Hiking Local

With our youngest daughter in town, we headed up to our cabin near Sonora to get some cleaner air and hopefully to a little hiking. The air in Napa has been so bad that we haven't been out much at all, on a bike or on foot. It has been truly miserable.

But we were happy to see that the air in Twain Harte was much better. And so on Saturday we drove up towards Sonora Pass to see if it continued to improve as we went uphill. It did. And we took the opportunity to do something we had wanted to do for a long time.

Every time we drive along Highway 108 below the pass, we note the remnants of the old Pioneer trail that brought early immigrants into Tuolumne County over Sonora Pass. And we've always wondered exactly where it went, and how we could follow it. Saturday, we found out.

Parking just above the 8,000 level on the highway, we crossed the creek and clambered up the slope to the obvious traces of the old road. From there we followed it East towards the pass, until we finally lost it in a sea of alders. But as we climbed up above the alders to get a better view, it was clear that the old road continued through the alders and across the creek, to head up the pass underneath the existing highway.

Cool.

And then we went back downhill and followed it in the other direction for a while, until it did the same thing at that end, crossing the creek to avoid some steep granite, and getting paved over by Cal Trans.