Northern Sierra: June/July, 2009

For our 2009 big summer trip (almost four weeks long), we decided to do something we've never done: just take off for the northern Sierra, without any reservations or even any solid plans. (Four weeks!? Lots of pictures and text -- feel free to skim. Remember -- click on a photo to enlarge, and then click "back.") The big idea was to plunk ourselves down in an interesting area, explore it thoroughly, and then move on to somewhere else. We figured that since we can boondock in most parts of the the national forests, we didn't really need campground reservations.

Our first campsite was on Buckeye Creek, west of Bridgeport, in the Toiyabe National Forest. Getting to this campground required a trip of several miles over a rough dirt road, which kept the crowds down considerably (especially the folks with big rigs and loud generators). The campground was at around 7000 feet, warm during the day but cool at night. On our first evening, we were greeted by a thunderstorm rumbling over the valley to the east:



Since we were going to be gone for almost a month, we wanted to stay in some sort of contact with the world, instead of just disappearing into the wilderness. So we subscribed to a cell-phone based "data card" service, hoping to be able to check e-mail from time to time. It didn't work out very owell because the coverage was so poor in remote areas. For example, at Buckeye, we had to drive 10 miles out of the campground, into a cow pasture, before we could get reception -- it makes for a funny picture, but it was a hassle:



We took several very pleasant hikes in the Buckeye area; the best was a mountain bike ride up Buckeye Canyon, along the stream. The trail cut through a working cattle ranch and up into the backcountry:



This is a Mariposa lily along the trail:



Parts of the trail were very technical and difficult (sandy, rocky, and steep); other parts were gently rolling and pleasant. We were the only people in this entire valley -- we saw no one else for several hours:



As we would ride along, we saw a few coyotes in the far distance, catching mice in the meadows. It was a hot day and we decided to take a dip in the creek, which was swollen with snowmelt. When Felice stepped into the freezing water, she started to yell -- imagine the Tarzan call a couple of octaves higher, but slightly off- key. When she paused to catch her breath, all of the coyotes responded, howling back at their new Queen!

We also took a day trip to Sonora Pass, hiking to Secret Lake and then to Sardine Falls. There was still quite a bit of snow at the higher elevations in late June. And we were glad that we hadn't towed the trailer into the Pass. It was very steep, and the campgrounds were crowded and noisy.

We stayed at Buckeye for several nights and then moved on to the Markleeville area, over Highway 89 and Monitor Pass. I had thought that we were going to camp somewhere just south of Lake Tahoe. But as we were rolling down the west side of Monitor Pass, Felice realized that since the July 4 holiday was approaching, we would be better off in a more remote area. So on a whim, we headed away from Tahoe on Highway 4 toward Ebbetts Pass, with no idea where we were going to camp. (We knew that we couldn't tow the trailer over Ebbetts Pass -- too steep and too twisty.)

The topo program on my laptop showed that there was a creek paralleling the highway; and sure enough, we could see from the road that there were boondocking sites along the creek, not too far from Silver Creek Campground, at around 7000 feet. After some scouting, we found a very secluded site down a rough dirt road, right next to the river. This was the view out the front door of the trailer:



We spent the next several days exploring the Pacific Crest Trail, which crossed Highway 4 at Ebbetts Pass. When we first arrived, the wildflowers were just coming into bloom, and the display got better and better every day. One of the most spectacular hikes was out toward Reynolds Peak:



The terrain in this part of the Sierra was very different from the southern Sierra. Instead of huge rounded gray granite domes, the mountains were sharp reddish-brown volcanic crags. This particular peak (which I think is called "IXL," for some unknown reason) displays several layers of volcanic ash, which have been been tilted upward:



By coincidence, we happened upon a book sale at the library in Markleeville, and there was a book on Sierra wildflowers (with pictures). I did my best to try to identify all the flowers we saw. These pink flowers are "checkermallow," I think:



There was still a fair amount of snow at the higher elevations. We had to kick steps across the snowfields, being careful not to slide down the avalanche chutes:



The tops of the volcanic mountains had been eroded into "hoodoos;" this is near Raymond Peak:



These mountains were not composed of solid lava flows; instead, they were mostly volcanic ash and rock that had been cemented into blocks and layers. Here, you can see a block that has broken off the cliff, and you can see the different types of ash that have been layered on top of each other. I think that this type of volcanic conglomerate is called "breccia":



