Jan 10, 2012 - Pioneer Express Trail

This weeks adventure was a hike on the Pioneer Express Trail which was fairly new to the most of us. We started at the Rattlesnake Bar staging area on the American River, and hiked 9 miles to the Beeks Bight parking lot in Granite Bay. The hike is mainly by the north side of Folsom Lake. The distance was supposed to be around 7 miles but that estimate (as usual) proved a little off track! We rated this hike as easy to moderate as the trail under foot was good with only modest climbing, but the length of the hike justified the moderate rating. We left a car at Beeks Bight and shuttled six miles out of the park and another eight miles from Granite Bay to Rattlesnake Bar. Overall it was a good day but the jury is out as to whether this a keeper or not.

January 3, 2013 - Aurburn Trails

Happy New Years Geezers and Families! Rod Robinson had the honor of coordinating Geezer events for January, so our final tally for the first hike of 2013 was ten Geezers and one Grandson. They were Beuford, Glenn, Wes, Sherm and Grandson, Loren, Vello, John, Roland, Merrill and Rod. The weather was partly sunny with a high of 55. It was quite cool at the start but we soon stripped off gloves, hats and jackets as it warmed up later in the morning.
We had a choice of a variety of hikes such as the Quarry Road Hike 5.6 miles rated as easy to moderate, the Quarry Western States rated as moderate and the Confluence to the Park Rangers HQ which was rated as easy to moderate. It was decided at the parking area by No Hands Bridge, but this blogger still has no idea which of the three hikes we did, I just goes along with the group. What we all know is that it was a jolly good hike and we finished up as  usual with apple pies and ice cream at McDonald's.

Dec 13, 2012 - Olmstead Loop Trail

The Olmstead Loop Trail was our destination this week as it's only a short drive from our meeting spot in Granite Bay. There were nine of us today, Sherm, Beuford, Wes, Roland, Loren, Velo, Glenn with his friend, Don and Merrill. This trail started at the fire station in the town of Cool and after a couple of hours hiking on easy to moderate trails, we stopped for lunch. During lunch, Roland finally completed some basic merit badge requirements for map reading and although we had many shorter loop options, Roland agreed with Sherm that the big loop would only be about eight miles round trip so that's what we decided on. Either Roland can't read maps or Sherm is a fibber as it turned out a little short of ten miles round trip.
Along the trail we found some old truck parts, acorns stuffed into a tree limb and Sherm had to try his hand at bridge building over an enlarged creek. It was a great day out with many sore limbs the next day.