Snow Mountain Wilderness - Wilderness Guide School Outing #2

Dates: May 2-3, 2009

Duration: 2 days, 1 night

Mileage: ~12 miles Group Members: Julie (OA Guide), Dan (OA Guide), Nick, Dan, Megan, Gena, Emma, Tucker, Brett Anne, Peter, Heidi Pack Weights: Nick (44 lbs) Notes: Deafy Glade Trailhead / Dixie Glade Picnic Area of M10, ~13 miles west of Stonyford, CA. This was the second and final outing through Outdoor Adventures as part of Wilderness Guide School. The wilderness area was located in the Mendocino National Forest. Day 1: (less than 5 miles) Arrived at the Deafy Glade Trailhead in the late morning and started off in steady, but light rain. Myself and another participant were the current guides and not long after we had been on the trail (probably less than a mile) we came to a non-trivial creek crossing that appeared to be blocking our desired route. Although I was comfortable making the creek crossing given it was rather shallow, several of our participants were just wearing tennis shoes which may have gotten soaked and been difficult for them to deal with the rest of the day. After weighing our options and finally choosing a location to cross I made the decision that I wanted to cross but there was still some concern in the group and given that it was still raining, we were all concerned that it might be higher the next day when we had to come back. Our real OA guides stepped in and decided that we shouldn't cross so we headed back up to the trailhead to consider our options. We decided to drive to another trailhead further west but the road became increasingly worse for the small sedan one group was in so we decided to abort this attempt and head back to the Dixie Glade Picnic area, slightly east of the Deafy Glade Trailhead. We arrived back there in the early afternoon and after a quick lunch break and headed out on the trail there which meets up with the Deafy Glade Trail in about a mile. Thus, with limited options, we decided to just camp about a half-mile down the trail, practice navigation skills and go for a day hike. After we chose a campsite, we were relieved as guides and two new guides took over for setting up camp and preparing for the cross-country day hike down towards the creek again. We arrived back at camp in time to start our dinner cook-off and deal with another scenario before going to bed around 11PM. It had rained off an on all day long although never very heavily. Day 2: (less 5 miles) Woke up around 7AM and made breakfast. Slept in the megamid that night and stayed relatively dry even with several heavy rain-spells during the night. After breakfast we broke down camp except for the megamid, stashed our packs and went for another day hike down to the creek crossing from the first day, practicing navigation skills along the way. Ate lunch and had dessert by the creek crossing before heading back to camp. Arrived at camp in the early afternoon, played some games and then broke down the rest of camp and headed out to the picnic area which we reached before 2PM. The weather on this day was much nicer...drizzled in the morning but then the sun came out and it was relatively pleasant the rest of the day.