One of the key players on this trip was my new Magellan GPS, which enabled us to carry electronic topo maps and waypoints and then to find our way off-trail to points of interest that would have been otherwise inaccessible. (Felice commented that this was a new high-tech way to get seriously lost, much more efficiently.) On this hike, we were able to "bushwhack" through the forest to Dorothy Lake, at nearly 9000 feet. Here I am celebrating my GPS triumph in front of a huge snowbank:



The photos make the lake look lovely. In reality, it was infested with voracious mosquitos, who viewed me as their last best hope for a decent lunch. But the reflections in the lake were worth the suffering:



Our campsite during this part of the trip, on Silver Creek, was a delight -- the creek burbled busily in the background, the breeze blew down the canyon ruffling the cottonwoods, and the pine trees surrounding the trailer provided us with shade most of the day:



Almost every afternoon, we sat in our camp chairs overlooking the stream, sipping our small gin-and-tonics. Sitting in the semi-wilderness, with a few real ice cubes made in our own little freezer, was a huge luxury.

The next day we hiked along Wolf Creek. The trail was sandy and hot; but as a reward, we found a great place for lunch, right on the stream, with shade and a cool breeze and a cold wading pool. Given the heat, we decided to stay up at the higher elevations. We headed back to the Pacific Crest Trail and passed by Asa Lake:



The flowers were really starting to come out in full force by early July -- these are blue flax, according to my guidebook:



And these are "pretty face":



Velvety stickseed:


,
On this particular hike, we reached cool and breezy Tryon Saddle (overlooking Noble Lake to the north and Sonora Pass to the south) at about 9400 feet:



On our way back down through the meadow, we came across a pool full of tadpoles:



We took a few hikes on the west side of Ebbetts Pass over the next few days. These are penstemon, probably my favorite -- they are neon purple, and they grow in very harsh and dry places, seemingly undaunted by the difficult conditions:



We reached a high ridge above Wheeler Lake in the Woodchuck Basin area -- the knob was covered in flowers, all busily explored by tiger swallowtail butterflies. These are (I think) scarlet gilia:



Indian paintbrush was everywhere:



Later that afternoon, we tried to ride our bikes around Lake Alpine. The trail was impassable -- full of large boulders. The next day, we decided to try a different route to the Raymond Meadows area, using the GPS to cut across country and reach the Pacific Crest Trail by contouring across a mountainside. It was fun to plot a safe and workable trail on the topo and to leave "waypoints" on the GPS, so that we could find our way back. We quickly reached the volcanic hoodoos:



This is another view of Reynolds Peak:



We noticed these odd worm-like mounds everywhere. I did a little reading and discovered that these are gopher castings -- they deposit dirt from their tunnels under the snowbanks during the winter. When the snow melts, these "negative tunnels" are left on the surface:



After July 4, we decided to move to the Carson Pass area, south of Tahoe and northwest of Markleeville. I located several possible boondocking areas on my topo; we cruised past them, but nothing looked right. We turned onto a dirt road leading east of Highway 88, near the north end of Red Lake, just before Carson Pass. Some ATV folks were hanging out near the road. We asked them about boondocking, and they were very helpful -- they told us about a big meadow two miles down the dirt road where there were some other trailers.

We headed off down this road -- perhaps the roughest forest road we had ever driven, with rocks the size of pumpkins and potholes the size of a kitchen sink. At 5 mph, we trundled down this road, half expecting that the trailer would bottom out and that the plumbing fixtures would be torn off. But nice and easy does it. A long while later, sure enough, we came to the meadow. We could see that other folks had camped there in the past, but there was no one else around.

Hoping for complete solitude, we parked the car and hopped on our bikes to explore the area. Not far away we found what looked like a perfect campsite -- secluded, away from the road, next to a stream, fully shaded. This area was at about 8000 feet, so it was surprisingly cool, even though it was early afternoon.

