2017 | Silver Lake, Carson Pass, California
To celebrate our best year together, my wife and I had planned to visit this lake which had been a month-long adventure every summer all through my own childhood – swimming, sailing, paddling up the creek to the seasonal long-cabin post office in the meadow, scrambling endlessly over huge granite boulders, climbing up to high snowfields to dig out old snow from deep drifts to drizzle with Kool-Aid for our sno-cones.
Ten days before this picture, it was 117° In Burbank, where we were to update a few pieces of mountain gear for our trip. We had a smooth drive up to the lake at 7200 feet and were refreshed as we unpacked in the crisp late-afternoon air.
The overnight temperature turned out to be 17° so instead of kayaking and swimming, we enjoyed hiking in new snow on the old trails.