Friday, July 20, 2001

Backpacking in the Carson Iceberg Wilderness: 20-22 July, 2001

For Andreas birthday, we went backpacking in the Carson Iceberg Wilderness (Central Sierra Nevada) for three days. We followed the Paradise Valley Loop as described in "100 Hikes in Californias Central Sierra & Coast Range".

We started at the Gardner Meadow Trailhead (8575 ft), off Hwy 4 west of the Ebbetts Pass summit (the steep, dirt access road was somewhat taxing for Greg and his little Golf...).
We followed the Pacific Crest Trail for a while, turned off towards Adams Camp, and headed back across Upper Gardner Meadow.

The first day we were very very slow, averaging only about 1 Mile/hour, which surprised us, until we realized we're walking around at ~ 9000 ft (high point of the trail was 9340 ft, i.e. ~ 2800m).
On the second day we got lost a little and had to rely on Greg and his compass to get us back to the trail.
The third day was easy walking through a very pretty meadow.

According to the book it was a total loop-trip of 15 miles and 2170 ft elevation gain.
A great birthday-trip!