Ponderosa State Park

Payette Lakes lies on the western edge of the Park Peninsula.

May 3, 2018 -- Today's hike was a short one and the weather was warm.  I forgot to set the Map My Hike software when we first started out, and then forgot to take it off pause after we finished taking a break at a beach along Payette Lake, elevation 5,000 feet.

The trails were not well marked, and we were never confident that we knew where we were or where we were headed -- which was an aggravation when we became tired and wanted to head back. A map of the park shows auto trails, but hiking trails are not well identified or maintained. On this day there were patches of snow. We were told there were larger sections of snow in the higher portions of the peninsula where the park is situated, but we weren't ambitious enough today to walk that far from the parking lot. At this time the park was still closed, and we were required to park close to the entrance.

The map below shows part of our hike. The starting point is where we turned on Map My Hike. The end point shows where we parked.  The straight reaches from where we paused the program to where we remembered to start it again, as we reached the vehicle.

The path for most of our hike.

Map My HIke indicates we covered at least two miles, with virtually no more than a 30-foot elevation gain. Along the way we encountered some interesting flora -- the mushrooms immediately below, and the bark of an evergreen; the inner bark looked like a jigsaw puzzle.

A cluster of bright red mushrooms

The jigsaw inner bark of a pine tree

Despite much elevation gain, we were tired after barely 2.5 miles of hiking and headed back to the condo for an early dinner.

Stats year to date:

Distance: 65.7 miles
Elevation gain: 15,610 feet.