Jogging My Memory

Liz and I must have been on the same wavelength. In her comment she suggested that Tyler and I go for a hike this weekend, and yesterday, that is just what we did!

Tyler and decided on Friday night that our tentative weekend plans would be to go for a hike on Saturday and then to go to Napa Valley on Sunday (Napa Valley today isn’t happening – maybe next weekend).

Yesterday morning we woke up and ate a good breakfast to fuel for our hike. We both had toast and eggs in some form. I had a Thin with 2 eggs and a slice of colby jack cheese melted on top of the eggs. The eggs got a little over “fried” but still tasted good.

After some internet research we decided to hike the Beacroft Trail in  Tahoe National Forest. This is the trail description from the website linked above:

“Trail Description: This is a very steep and difficult trail which involves numerous switchbacks At the bottom it intersects the American River Trail, from which other trails may be reached.”

Once we decided on the Beacroft Trail, I showered and packed lunches, and some other things, then we drove to REI to buy some hiking socks.

We ended up spending about an hour at REI because Tyler needed some better hiking clothes than just sweats, basketball shorts, and a t shirt. We got him some great hiking stuff. He looked like a hardcore hiker on the trail!

We got to the trail head around 2:00,  parked, and sat in the car to eat our lunch. I had a lavash wrap with hummus, feta, lettuce, green peppers, onions, and mustard.

I also had a serving of Newman’s Own Organics Spelt Pretzels.

I couldn’t taste a big difference between these pretzels and others – except that the pretzels were a little bit nuttier tasting and tasted less artificial than other pretzels. The pretzels had a very nice, not stale, crunch, and they weren’t overly salty. I really dislike when pretzels are overly salty, so I really enjoyed these.

After eating lunch we laced up our hiking boots and set out on the Beacroft Trail toward the North Fork of the American River.

The trail began at the top of a large foothill which was recently fairly recently scorched by wildfires. Once we hiked over the top part of the foothill, it was all downhill – literally! The first 1/4 of the hike the trees were all scorched and the ground was covered in lots of little rocks and lots of burned chunks of woods. The trail switchbacked down the face of the foothill, and it was hard to get good footing a lot of the time.

The next 1/4 of the hike the forest was still burned, but not as severely, and the trail was covered with dead pine needles fallen from the tops of the trees. Footing was still precarious, and the trail was still 90% downhill. It was sad to see the damage that the fire caused to the forest.

We finally got to a part of the trail where the forest was not as badly burned, which made hiking a little nicer, except that the trail was much steeper. We crossed over a few streams which was very promising.

At one particularly level part, I stepped a little too close to the edge of the trail and lost my footing landing on my butt – Fall Number 1. We stopped to look at a burned out bridge and realized that we heard rushing water further ahead, so we picked up the pace and a few minutes later found ourselves climbing down the rocks…

to the banks of the North Fork American River.

After some wandering upstream and downstream, we quickly discovered why we had hiked for over an hour down to the river.

Just downstream of where we got to the river was a small rushing waterfall! You can see the foaming water at the bottom of the picture.

We crossed the river, which was a slight adventure, because we had to cross over using rocks that were just close enough together for us to make it across the river. I made it safely across the river, and shortly after stepped on an unsteady rock and fell right on my knees – Fall Number 2. After we climbed onto the rocks and got as close to the waterfall as we could.

We got these awesome pictures from a little cave like area just to the side of the waterfall.

You can see in this picture the exact place we climbed down to to get the ultimate waterfall experience – there is a large green plant growing in the little cave area where we were sitting.

We spent a few minutes taking pictures next to the waterfall.

After taking in the waterfall for a few more minutes we climbed out of the cave and hiked a little further downstream where we took the pictures you saw above with the full view of the waterfall.

We put our feet in the river, and sat down to eat the cookies we carried with us for a snack – I had two Newman’s Own Organics Cinnamon Hermits (I wish I had brought more than 2!)

We spent a little more time taking in the beauty of the river and then started our ascent up the foothills.

