canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
After we visited Bassi Falls, below the falls and above the falls, and drove back out the road with the challenging short hill climb at the end— people walking up the dirt 4x4 path expressed amazement at us so easily driving down it— the question was where to go next.

The area we were in is called the Crystal Basin. Or at least that's the name given to it by SMUD. And it contains a lot more than just Bassi Falls. And SMUD is kind enough to provide a pamphlet with a map.

SMUD's Guide to the Crystal Basin

SMUD, by the way, is the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Yes, the Crystal Basin is an area developed by a power-and-water company. The reservoirs up here in the mountains are dammed to provide drinking and farming water, plus a bit of hydroelectric power generation, to people below in California's Central Valley.

So, what else will we do today in the Crystal Basin? We check the map.

SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) Map of Crystal Basin

We figure we'll visit Robb's Hut, and old fire lookout with a cabin next to it, and then maybe Gerle Creek. Or maybe Horsetail Falls back out on US 50. Horsetail isn't on this map. It's further east, in the Crystal Range Mountains on the edge of the Desolation Wilderness.
canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (road trip!)
Folsom, California. A suburb of Sacramento. It's where you go if you've shot a man in Reno, according to a famous Johnny Cash song... or, in our case, when we're staying halfway between hither and yon on a Friday night.



Yon this trip is Bassi Falls, where we decided a few days ago we'd like to hike tomorrow. The drive is almost 4 hours best case, though, plus extra time for stops. Could we do that, there and back, all on Saturday? ...Yes, but it'd be a tough day. We'd want to be up by 6 and rolling by 7, only to start the hike a noon and then still have to drive home 5 hours (including a stop for dinner) afterward. We wouldn't have time/energy to double- or triple- up with other short hikes in the area, and we'd still get home exhausted anyway.

Enter Friday Night Halfway. Instead of spending 5 hours on the road tomorrow morning we knock out 3 or 3.5 tonight (including stops) and have a gentle 1 hour 15 minutes tomorrow. We start the hike earlier and with more energy, we have more time and energy to tack on an additional short hike or two in the area, and we get home not as wrecked. Oh, and we don't have to get up at 0600.

Who's Got the Folsom Blues? Not Us!

We made good time getting out of the house this afternoon. Hawk worked from home, which made things easier. We started packing at about 5:15 and were rolling at ten of six. We stopped for dinner along the way and checked in to our hotel in Folsom at 9:30.

Yeah, there was traffic along the way. It cost us about 45 minutes vs. best case conditions. But we were able to be more mellow about it because we knew we'd still get there at a completely reasonable hour (versus, say, having to drive until midnight+).

Once we got to our room we faced a choice. We could slip out to the hot tub for a soak before it closed at 10pm... or ice cream. There's a fantastic home-made ice cream shop two blocks from the hotel, and it's open 'til midnight. Hmm, hot tub or ice cream, hot tub or ice cream? Ice cream. It was hardly even a question. 😅🍦🤤

Now we're back at our hotel room for the night. We're winding down though we may also stay up a bit late. It's not like we have to get up at 0600! And when we do get up, we've got a full kitchen in our hotel suite so we could cook a big breakfast if we really wanted. But instead we'll settle for some meat, cheese, crackers, and bread we packed from home in a cold bag.

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