Reminiscing on the Final Days of 2014

My husband, daughter, and I were able spend one night camping during my daughter's short visit home for the holidays. She wanted to experience one night camping in an RV. So, we loaded up the MT, Midget Trailer, left son and Meeks at home, and headed for beautiful New Hogan Lake.

View of lake with Bear and Hogback Mountains

New Hogan Lake and Acorn Campground are located east of Stockton at the start of the foothills to the Sierra Mountains. The US Army of Corps of Engineers created this 4,400 acre lake in 1964 along with the New Hogan Dam.

I had read that one might not want to camp here on weekends since the campground is usually full. Since the weather was just starting to get colder from the Arctic air mass pushing into California, we didn't have to worry about the campground being full of folks. In fact there were only three other RVs in the campgrounds. We found a very nice spot, site 99, away from the other campers.

 A view of the road next to parking pad to the site.

 

A couple of views from the site looking down at the lake. Even after all the recent rains, the lake is WAY below normal. It will be a very long time before California is out of this drought.

After getting situated and walking the campground, we headed into the warmth of MT for an evening of Monopoly while eating bowls of Chili.

My daughter owned that corner of the Monopoly board, and yes she won.

After breakfast the next morning, we hiked over to Coyote Point to take in the beauty of the lake from a different view. I'm glad we did the walk to the point since we saw a couple of American Bald Eagles in flight looking for food. This lake is one of their nesting grounds during the winter.

Daughter and her dog.

Our RV is at the point just behind us to the right.

Before heading home, I took a picture of my husband's addition to MT, a water filter by the sink. Even though we filter the water coming into the tank, we want to filter the water once more before using it for cooking and drinking.

Last peek of daughter and her dog enjoying the RV before heading home.

 

Two days after returning home, the entire family headed up to Brushy Peak for a walk. Here are a couple of group photos from that beautiful day of hiking.

Liberty Glen at Lake Sonoma

Lake Sonoma is man-made reservoir that was formed after the US Army Corps of Engineers built the Warms Springs earth dam across the Dry Creek in 1982. This is one of California's younger reservoirs. To reach the lake and campground, we drove through the Dry Creek Valley that is dotted with world famous vineyards. This drive in the autumn is beautiful since the leaves on grape vines are red. After the climb out of the valley and crossing the bridge over the reservoir, we were rewarded with a beautiful COE campsite to enjoy for the evening.

There are 96 campsites at Liberty Glen. Since very few folks were camping, we were able to pick our location without great trepidation over who would be next to us. Two sites down on the left was a young couple camping with their little tyke, and nobody for eight campsites to the right of us. All was quiet! This is the road just out of our site.

After quickly settling into the camp, we headed off for a late afternoon hike. We started our hike around 3 pm. After checking the map to make sure we were headed on the correct trail, we make our way.

We started our descent to the lake by way of the Madrone service road. This is a view from the top before heading down.

As we make our leisurely walk down, we disturb a family of deer that were enjoying the sunshine. They went running off after they heard us coming.

Our hike takes us past many beautiful Madrone trees. This nicely shaped one is a very young tree.

The Madrone tree, Arbutus menziesii, is a very drought tolerant tree that has a very prominent red bark. Here is a very much older Madrone that has some Spanish moss growing on it.

Spanish moss isn't really a moss, but an air plant, bromeliad, that likes to suck the life out of trees. This close up of the Spanish moss shows it growing on an Oak.

Our first sight of the lake from the trail. Sadly, the lake is very low due to the drought.

We come to the junction of the Rancheria trail and the Cove trail. We take the trail to the right, Rancheria trail. It meanders along the side of the hill with views of the lake below.

The side of the hills are dotted with Madrones and Oaks. We continue for 1.85 miles until we reach a spring and the trailhead that will take us back to the campground. The climb up Wulfow shortcut is mark as a "death march", but we didn't find the climb to be as strenuous as the climbs we made at Las Trampas (those were killer climbs).

The total hike was over 4 miles round trip from the campsite. As the evening air turned cold, we returned to camp.

Later we sat in our dinette eating a hearty chicken vegetable soup while admiring the view from our campsite.

Liberty Glen campground was a very pleasant surprise for us. I would come back to camp here again in the autumn, winter, or early spring. There are trails that connect together to form one long trail that circumnavigates a portion of the lake. I would be satisfied with just exploring the Dry Creek trail down to the lake on the next visit.

This gem of a lake is nestled in a very beautiful area.