Again with getting back on track – Jason and I headed out for our regular hike after a one-weekend hiatus.
Today, Jason drove us to the Whitewater Lake area to do some Ice Age hiking. We parked at the Whitewater/Rice Lakes Contact Station and took the short access trail from there to the Ice Age. The next 3/4ths of a mile pretty much sucked…in my book, anyway.
The access trail was beautiful – open, clear. Then we hit the Ice Age intersection. If we had turned right, we would have connected to a portion of the Ice Age we hiked last summer. Not that it would have been a problem, but we always enjoy trying out new trail to hike. So we turned left into overgrown trail land.
The overgrowth wouldn’t have been a huge deal except for the poison ivy 
Now, I have a little beef with the educational blurbs about poison ivy. “Leaves of three? Let it be.” Really? Do you know how many plants can have what appear to be “leaves of three?” To date, I still have not been sure about what poison ivy really looks like. Then we stumbled upon this ramshackle portion of trail. “Leaves of three” were everywhere!
There were also a lot of plants that appeared to have “leaves of three,” but that weren’t poison ivy (or so thinks Jason). See? It’s too confusing for me. I would just prefer not to encounter it at all.
Finally, we left emerged from the worst of the trail to a boardwalk and bridge over a small creek and wetlands area.
Just beyond the creek, we came to Clover Valley Road. The Ice Age follows this road for several miles to the west. So at this point, it was either turn around to retrace our steps or walk the road to the east to return to the car. The road definitely won out.
The road took us past Rice Lake, a smaller body of water adjacent to the larger Whitewater Lake.
The “hike” back to the car wasn’t very exciting, but I much preferred it to slogging through grass, vines, and possible poison ivy. We’ll make a better choice next weekend 
Now, I must get to my major project for the weekend – working on my Yosemite 2010 scrapbook. I am determined to get that album finished before our return trip in TWO WEEKS!
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I’m never sure about poison ivy either…