Buckhorn - Donner Pass/Lookout Mountain (success)

I'm on a goal to tackle all the various trails that I had to turn back on earlier in the year because of snow.  This time it was the Donner Pass/Lookout Mountain trail I attempted back in March.  This trail is fairly close to home, only about an hours drive, up Buckhorn road to the Buckhorn Ranger Station.  Buckhorn Ranger Station is closed.

The trail is a moderate one but is a consistent climb.  In addition the trail was damaged in the September 2013 rains, so all the topsoil was scoured off and now the trail is mostly rocks and roots.  This time there was plenty of vegetation and no snow.

Plenty of plants!

It appears this area has, at one time been heavily logged.  I fact, I encountered a pile of rough cut lumber.  Hmm, I wonder how many winters of firewood is there?

Lumber pile

This is such a good time of year to hike, everything is green and there are wildflowers everywhere.  I even found a mushroom or two.

Everything is blooming

Single flower

I wish I knew my flower name

Mushrooms - very large

The trail was easy to follow most of the way.  There were good signage, albeit one was pretty faded.

Major trail junctions

What exactly does this say?

However, soon after passing this sign the trail became quite faint and I finally lost it.  So I decided to bushwhack my way to Lookout Mountain's summit.  That turned out to slow me down considerably, but I did make it to the top.  WOW, what views!!!

There was even a summit log that I just had to sign.

I decided to not just retrace my bushwhack path up, but try a different approach.  That turned out to be quite an adventure as you can see in the GPS track.  Glad I had my GPS, compass, and map!  The return trip was almost all downhill.

The views from the summit of Lookout Mountain made this trip well worthwhile.

Overall Track Statistics for track DonnerPass-Lookout Mtn

 Length 11.426 miles

 Start Elevation - 8317.49 feet

 Maximum Elevation - 10602.59 feet

 Minimum Elevation - 8258.83 feet

 Date of Hike - Jul 24, 2015

 Start Time - 08:12 AM

 End Time - 02:40 PM

 Total Duration -     6:27 hours:min

 Total Ascent - 3070.90 feet

 Total Descent - 3125.46 feet

 Net Ascent - -54.56 feet

 Maximum Grade - 19.58%

 Average Speed -  1.77 mph

 Maximum Ascent over Mile - 665.58 feet

 Maximum Speed over Mile -  2.90 mph

 Maximum Gain over Mile (%) - 11.87%