Day 3 of my Nevada highpoint tour began again in Carson City, but this time I stayed at a much nicer hotel than the night before. I wasn't sure which peaks I wanted to do: I thought about heading up to south of Reno and hiking the Washoe County highpoint, Mt Rose. Then I thought "naah". That's the beauty of highpointing: go wherever the heart wishes. I wanted to do some shorter half-day hikes instead, so to Amador and Calaveras counties in California it was. From Carson City it's about 30 miles along US-50 and CA-88/89 into Alpine County just inside California. Alpine County has the fewest people of all California Counties: just about 1,000. The towns are small and the amenities few and far between, as I found out when I needed gas. I had to make a 12-mile detour to Markleeville to get gas (at $2.20/gallon - (Addendum, 2006: $2.20? Sounds like a great deal!)). Once filled, I retraced my steps and headed back north to Woodfords and CA-89. From there, it was about 30 miles west to the Alpine/Amador county line and the jump-off point for Thunder Mountain, the Amador County highpoint.

Thunder Mountain is a high peak in the Kirkwood Ski Valley area, and there is a ski-lift to near the summit coming up from the east. A use-trail underneath this ski-lift is available but it is very steep and looked like miserable hiking. Besides, on the day I showed up, the ski-lift was being worked on, and hikers were not allowed. So, I got back on to CA-89 and went over Carson Spur down the other side a brief ways and tried to find a route from the west side. While driving back east over to Carson Spur, I finally spied a pull-out area with a small sign mentioning the Thunder Mountain trailhead. This is a new trailhead to the summit, and it's located about 0.2 miles west of Carson Spur. The sign says it's 3.6 miles one way to the summit, with about an 1,800 foot gain.

The hike starts in the woods, climbs steadily along an excellent trail, and then breaks out into a meadow after about 0.3 miles. The big mountain looming off to the south I thought was Thunder Mountain but it was just a foreground peak, not the destination. The trail continues, re-enters the trees for a while, switchbacks, then achieves the main ridge. Huge rock plugs from past volcanism dominate the ridge, with some plugs looming 100 feet up. Very pretty. The trail levels a bit along this ridge, then starts climbing again before finally coming back to the main ridge again near the aforentioned foreground peak. Here, there are views down into the Kirkwood Ski Valley.

The trail contours past the false summit and stays on the main ridge before descending a bit to a saddle just below the highpoint. At this saddle, look up and spy the trail as it ascends between a set of spires to the left and a pyramidal-shaped point to the right. This pyramid "leans" to the right. This is the highpoint. But I didn't know that at first. I just continued up the trail, down the other side, followed it for a while as it very slowly contoured around back to another set of rocky bits and finally to its end at a rocky summit overlooking a nice lake. Tattered flags and a big register sat at this summit, and I rested, signed in and took some photos, then started back. While descending back down to the main saddle, I met up with another hiker. We got to talking and it turned out he was here for the highpoint, too. Then he laid a whammy on me: the summit that I visited was not the actual highpoint! He showed me a map and sure enough I had visited a sub-summit that was two measly feet lower than the real highpoint. He then pointed to me the real highpoint: the right-leaning pyramid mentioned earlier. Peter Maurer is the hiker's name and he commisserated with me, for he'd made the same mistake on a previous hike, too. I cursed my stupidity and also cursed the fact that I'd need to re-hike up that trail again, but I figured I might as well to call it good.

Peter and I hiked together. We hiked up the rise, crossed it and around the other side about 100 feet until we found a good use-trail that led right up to the rocky highpoint. Now I could claim Amador in truth. We parted ways at the top as he went further, but met up again at the trailhead to talk for a bit. Very nice guy. It was fortuitous that I bumped into him and did this peak properly.

A few thoughts on this situation:

• Had I not met him along the way, I would have assumed I'd hiked Thunder Mountain and had achieved the highpoint properly, completely unaware that I'd failed to reach the true highpoint.

• It turns out that I hiked about a good 1.5 extra miles to the false summit (the terminus of the trail), not to mention the extra gain I needed to re-ascend the true highpoint.