Time to get out the hiking boots and backpacks

With Mammoth Mountain closing May 31, it's safe to say the ski and riding season is over.

Yes, some patches of snow off Carson Pass, but that's only for the extreme boys and girls. We'll do Mammoth one more time en route to Los Angeles, but basically it's time to get out the hiking boots and backpacks. I've always been of two minds when it comes to hiking boots: Yes, they do help protect against ankle sprains; but good sandals work well and are lighter. And with good sandals you can skip the socks.

We'll get into hiking trails in detail in the future, but for now here's a couple of suggestions for early trekking around the local area.

Dead Man's Creek opposite Washoe Lake State Park offers several trails, none too demanding. There's the trail up to the gazebo, which is slated for repairs soon, which is about a mile and a half round trip. From the gazebo you can follow the steep dirt road to the top of the ridge and branch out from there. Good views.

Or you can start up the gazebo trail and at the fork take the left trail. This is pretty straightforward with some switchbacks to a wild animal viewing area as well as many smaller trails leading back as far as Duck Hill.

PRISON HILL

Another good local hiking area is Prison Hill, which is probably going to be undergoing a lot of changes now that the BLM and Carson City have swapped land. Hiking Prison Hill from the west is a slog that starts out flat and slowly climbs up a canyon to a natural clearing with fine views of Carson City and Washoe Valley and Slide Mountain.

The main community parking area and trailhead is at the eastern end of Koontz Lane. Trails either connect to other access points or rise in elevation to a loop trail at the top of Prison Hill. The 2,450-acre Prison Hill Recreation Area space is there for hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders, off-highway vehicles (south end only) with great views of the Carson Range and Pine Nut Mountains. Prison Hill is on the southeast side of town and has three parking areas.

The Silver Saddle Ranch on Carson River Road is the starting place for hiking Prison Hill from the east. Park before turning downhill toward the Ranch and head for the canyon along the clear trail. It's a moderate hike and we'll go into details in the future.

Not exactly local but close enough is Horse Tail Falls on Highway 50 West at Twin Bridges. We stopped there Sunday coming back from the Bay area and got as far as the marker for the beginning of the Desolation Wilderness area before turning back. Trails were fine but there was snow ahead and the American River, fed by the falls, was white water all over.

SKI SEASON THOUGHTS

We got a late start in December but things went fine until January. While in Rusty Crook's seniors clinic we got caught in a whiteout that left us in vertigo for the first time on skis. Terrible experience as we didn't know how suddenly to ski and had to sidestep down most of the Mt. Rose Kit Carson Bowl. That was followed by being blindsided by a snowboarder at Sierra-at-Tahoe; only casualty a sprained left thumb.

Two weeks later, same venue, blindsided again on a steep trail, this time two broken ribs, a smashed cell phone and damaged ski. At least this time the boarder did all he could to make up for his flying impact. Nice guy; can't say the same for the first boarder who never said a word afterward. Her boyfriend did, charging we ran into her when we were hit from behind. He capped it by saying, when I pointed out the basic rules of the hill, that "you old guys are all alike."

Rest of the season was fine, capped by some lovely runs and Heavenly, which made a major upgrade by reworking the California-to-Nevada crossover so that it is more of a glide, which made the boarders much happier.

Contact Sam Bauman at 841-7818 or sambauman@att.net.