Photoessay #1436 - Weather

Kit Carson has given us some crazy weather in this oddball California spring. Last year when we were here, you could swim in the lake and sit on the decks overlooking the lake.
This year, it was a bit chilly when we arrived, too nippy to sit outside with an eventful sounding weather forecast. Yesterday, the wind blew and blew. The forecast, posted outside the lodge door, called for strong winds, rain overnight and more. I heard several versions of the expected snowline between 7,000 and 8,000 feet elevation. Keep in mind it’s nearly July. Since Kit Cason is 7300 feet, it could happen.

I’ve found that it you leave the cabin for errands or picture-taking, you hear things. This is a small place, 12 cabins, 8 hotel rooms. Miles from any place. We brought food. From home. From a grocery run in Chico. But we had a complete dairy breakdown. Somehow we had bought Raisin Bran and cold cuts and completely spaced on the milk and cheese. They had a very small store here; I bought some milk and cheese. But there’s not much else. Maybe there’s a store in Kirkwood, 5 miles up the road, otherwise, it’s 40+ miles to the nearest store. So you better have it with you.

But you do hear things, about the weather, or the lake, or the campfire. About the internet in the lodge. How really you don’t want to use it. Just get off the grid for awhile. I heard from the outgoing owner that the stone fireplace in our cabin was the original fireplace and they cooked over it in 1926.

Tons of firewood in piles all over the place here. This is one of the first weeks of operation and we have a feeling that they are just getting organized. I brought some more firewood inside. At dark the thunderstorms started, bright lightning followed by booming thunder. Nice warm fire in the old fireplace. Then it poured rain. All night, I heard heavy rain. Peeked out this morning and the rain had turned to snow. An inch over everywhere. Then it turned to sleet. It’s over freezing and things are melting. Still raining but it’s not straight rain, more like what they call in the northwest ‘wintry mix’.
We had planned a ‘weenie’ hike, the easiest in our handout. Yesterday we walked a mile or so down the road and hiked a trail down by the water. For about an hour. We agreed that was about our limit. Dennis suggests it might be good day for a ride…maybe the next lake up the road, Lake Caples was what we mistook for Silver Lake 35 years ago. We both remember riding around this area and seeing a beautiful silvery alpine lake with hardly any development. That’s why we came here last year. We really like it but it just wasn’t the lake we remembered.

So if it ever stops raining or sleeting or whatever the heck it’s doing, we’ll go investigate.

A day delayed on the picture. From our first hike yesterday along the lake.

Update: It did stop sleeting and we determined that Lake Caples was the lake we remembered. And more.