There was only one little problem with our possible campsite -- it was down a steep hill, with a narrow entrance, and some big rocks on either side, and a narrow steep exit. (Yes, that's more than one problem, but never mind -- these problems will come back to haunt us later, as you will see.) After some very serious scrutiny, we decided we could handle it. Back to the car. Put it in 4x4 low gear. Creep down the twisting entrance. The car and the trailer start to slide sideways into the creek. But luckily, the sliding stopped, and we were tucked into a great little spot, very cool and breezy, right next to our new beach:



These were the little "rapids" we could see from the front door:



"Shooting stars" lined the edge of our little beach:



On our first expedition from our new campsite, we took a mountain bike ride up to Burnside Lake. It was almost too steep, but not quite. There was evidence of a fairly recent forest fire in the area. The next day was very windy. We took an ambitious hike from Carson Pass toward Round Top, a peak of over 10,000 feet. These mountains were only a mile and a half from our campsite, as the crow flies, if a crow flew straight up:



The wind was exhilarating -- but as we tried to climb Round Top, the wind kept increasing. A couple of guys coming down from the peak told us that they had gotten literally blown off of their feet by the gusts. We made it most of the way up:



From high on the mountainside, we could see a wide swath of the northern Sierra, including the Desolation Wilderness and Lake Tahoe:



The next day, we decided to try something a little less ambitious, a hike to Lake Margaret. The lake was pleasant, but the flowers were outstanding. This is Sierra columbine:



These are "mountain pride," a variety of penstemon:



I think these are polemonium:



These are Lewis monkey flower:



There were a lot of turquoise dragonflies at the lake, darting around the grass at the shore:



Our next hike was to Meiss Lake, also near Carson Pass. This might have been the most flowery hike of all. These are lupine:



There was a lot of iris blooming in the meadows -- Round Top and the Sisters, on the east side of Carson Pass, are in the background:



The Meiss Lake area was spectacular -- the trail drops down through a beautiful meadow, past a defunct "cowboy camp." The meadow is ringed by snowy hills. We got a little bit of cloud cover, for a change -- I liked the way that the striations in the clouds seemed to echo the strata in the layers of volcanic ash:



These are cinquefoil in a wet meadow:



What with the cold breeze and the views and the flowers and the altitude, we got a little carried away, but no permanent harm was done:



The yellow flowers are "mule's ears." They are all over the place in the higher altitudes:



That afternoon, returning to our campsite, I backed down our little "exit road" toward the trailer. I thought that Felice was guiding me, but I misunderstood her signal and got the car stuck in some bushes (which rudely poked through the open window into the car). No problem. I shifted into drive and gently gave it some gas. The right rear wheel promptly sunk up to the axle. I hopped out. The front left wheel was three feet in the air. Uh-oh.

We figured out that the "exit road" was not really dirt -- it was loosely compacted leaves, i.e., "duff." I was able to dig out the back wheel, put it in reverse, and get back onto the dirt, with no harm done. But we realized that it would be very hard to get the trailer out of its wonderful parking space.

That night, I had trouble sleeping -- what to do? The exit road was not only very soft -- it was steep and narrow and rimmed with big rocks. I realized that we would have to gently re-engineer the road -- removing some of the rocks, filling in the ruts, and actually paving the soft part with rocks and gravel.

The next morning, that is exactly what we did -- first gathering big flat rocks as a base and then filling in with gravel. I used my shovel to fill in the ruts and level the roadway. There were some small trees in the way, but we could not bear to cut them down -- I used ropes to pull them aside, temporarily. We planned our "escape" carefully, measuring the exit area with sticks and string. We hitched up, put the car into low gear, and carefully pulled the trailer up and out of the campsite. We set up our new camp just a few feet away -- not quite as secluded, but not on soft ground, either.

Since there was a huge bike race on the highway the next day, we decided to go exploring toward Blue Lake, using the dirt road that ran from our campsite on Forestdale Creek over something the map called "Forestdale Divide" at 9000 feet. When we drove to the top over an incredibly rough road, we hit an impassable snowbank:



So instead of making it to Blue Lake, we parked at the top and started our hike right there, using the GPS to connect up with the Pacific Crest Trail. We bushwhacked up the side of a mountain for some amazing views:



As it turned out, Felice's family was at Berkeley Tuolumne Camp, near Yosemite, so we decided to pull up stakes and surprise them. We stopped for the night at Calaveras Big Trees and took an evening hike in the South Grove area. These are Washington lillies:



