escaping election hysteria in the snowy red trinity alps

I left on election night. Everyone was angry. If you supported one person you were called a racist, if you supported the other you were accused of supporting a criminal liar. So instead of voting I head to the mountains. The mountains don’t care about politics.

I went to the Trinity Alps Wilderness in northern California and hiked up long canyon to siligo meadows. It had snowed and stormed heavily a couple of weeks ago followed by warm weather. There was still plenty of snow in some places. I saw no footprints in the snow so I figured that I was the first person to hike up there for a two weeks weeks or longer. At the top of bee tree gap I sank up to my waist a few times.

I brought my single shot 20g shotgun up to do some squirrel hunting and didn’t see much at all, it was very dead out there. On the way back 1/2 mile from my car I shot a small squirrel.

heading up the creek with fall color

big tree

postholing over the pass

siligo meadows

walked over the ridge to check out deer lake

tracks in the snow?

Did a small group trip to the Alps recently. It is awesome up there.

Beautiful place to be Justin and I understand and relate with wanting to be away from the hysteria.

Nice pictures. I wish I could have been there too. I cannot get enough of the Trinities. We saw bear prints in the snow when we went.

I did that a couple years ago, nice area, thanks for report.

Next time I’m going more south from Bee Gap.  I wonder if that is a nice area.

Beautiful, Justin!  Love the pictures.

Do you make squirrel stew, or something else?  I’ve always been curious about the flavor.

I breaded and fried it. Squirrels are pretty bony so I think a stew would work out better. They taste similar to dark meat chicken but with a tougher meat texture.

This below is what we had on our trip. Thanfully it was not like this the whole time. Here’s Doug I. in blue, Ken T. in green, Peter V. in blue and orange. Nick G. is off camera to our left packing up.

It was a great time even with the iffy weather ! Some of the nicest and most interesting friends (yes, friends) to share an adventure with.

Before the rain.

Beautiful photos.

I needed some therapeutic time in the woods after this week as well. My son and I took my wife up to do a few miles of our favorite backpacking trail yesterday. It was particularly was a particularly uplifting trip because a low level forest fire passed through the area in October and we wanted to see how the area had been effected by the fire.

City life this week has been strange. I feel lots of tension in my interactions with strangers and familiar people. It was great to see the woods had not changed.

Nice pics, thank you for sharing. It must have felt great to step away from all of the madness into that scene.

There is something really special about walking early season snow marked only by animal tracks.

“There is something really special about walking early season snow marked only by animal tracks.”

Unless they’re large cat prints, closing the distance behind you. True story.

Yeah, I’ve seen bear and Mountain Lion tracks in early snow, like on top of my tracks from the previous day

An advantage to fall hiking