oldpacker45@icloud.com
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Hunter Creek
November 16, 2022
The Hunter Creek trailhead is less than 4 miles from my normal haunt on Peavine Peak. What a difference. Peavine, on the north side of 80, is BLM land at the bottom, running into Forest Service at the top. Hunter Creek, on the south side of 80, is Forest Service land running into the Mt Rose Wilderness. NO MOTORIZED VEHICLES.
I have been telling some friends what a nice trail the Hunter Creek trail is, so I thought it might be good to provide some documentation. I don't usually take pictures of trails, but it turns out you can still get a pretty good idea of the terrain and scenery.
As you get up the canyon a bit, you get a nice view back to Reno. The views of the canyon itself are nice too.
We had a good snow a week ago, so the further up the trail you get, the more snow there is. Mostly on the western slope of the trail. The eastern exposure sees out the canyon to Reno and gets plenty of light. The western exposure is the side of the mountain. Add a few trees for shade, and you have snow cover.
The next few pictures are pre snow. We are backing in to Mt Rose here and it sits right on the Sierra crest. By contrast, Peavine is set off by itself. The result is that at the same elevation it is colder and wetter here than on the other side of 80. The flora reflects that. On Peavine you have pines. Here we also have fir and yew.
I am in search of the Hunter Creek Falls. On my first trip I understood it to be 2 1/2 miles from the trail head. This little drop is not it. But it is about 2 1/2 miles from the trail head. I was out of time, and not sure where the trail went from here, so this is far as I got.
This time, when I got here this was in snow, which was actually a good thing because someone had drug a small tobagan to pack down the trail. It was easy to see, but not so easy to traverse. At the top of the hill I had the choice of trying to traverse this group of snow and ice covered saplings or decide to call it quits. The creek is running under them. Since at this point, I still had no idea how much farther I really had to go and had still planned on only 2 1/2 miles, I decided to call it quits.
So, I am still in search of the Hunter Creek Falls. On my way out I ran in to someone who has been to the falls and estimated it to be more like 5 miles from the trailhead, not 2 1/2. He also suggested that if I was going on my own I should probably wait until the spring thaw to attempt it again.
To be continued.