This is our obligatory "Felice next to a Sequoia" shot:



The campground at Calaveras, Oak Hollow, was lovely, but the grove was nothing special, compared to those in Sequoia to the south. The next day, after an easy drive, we pulled into Tuolumne and had one of the staffers tell Roz that she had to come down to the office to clear up some paperwork. It took her a while to come down the hill, but the surprise was perfect:







The next day, we all went for a hike in Tuolumne Grove -- this is at 6000 feet, with a steep one mile hike down and back up again. But Roz was determined -- we took it slow on the way down and slower on the way up, with me pushing from the back and Felice pulling the walker from the front with a rope. Quite a courageous journey for both Roz and Eddie:



Zach, Felice's nephew, was deeply devoted to fly fishing:



The next day, Felice and I decided to hike in the Glacier Point area of Yosemite. From the top of Sentinel Dome, we could almost touch Half Dome:



On the trail (hot and steep) down to Illilouette Falls, we could see both Vernal and Nevada Falls:



The hike down to Illilouette was redeemed by a very lovely and secluded swimming hole, upstream on Illilouette Creek. The next day, we drove over Tioga Pass to the Mammoth Lakes area and found a pretty (but buggy) campsite at Coldwater Campground, at 9000 feet. We took a sunset walk around Lake Mary, with a volcanic ridge in the background:



Since we had done a month of high-altitude and (for us) high-mileage hiking, we felt we were ready for a bit of a challenge -- the Mammoth Crest, a long and steep and high route. We passed Crystal Crag on the way up:



Using the GPS, we went beyond (and above) the trail, reaching the 11,400 foot level. The trail took us past a cinder cone, over some pumice flats, and onto the edge of the Crest itself, overlooking the Mammoth Creek drainage:



The 360 degree views from the top were indescribable, ranging from the Mt. Whitney area in the south, to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon area in the west, to Yosemite in the northwest. These peaks are Mt. Ritter and Mt. Banner, along with the Minarets:



We were above Mammoth Mountain -- Felice is pointing down to the top of the gondola and the backside of the Cornice, the highest point on Mammoth:



That afternoon, after 10 miles of hiking. the monsoonal thunderstorms tried to chase us off the mountain:



We next revisited the Duck Pass area -- in June of 2008, we were forced to slog through snowbanks to get up to the pass. This trip was a lot easier. The flowers were out in full force; these are Alpine Columbine:



The thunderstorms started in the early afternoon:



The rain wet the rocks and made the flowers look even more luminous:



Note that those rocks are metamorphic. We were at around 11,000 feet, and I think that these are remnants of the original "country rock" that was uplifted by the Sierra granite. We did not see any metamorphic rock at the lower elevations. During the day, the rain squalls would come and go, and our ponchos came on and off:



The rain (and hail!) sweeping across the lake was very dramatic. This day, July 18, happened to be the 35th anniversary of our first date:



On our way back, we climbed a cirque overlooking Mammoth Lakes, while lightning flickered over the mountains south of Duck Lake. The thunder echoed around us in a circular pattern, reflected by the cliffs -- very exciting! That Duck Pass/Duck Lake hike was quite strenuous -- almost 10 miles, with almost 2400 feet of climbing.

On our last day in the Mammoth area, we hiked up to Emerald Lake and Sky Meadows. These are columbine on Coldwater Creek:



At Emerald Lake, Felice pointed out the cliff that we climbed (from the back!) up on the Mammoth Crest:



At Sky Meadow, we found a pretty waterfall, not described in any of the guidebooks:



We then cut across country (using the GPS) to the Mammoth Creek area, to Felice's favorite cascade above Arrowhead Lake:



On the last day of our trip, we stopped over in Lone Pine and drove up to the Cottonwood area, up Horseshoe Meadow Road. The road was spectacular, but the hiking was nothing special -- the forest was kind of sparse, and the mountains were not very dramatic. (We had gotten spoiled by all of the classic High Sierra scenery.) A thunderhead covered the sun as we left:

Big Meadows, May 2009: Thunder and Hail

For our 31st anniversary, we took a five-day trip up to the Big Meadows area in the Sequoia National Forest, between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. We scored a prime "boondocking"" campsite off of one of the forest roads, on a big open granite dome with terrific views of the Great Western Divide. (Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge and click "back" to get back to the blog.) During the summer, we usually look for more shade; but in late May and early June, we figured that the absence of shade wouldn't be a problem. (As it turned out, the problem was that we were exposed to lightning on this big dome!)



