Donner Pass 2160 m

Anderson Peak is one of the few mountain tops in the Tahoe area which haven't received a visit from me yet, even though I tried twice already. The first time, I failed due the icy steep north face and not carrying crampons with me and the second time I ran out of time due to an unplanned detour. This time I was rather sure I would...

Today I had rather ambitious plans: almost 20 miles of distance and 4000 ft altitude gain. Depending on the snow situation some of the hike would have had to be done on snowshoes as well. The plan was to walk from Donner Pass to Tinker Knob & back and on the way to Tinker Knob bag the 4 peaks which are somewhat on the way...

After an extraordinary long winter with more than average amounts of snow, the Sierra Nevada really lived up to it's name: there was and still is a lot of "Nevada" up in the Sierras and it'll take quite some time to melt it all. One ski resorts for example decided to stay open until August! (click). I was in the Donner Pass...

The start to the winter in California's Sierra Nevada was rather slow, but picked up in mid January and really kicked in in February. In the Donner Pass / Castle Peak area there were more than 7 meters of snowfall in February, with some daily totals of more than a meter. At this point the cumulative snow fall at Donner Pass is...

A friend recently told me about Frog Lake near Castle Peak and how beautiful it is. After doing some www-research about the lake, I found out that it (and it's surroundings) is still privately owned by a family, but will be purchased by Truckee Donner Land Trust and made publicly available in 2020. To get a glimpse of this gem, I...

By now you've probably heard or read that California's Sierra Nevada got a lot of snow this winter. The Squaw Valley ski resort officials already decided that their ski lifts will stay open until the Fourth of July weekend. No wonder, because their cumulative total snow fall this season currently is at 623 inches (15.8 meters)!...