Friday night, later than planned, due to the usual lack of coordination, off we went to Donner Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It's close to the rather better known Lake Tahoe, but it's conveniently located close to a friends ski lodge (thanks JR) and less used. Donner Lake sits at about 6,000 feet, with us staying up the hill at 7,000. The view from the ridge above. Very nice, eh.
As ever, nothing went quite as planned due to a rather nasty crash which shut Highway 80 for about an hour and threw off our arrival quite a bit. Unfortunately this delay also prevented us from finding a supermarket open, which, as we were getting a bit peckish, might have had tragic consequences à la Donner party, had we not discovered the joys of Gas Station shopping. Chopped ham is an excellent food group suited to most meals. Below a yummy pork based breakfast suited to all needs.The following day was even more nutritionally sound.
As usual we didn't exactly overtax ourselves. Both days were late starts, and we sailed for about 3-4 hours. Shawn did the driving while Mark had the very important jobs of managing the jib, and acting as a counterweight, which seemed to involve getting dragged through the water a lot. Anyway, everything went very well, and no major calamities as the wind was fairly light and we had a good chance to shake out the boat under extended circumstances. We took it up and down the lake several times and it performed pretty well. Almost nobody fell in (well except for Shawn, at the dock, when he got caught by a major wake from a power boat as he was leaning the boat and took a quick swim, or so he says..). This had the advantage of making the Mirror easier to load onto the trailer in the water though. The water, incidentally, is pretty warm up there at this time of year, crystal clear, and since it was 85 degrees drying off wasn't a problem. Obviously saved on a shower too. It's a guy thing.
Above Shawn demonstrates how easy it is to load a boat onto a trailer when in the water. Below the valiant crew battle the elements and overcome adversity.