After setting up our campsite, we took a hike in Evans Grove, north of Buck Rock. This grove is hard to reach because the dirt roads are so rough; as a result, there was nobody else there, and it was very peaceful:



At the bottom of the grove, we took a loop trail that led us down to an old logging road or narrow-gauge railroad grade. (We could tell it was an old road because we could see the remains of carefully-built rock walls.) As you will see below, we later ended up revisiting that road from a completely different direction. After we got back to the trailer that evening, we could see a thunderstorm boil up across a ridge, coming right toward us:



It rained pretty hard that evening. (It is very pleasant to be inside a small tin box in a rainstorm at night.) The next day, we drove all the way down to the end of Highway 180 in King's Canyon and hiked to Mist Falls, a 9 mile round trip. During the hike, we came across two rattlers. The first one (below) was calmly crossing the trail. The second one was coiled on a rock pile, rattling loudly and poised to strike; I didn't stop to get a picture of that one.



The trail followed the Kings River. Because the snow in the higher elevations was melting fast, the river was roaring:



Mist Falls was thunderous. In fact, it was so violent that we couldn't get a picture of the entire cascade; there was so much mist in the air that the camera would've been soaked. We sat for a long time on a big granite slab next to the river. The slab was vibrating with the force of the falls.



That afternoon and evening, it rained again, with plenty of thunder and lightning. Amazingly, with all of this rough weather, we never got wet while hiking -- it seemed to hold off until we got into the car or into the trailer. The next morning, there was a fairly brisk hailstorm:



After the sun came out, we were treated to a double rainbow:



A little later, we headed out for a bike ride. In a campground along Tenmile Road, we found these snow flowers bursting through an asphalt walkway -- apparently these flowers aren't as fragile as they look:



This bike ride was one of the greatest routes we've ever taken. It stretched the entire length of Forest Road 13S05, starting near Hume Lake. The road generally followed the ridge line south of King's Canyon between six and seven thousand feet, giving us terrific views of the mountains north of the canyon:



After a few miles, the road came to the Lockwood Grove. In all of our earlier visits to the various Sequoia groves, I don't think we've ever been able to ride our mountain bikes right through the big trees. Here you can see how the grove marches down the hillside:



In places, the dirt road was fairly smooth; in other places, it was so rocky that we had to get off our bikes and carry them across the boulders, especially where the mountainside had tumbled down on to the roadway. Every so often, we came across another group of Sequoia trees.



All day long, it kept threatening to rain on us, but it never really did. But we saw plenty of lightning in the mountains across the canyon.



For some reason, the juxtaposition of the bikes and the trees was irresistible. We felt like ants:



After about 10 miles, and after passing the ruins of a logging camp, we came to what seemed to be an impassable swamp. There was a very dense grove of Sequoias, just to the north and west of Evans Grove. The ferns were just starting to sprout:



We thought we were going to turn back, but then we spotted a little trail across the swamp. Based on our previous visit to Evans Grove, I knew that the old railroad grade extended across the swamp to the east. We dragged our bikes across the ravine and through the swamp, and, sure enough, the old unused railroad grade was waiting for us on the other side. We rode for about another mile, passing more huge (and seldom seen) Sequoias. (This picture might be worth clicking on -- you will really get a sense of the scale when you see Felice on her bike.)



On our way back, we unfortunately took a wrong turn; the fire roads aren't always marked, and they look all the same. We headed uphill for a long time to Tornado Meadow, which was very pretty but which was not where we wanted to go. We eventually realized our mistake and headed back downhill to the main fire road. (The detour added almost 6 miles to our trip, which would've been fine except that we were tired by the end of the day. The total distance was about 26 miles, which is a fairly long mountain bike ride at high altitude.) Eventually, we came back to the Lockwood Grove; by then, the sun was out, and we could see the entire grove stretching along a ridge:



Here is a close-up of the ridge; you can see that the Sequoias are very different in color and shape from the rest of the conifers:



We couldn't resist one last shot showing the true scale of the trees -- the little dot at the base of the tree is Felice:



That evening, back at the campsite, the clouds cleared up just as the sun was setting. I'm not sure whether the phenomenon of ""alpenglow" is real or not, but these alps were glowing. (This picture might be worth clicking on.)



