Thanks again for the super fun holiday party. We missed all of you who weren't with us. Happy Holidays to all! 

 

 

More pictures from Spooner hike - courtesy of Lucy Roman

 Lucy asked me to add a few of her pictures from Wednesday's hike to the blog:

The dogs exploring the warming hut.

The Spooner Cabin - available to rent May 1 - October 15

Hike to the Aspens at Spooner today

Hey all! We had planned on hiking the last segment of the Mt. Rose to Brockway East TRT hike today. Well, Jane went out to scout out the conditions yesterday. And, this is what she found:

Snow and Mud and what will soon be Ice! A 10+ mile hike with close to 2000 feet of climbing didn't look so good in these conditions.

So, we decided to head for the Aspens on the way from Spooner Lake to Lake Marlette to see if they had their fall clothing out yet. The main entrance to Spooner Lake is closed, so we hiked in through a parking lot on Hwy 50.  We walked down to Spooner, around Spooner and then onto the Marlette Lake trail.

The Aspens are looking pretty good, but my guess is that they'll even look better in a week or two (unless, as some Tessie's Trekkers in the know, predict happens and the leaves just fall off with the up and coming cold conditions). 

Anyway, it was a lovely hike and we all had fun and got some exercise. We had 7 women and 5 dogs on the hike. My own dogs came home and slept all afternoon. They didn't even get out of bed to greet me when I came home from doing errands!

Spooner Lake

Spooner Lake

Spooner Lake

The Aspens!

More of the Aspens!

Tessies Trekkers!

More Aspens

The little warming hut just past the Aspen forest.

Anyway, a lot of fun was had by all. It was about 5 miles of hiking and about 330 feet of climbing. All good!

Pictures from Yesterday's Hike: Kingsbury North to Spooner South

Here we are! A group of 9 humans and 2 dogs setting out to hike the TRT from Kingsbury North to Spooner South at about 9:00AM yesterday morning! 

Lots of us were engaged with lots of technology to track our progress. My Apple watch said we hiked 12.8 miles and climbed 1634 feet. My Fitbit says we hiked 13.85 miles and climbed 1780 feet. No matter what, our legs got a workout.

I'd say it was one of our favorite hikes on the TRT.  There were views of the Lake from almost the entire hike. The weather was cool. And, the rain held off until we could see our cars in the parking lot!

Oh, and thanks to Sherry, who has been tracking our progress of breaking the TRT down into 14 day hikes. I see our group has completed 7 of the 14 hikes at this point. I don't think any of us have completed all of them, but we'll do some makeup hikes when we can.  On October 20th, we'll have completed 8 of the 14! It's not all of the TRT in one summer, but we did have a little bit of smoke and fires to contend with. We can finish up in 2022!

This is our driver Mike. He drove to the Spooner parking lot with us. We parked our cars in the lot and hopped into the IV van he was driving. Then, he drove us to Kingsbury North, the start of our hike. He was super nice ...took our picture and even offered to help if we got stuck anywhere on our adventure.

See Emerald Bay in the picture below?

Are those the IV white sand beaches we see in the picture below?

The finish line! A gorgeous little forest of Aspens beginning to turn into their fall colors and a little rain (sorry, you can't see the rain in the picture). We also saw an amazing rainbow, from the car, on the way home, but I don't think anyone got a picture of it.