Farewell Gladys!

Sadly earlier this year Lisa’s grandmother Gladys bid us all farewell after an exceptionally good innings of 93 years. She passed during the early days of COVID and so we’d all been holding off celebrating her life, but it seems COVID is going to be with us for a little while longer so this weekend traveled to Carson City to have a distanced gathering to reflect on her life.

We enjoyed some snow on the way over Donner Pass, making it past Washoe Lake in a howling windstorm that flipped three semi trucks on their sides! A trip to Carson isn’t complete without hitting the trails in Ash Canyon, so we attempted to log a few miles of singletrack before the storm made its way over the mountains. About halfway through our ride the wind started howling rain began to fall. We kept climbing and managed one of our two planned descents, the kids had an absolute blast riding through patches of snow here and there that were in the shady spots. I couldn’t feel my fingers by the time we got back to the tuck, but that didn’t prevent lots of grins all round after riding the Creek Trail.

Great Uncle Alan joined us for a shuttle run down Clear Creek on the morning of the service, it was 11.1 miles (17.8 kilometers) of singletrack through all the landscapes the Eastern Sierra has to offer: snowy pine and fir forest all the way down into the high desert of Jacks Valley. We started at 5800 feet just off Highway 50, ultimately climbing through a patchwork of snow to 6200 feet and all the way down back into Carson Valley at 4900 feet. 2400 feet of descending from end to end. It was a fabulous trail, smooth and flowy the entire way and the recent rain had turned the trail’s compacted granite in to glue, so much fun! It reminded us all of the manicured trails of Bend, the kids had an absolute blast, lots of yelping and hollering as they raced each other through the moonscape-like lower section of the route. Will definitely be hitting this again next time we’re in Carson City.