The next day, we hiked into Muir Grove. Since the access road through Dorst Campground was closed, we decided to ride our bikes down to the trailhead. We thought that we would be the only ones at the grove, since it was so hard to reach. As it turns out, there were two other groups who had essentially the same idea. But it was still very peaceful. We laid down on the forest floor in the middle of a ring of giant trees and looked up. These trees, which look slender in this picture, are actually 10 feet or more in diameter, and rise above us for at least 200 feet:



We took the time to explore a lot of the grove, going downhill quite a ways and then along the ridge to the northwest. Although we've been to the grove several times, we never realized how extensive is really is. The dogwood trees were in full bloom:



On the trail to and from the grove, the hillsides were carpeted with these little purple and white flowers, which were about a half-inch high. (If I can figure out what these flowers are called, I will edit the blog to include the proper name.)



On our way back, we saw a doe (a deer, a female deer) on the trail ahead of us, acting strangely. She walked about 20 yards ahead of us, stopping every so often to graze and then to look back at us. After a little while, we looked around and realized that a very young deer was following us. We figured that we had separated the mother from the child, so we stopped. The young deer then circled around us. The mother then approached her child, in a seemingly tender fashion:



Uphill, the child waited for her. She then charged up to the child and gave it a vigorous head-butt!



The child ran downhill in a panic:



This odd dance continued for a few minutes, with more approaches and more head-butting. We speculated that she may have been pregnant and may not have wanted to devote attention to last year's fawn. The yearling still wanted to be the baby of the family, but the mother was trying to drive him away, to force him to find his own food.

The next day, we hiked down through Redwood Canyon toward Big Springs, before driving home. There, too, the dogwoods were putting on a show:

Giant Sequoia Natl Mon: February, 2009

In between two storm systems, we managed to find a dry weekend (at the end of January/start of February). (Remember to click on the pix to enlarge and then hit "back." A couple of these pictures might be worth clicking on.)

We headed up to Wishon Campground above Springville, in the Giant Sequoia National Monument northeast of Bakersfield. The campground (at 4000 feet) is right on the Tule River; the campsites are spacious and are all shaded by oaks. The first night, there was one other group in the campground. The rest of the time, we were alone:



Note -- the four mile road from Highway 190 to the campground is steep and narrow and twisty; and the highway is no picnic, either. Don't go up to Wishon in a big rig, and don't try it with a trailer longer than 20 feet. Your transmission will get a nice workout, both going up and coming down! Fortunately, there was no ice on the road -- that would have made it even more entertaining. Also, clearance inside the campground is a little tight -- watch those low branches.

After setting up the trailer, we took the SUV up a very rocky, muddy, icy road toward Alder Creek:



When the snow got too deep, we continued on foot -- there are quite a few Sequoias on or near this fire road. The next day we took Highway 190 up to Freeman Grove, at 7000 feet. The access road was buried in two feet of snow, so we hopped onto our snowshoes and trudged down into the grove. We had a huge snowy grove all to ourselves -- sort of dreamlike. It was really great to get off-trail and walk among "wild" Sequoias that are seldom visited by anyone; during the summer, we would have to stick to the trail, both because it can be harmful to walk on the soil near the trees and because the undergrowth would get in the way. In the winter, the brush is mostly buried in the snow. The color of the red bark was intense in the afternoon light:



Although the weather was clear, it was fairly cold, getting down into the high 20s at night. We tried to run the heater in the trailer as little as possible, both to preserve the battery and to preserve the silence -- we could hear the river roaring right next to us, and it was a pleasure just to listen to it all evening long. The inside of the trailer was a toasty 45 degrees -- we bundled up like Eskimos. Not glamorous, but comfortable:




On Sunday, we took a hike along the Camp Nelson trail, through the Belknap Grove and up toward the Wheel Meadow Grove. The snow was a few days old, and the water vapor in the air had collected on the snow crystals to form fragile "hoar frost:"



There were some tricky stream crossings -- we had to build a temporary log bridge across the river -- and it would not have been fun to fall into the icy water:



