Off The Beaten Path
The happy face of the recently rescued.
This picture was taken just after Lou had rescued me from a near death experience. Let me back up, my friend Oren had asked if I wanted to go up to Tahoe with him, he was going to be taking some sort of avalanche preparedness class and I wanted to get out of Rancho Cordova for a minute. Mind you, I was not necessarily prepared to go up to the snowy mountains of Northern California, but I figured I would find a nice coffee shop to sit in and maybe wander around the town until he finished his class.
Once Oren got to the shop to meet up with the rest of his class I began walking towards town, not with any particular destination in mind, but figured I would find something to eat first. What became apparent after walking for only a few minutes was that it was FREEZING. The thoughts that went whirring through my mind were that I would need to keep moving to stay warm and that I should have worn another pair of socks. After getting turned around a few times I found the only restaurant that would allow me inside with Louie and filled up on a coffee and a decadent open faced egg sandwich with spinach, mushrooms and goat cheese. Once I had gotten my fill and sat there for longer than felt comfortable after having finished my food and two cups of coffee I decided to start walking.
Brunch
I started meandering around the town, but most of the cute little shops and stores were closed due to COVID, so I decided I would take advantage and start walking towards the closest hiking trail, which happened to be Mt. Donner (of the Donner party…gulp). According to the map the trailhead was about 5 miles from the main town, but since I had nothing else to do but walk I went on my way.
There was something blissful about just walking at my own pace, knowing that I had the whole day to just walk and explore and spend time in my own head. Observing small details about my surroundings, it felt almost out of body. Along the way to the trailhead I stumbled upon a closed school with an untouched snowy soccer field, obviously it was the perfect opportunity to let Louie run around a bit. It was only his second time seeing snow and he went absolutely nuts for it.
Once we had exhausted the novelty of running around in the snow we went on our way to the trailhead. The only complaint I had for the entire trek towards the trailhead was that it wasn’t particularly pedestrian friendly, I had to walk across a few bridges and most of the sidewalks hadn’t been cleared yet so I walked a bit too close to traffic for my liking more than a few times. One of the thoughts that popped in my mind was a newly found compassion for anyone who has to walk as their primary mode of transportation, I think I realized too, that it may have been my first time just walking around a town aimlessly without a specific destination in mind, without a plan—it was freeing.
Along my way I saw multiple signs to rent snow shoes, and I contemplated it more than once, but ultimately decided I didn’t need them…because of course I had never actually gone hiking in the snow and didn’t know any better. I got to the trailhead and was glad to find there weren’t too many people parked, I was enjoying the experience of being fairly alone and was happy not to have to share the trails with a lot of people. I did notice that nearly everyone I walked by had either snow shoes or skis on and those hiking poles, none of which I had brought with me or rented along the way, but because I am stubborn and didn’t really want to have to walk back to town to rent anything I just kept walking. As I hiked up the first incline, it was noticeable that it had snowed recently and the trail hadn’t seen a lot of traffic, which was neat, except for the fact that the unpacked snow was super challenging to walk on and it was hard to see where the trail was.
NATURALLY I wound up walking off the trail and only realized it when I took a step and sank in the snow up to my chest. Luckily Louie was off leash at the time so he didn’t sink with me. I was panicking all of the thoughts started rushing through my head, I tried wiggling my way out only to find I was unable to grasp any packed snow to leverage my way out. I’m going to die, I thought, and instantly I regretted being grateful for the sparsely populated trail and the fresh snow, I tried to keep myself from panicking, but honestly I thought to myself, “so this is how people hiking alone end up dying and never being found”… For some reason this video I watched months ago popped into my mind about how to get yourself out of quicksand. I have no idea how I remembered what to do, but it certainly came to me in my time of need. So I lifted one of my legs and started wiggling it to get free, and then I called Louie over to me and grabbed onto his harness and worked to pull myself up until I was able to shimmy my way out of the snow, packing it down as I got myself up. I SURVIVED!
In hindsight I probably should have sent someone my location, which I promptly did right after I was able to get out of the snow sink hole—luckily I still had signal. Once the adrenaline wore off a bit I found the trail again and continued on my way. I hiked about 15 miles, enjoying a peanut butter sandwich picnic at one of the look out points. It was so unbelievably beautiful I could have spent days up there. At some point I decided I should probably head back to meet up with Oren, and share with him the craziness of the day. Aside from some blisters and unbelievable soreness I survived the hike relatively unharmed and finished up with some great stories.