The hike down was misleading. We didn’t realize how steep the trails that we had been hiking were until we were trudging up them, bent over, our legs aching, and blisters forming on our heels. We had also severely underestimated how much water to bring, and ran out about 1/2 way up the mountain. The 2.5 mile trek back up the foothills took us about 1:45 including numerous breaks to stop and rest our aching bodies. On the last scorched part of the trail, I again stepped on some loose dirt and gravel and bit it on the trail – Fall Number 3. I must have been having a clumsy day – I can’t believe I fell three times.

It was almost 6pm by the time we finished the hike – the sun was setting which was beautiful and cast a red glow on the rocks across the ravine. I took these pictures on the last 1/4 mile of the hike before we got over the top of the foothill.

The large tree in the second picture was completely hollowed it – it was sort of spooky looking, as the sun was setting.

This sign was a welcome relief! You can also tell how dark it had gotten.

We were both very dehydrated by the time we got back to the car and immediately dug into the apples I had packed as part of our lunch. Nothing could have tasted better than those apples did at that moment – and I was too hungry and tired to get the camera out to take a picture. 3 + hours of hard hiking really takes it out of you!

We drove the 18 or so miles back to ForestHill, a small town, and stopped at a grocery store there to get some food and drinks. I had a Rootbeer (yep I drank real soda – it is rare), some lemon Gatorade (no picture), about 1/3 of Tyler’s Klondike Bar, and 2 White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies.

These cookies were really not very good, but we were so hungry that by the second one they started to taste better.

Tyler and I also realized that every time we go for crazy long and hard hikes we end up eating cookies afterwards. After our long hike up a mountain in Tahoe on our way out to Sacramento in August, we had no food accessible in the car except chocolate chip cookies we had picked up from Whole Foods in Park City, UT, so we ate them for lunch. Kind of weird and ironic right?

We drove the last hour or so back to Sacramento and decided to stop at Mimi’s Cafe for a late dinner.

We started out with bread – I had 1.5 dinner rolls, half a piece of pumpkin bread, and 1 piece of what I believe was carrot bread, all with butter.

I ordered the Just Enough Chicken Mozzarella Ciabatta Sandwich with French Fries, Tyler gave me his cole slaw.

I only ended up eating a piece of Tyler’s fish, half the sandwich (gave the other half to Tyler), half the coleslaw, and about 1/3 of the fries – probably ate too much bread oops.

After dinner we drove home and iced our knees while watching the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Then we headed for bed.

This morning we slept in a little, which felt fantastic!

Breakfast was Holey Donuts free samples. We decided to try the Donut Holes – Low Fat Raspberry Vanilla Truffle, Low Fat Boston Cream, and Low Fat Lemon Vanilla.

I try to be as honest as possible in my reviews, and I must say both Tyler and I thought the donut holes were ok, but not amazing. The dough had very little flavor, and without the fillings, the donut holes would have been nothing short of bland. There was very little icing on the donut holes, and the Raspberry Truffle filling was a little runny for our taste – especially compared to the lemon filling and the Boston Cream pie filling. The donut holes were also not very filling – an hour or so after eating them we found ourselves hungry again. The heavy favorite for flavor was definitely the Boston Cream donut hole because it tasted a lot like a Chocolate Long John Donut with filling.

I’ve now sampled all the Holey Donuts I was sent to review. You can find all the reviews on my Product Reviews page. After trying the different varieties, the ones I was most impressed with were the Jumbo Reduced Fat Cinnamon Rolls. They were also the most popular among my family and friends. I honestly would not buy the Donut Holes at all. I would consider purchasing the Cinnamon Rolls for something like brunch or a holiday breakfast as a healthier alternative to bakery cinnamon rolls.

Tyler and I are spending the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from our long hike yesterday. We’ll also be making a trip to Trader Joe’s later, and I’ll be doing some baking – get excited!

Hope you all had a fantastic Halloween yesterday and are enjoying a relaxing Sunday!

Tags: apple, Beacroft Trail, cookies, dinner, hiking, Holey Donuts review, Newman's Own Organics review, Rootbeer, waterfall, wrap