Sierra Trek

Recently, a cacher added a bunch of caches to his series “Sierra Trek” which is designed to show you a portion of the Sierras and teach you about its history. So, naturally, we were hooked. About half of the caches are along the Henness Pass Road and the others are at Meadow Lake.

Construction on the Henness Pass road began in 1852 and was originally a wagon toll road from Nevada to the goldfields of California. Later, when mining shifted from California to the Comstock the established towns and stagecoach stops made the Henness Pass Road a primary route for miners and supplies. Over time the road was extended and improved and eventually it became a major route between Virginia City and Marysville. At its peak the traffic along the road was so busy that in order to regulate traffic, freight wagons ran during the day and stages ran at night. Once the Central Pacific was completed in 1868 there was no need for the road and it was essentially abandoned. Today Henness Pass Road is one of the last trans-Sierra back roads that can still be driven but there are portions that haven’t been maintained in a hundred years and demand a high-clearance 4X4 vehicle.

Fortunately the Sierra Trek caches are on a section of the Henness Pass Road that is well traveled and maintained. Both of these descriptions are, of course, relative. The caches were easy to find except for the first one. It would have been easy but when we got there our two identical GPSr’s had the cache in totally different location. They were as much as 300 feet off. I went one way and Cynthia went other ways and where they took us made no sense. All the usual tricks and dances didn’t solve the problem so I took out the fresh batteries I had put in that morning and replaced them with more fresh batteries. Problem solved. Now both GPSr’s read the same and both led us right to it. What’s that all about?

While we were scratching our heads over this mystery two guys in a pickup slowly passed us and continued down the road obviously not in a hurry and thus, obviously, not geocachers. We didn’t give them a second thought until we passed them…and they passed us at the next cache…and then we passed them…and they passed us at the third cache. Here at the third cache, right where we needed to be, a man was just setting up his equipment for a long day of target practice. We weren’t coming back here again so we just walked up and told him what we were doing and asked if he would mind not shooting while we were in the line of fire. We were in and out in record time.

At the intersection of Henness Pass road and Hwy 89 was another cache and here we had to decide to continue on the Henness Pass Road or take the Jackson Meadows road, a modern paved roadway. The decision was made for us when we found ourselves on pavement while looking for the dirt. We chose the pavement. Nine or ten miles later we came to the road to Meadow Lake and were very glad we chose pavement. Unfortunately, the road to Meadow Lake isn’t paved but it wasn’t bad for the first half of the 8 miles to the lake. The last half was more typical of a sierra back road but hardly bad enough to prevent trailers and small RV’s from camping at the lake.

Meadow Lake is the site of Summit City, a once booming mining town in the 1860’s. In its heyday there were over 150 buildings and one summer over 3000 people were there. It’s all gone now. The caches took us on a tour of the old town site and cemetery and even up on a very primitive road to the mines. The view was spectacular but unfortunately the camera was back in Reno so there are no pictures. By the time we finished exploring and caching and eating lunch it was time to head back home. Meadow Lake is definitely a must see for any cacher, photographer, camper or 4X4 enthusiast.

After we got back to Reno we grabbed a shower and headed out to the Reno Flash Mob event at Idlewild Park. We signed the log and chatted with friends and the whole thing was over in seven minutes.