Geezer Snowshoe Adventures

5 Geezers went on a great snowshoe adventure to the Van Vleck Bunkhouse. The bunkhouse is 5.5 miles east of the Ice House rd toward Loon Lake. Loren S. alias, L2, Sherm Stake, Cesar Beltran, Merrill Downing and Loren G. alias, L1 got to the trailhead and discovered the first obstacle. It was a 9ft high snow bank around the parking area. After Merrill made his way up to check the snow condition on top it was decided NOT to attempt the 5.5 mile trek. After we extracted Merrill from the thigh deep snow, the geezers headed up to the Chalet at Loon Lake where we ensconced ourselves for the next two days.

The first afternoon was spent on a 4 mile snowshoe thru virgin snow up to a mountain top with a spectacular 360 degree view. (note the picture with L2 up the dead tree) Thanks L2 for breaking trail. Then it was down and across a frozen Lake for more of God's winter handy work (note pics of Cesar; and Sherm & Merrill on the very flat snow).
Monday morning 3 of the geezers got the housing arrangements adjusted with the forest service people, while 2 of the geezers stayed behind to search out and test a good sledding hill. Monday afternoon we all went on a 6 mile trek. It was mostly uneventful even though we did some boondocking and were exhausted by the time we got back to the Chalet. We only had one crash on the whole 6 miles. But, It was a spectacular crash that came on a particularly steep down hill. The crashee wasn't hurt and his face never touched the snow! How do you get hurt falling, even at breakneck speed, in 10 feet of light fluffy powder on top of 8ft high manzanita bushes?? Ahh but the Beef Stew that night was delicious. Of course the spaghetti the night before was wonderful also.

On our last morning after packing to leave for home we spent sledding with crashes and great runs and two geezers getting bowled over by a runaway sled. The sled picked up the "spare". Our morning was capped off with a short 2.5 mile trek across the dam and up a small saddle with a view of lake Francis. It was decided that as a farewell trek we would stop and attempt the trail into Van Vleck Bunkhouse. As we arrived at the trail head a pickup was sitting there with a snow cat up on a trailer. We spoke to the man loading the snow cat and discovered that he is a SMUD employee and he had just come back from doing a snow survey up at the weather station above the Van Vleck bunkhouse. We informed him he was two days late! So we trekked in about 2.5 miles and sat down had lunch, sang a few hymns and Thanked God for an Awesome adventure. The trip was capped off with a great Chinese dinner at Pollack Pines.