This was the third day of a hiking binge centered around Lake Tahoe. In the previous two days I had visited three county highpoints on the Nevada side, staying two nights in Carson City. Today, however, would be centered around two close-by county highpoints in California, starting with Thunder Mountain in Amador County. From Carson City it's about 30 miles along US-50 and CA-88/89 into Alpine County just inside California. I gassed up in Markleeville, then headed up the CA-89 grade via Woodfords. Thirty miles later I was at the Amador County boundary and near the Kirkwood Ski Valley. Thunder Mountain is located above the ski runs along the main ridge.

One option to the summit is directly up the ski slopes below the ski lifts, but it is very steep and did not look enticing. Besides, the lifts were being worked on today and everything was closed except to the workers. Hikers were out of luck. So, I got back on to CA-89 and went over Carson Spur down the other side briefly 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 mile west of Carson Spur. The sign says it's 3.6 miles one way to the summit, with about 1,800 feet of gain. This will do nicely.

The hike starts in the woods, climbs steadily along an excellent trail, and then breaks out into a meadow after about 0.3 mile. 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 dominate the ridge, with some plugs looming 100 feet up. Very pretty. The trail levels along this ridge, then starts climbing again before finally coming back to the main ridge again near the aforentioned foreground peak. Here, there are excellent views down into the Kirkwood Ski Valley. There was still work to do.

The trail contours past the false summit and stays on the main ridge before descending to a saddle just below the highpoint. At this saddle, the highpoint is a right-leaning "pyramid" of rock as viewed from below. But me, I thought it was still up ahead another mile or so. So I marched on and followed the trail as it slowly contoured around the back to another rocky summit on which were tattered flags and a big register, overlooking a lake below. I was happy to have "summitted" and I signed in, took some photos and relaxed, perfectly content with myself. In time I started the hike out.

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 farther on, but met up again at the trailhead to talk for some more. It was fortuitous that I bumped into him and did this peak properly. It turns out that I hiked 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. But, ultimately, it was worth it.

I went back toward Markleeville, then down to state route CA-4 and up and over Ebbetts Pass along some of the steepest, curviest paved mountain roads I've ever been on. Some grades were 24%! The road was not striped for two lanes and when two cars would meet we'd have to go real slow to pass. Later in the day I hiked Corral Ridge, the highpoint of Calaveras County.