Euchre Bar, North Fork American River, Tahoe National Forest

The trail down to the river is not long - only about 1.5 miles - but in that distance you lose almost 2000'. You notice this, to put it mildly, going both directions. At the bottom there's an old suspension bridge and the remnants of old mining operations in the form of twisted rusted scrap metal and the odd stone platform. At ten in the morning the sun was just starting to make it over the canyon rim into the river. There was dew on the bridge and I couldn't understand why there would be so much down there or why moisture loving plants would enjoy the spot (they're high enough above the water not to receive any spray.) Not long ago I had gone up there to check it out but it was muddy enough that I thought a super steep trail would not be the best thing to do that day. It sure did look different a month ago!

As an aside: From the top of the canyon I could see a snowy peak looking upriver that looked suspiciously like Granite Chief from the back. Looking at Google Earth later, it absolutely could be (26.5 air miles away.) This also led me to actally look at numbers for something I'd long wondered about - the average ratio between air miles, road miles and trail miles. Looks like straight-line air miles distance is usually about half the trail distance, with the road miles being in between but significantly closer to the straight line distance. I guess in cases where you're going through just as much mountains as the trail - ie along the Western States - the road distance relative to trail is the highest.

Trail	% Air	% Drive	% Trail
Western States	50	75	(100)
Pacific Crest	44	57	(100)
Appalachian	51	62	(100)