Once again, we saw no one else during the entire day of hiking -- just us and the big trees in the snowy forest. The black dot at the base of the tree is Felice:



The higher up we went, the deeper the snow got. Although we were not on snowshoes (the terrain was too rough), we were still able to make good progress in our waterproof hiking boots. Our gaiters (leggings) kept the snow out of our boots. All along the trail, the river tumbled over half-frozen falls:



Back down near the campground, we ran into quite a few red sierra newts -- it was the start of their mating season and they were crawling slowly across the path, stunned by the cold temperatures:



On Monday, before heading home, we hiked up from Wishon toward Mountain Home State Forest; in the mountains, we could see several large groves of Sequoias, but they were across the river and hard to reach. Right where Burro Creek empties into the Tule River, there were thousands of ladybugs swarming on the rocks and leaves:



In four days of fairly strenuous hiking and snowshoeing, we did not see anyone else on the trail.

Kings Canyon, November 2008: A Surprise Blizzard

Although we've spent almost 50 nights this year in our trailer, we just had to try one more camping trip. So in mid-November we headed up to the Sequoia National Forest, in between Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park, for a four-day trip. At around noon on Friday, we set up camp in a remote area near Big Meadows; our nearest neighbor was about a half-mile away. This was not a campground -- the national forest allows "dispersed camping" (or "boondocking") in many areas. We had a wonderful view of the Great Western Divide. That afternoon, we hiked to a remote grove of giant sequoias (Evans Grove), north of Buck Rock. The dirt roads were very rough, but we had no trouble. The grove was lovely -- absolutely silent. We saw no one during the entire hike.

On the next day (Saturday), we took a long steep hike from the Wolverton area up to Heather Lake. The total elevation gain was over 2000 feet, and the total mileage was more than 9 miles. At the top of the route, there were tremendous views of the entire Tokopah Valley:



The lake itself was surrounded by snowy rocks, reflected in the water:



On the way back from Heather Lake, we tried to take the Watchtower route, which is a narrow trail along a cliff overlooking the valley. But we had to turn back because the trail was so narrow and icy:



(This picture does not really do justice to this trail -- immediately behind Felice, there is an icy chute about 18 inches wide. On one side is an icy rock wall. On the other side is a 2000 foot cliff. We did not cross the chute!)

As we finished the hike (on a safer route), it started to get pretty cloudy; the weather service had predicted a dusting of snow over 9000 feet and a few light rain showers below that elevation. We weren't too worried, since our campsite was at 7500 feet. Sure enough, late that evening, it started to sprinkle, making a lovely tinkling sound on the roof of the trailer. We were snug and warm inside our tin box, dressed like Eskimos and drinking hot tea.

After we went to sleep (under a comforter and four blankets!), it started to rain a little harder. Around midnight, the rain suddenly stopped; it was very quiet. At first, I was glad that the rain had stopped; I had been worried that the ground would become so muddy and soft that we wouldn't be able to tow the trailer out of the woods and back to the roadway. But after a while, it dawned on me that the silence might mean that the rain had simply turned to snow. Around 1:30 a.m., I crawled out of my nice warm bed -- the inside of the trailer was at about 40 degrees -- and peeked out the door of the trailer. Surprise! There was already about a half a foot of wet snow on the ground, and it was essentially a full-scale blizzard.

We had to make a decision -- what to do? If we simply waited it out until the morning, we could have been stuck in the snow -- my SUV and my trailer only have about 10 inches of ground clearance. If the snow got much deeper, we couldn't have towed the trailer out of our campsite. Remember, also, that this was not a campground -- this was just the wilderness. And the Forest Road leading to our campsite was not a maintained or plowed road.

So we reluctantly decided that we had to leave right then. It felt like we were being too conservative, and nobody wants to go outside in that kind of weather; but we thought it was the prudent thing to do. Without rushing, without panicking, we bundled up in our waterproof garments and headed out into the storm to pack up our equipment and hitch the trailer to the car. It was absolutely pitch black, and very wet and cold. Fortunately, we had headlamps; also, we have hitched and unhitched so many times that we could do most of the tasks blindfolded. A lot of our tools and equipment had already been covered by the snow, but we were able to find all of them. The hardest part was clearing the snow off of the awning, which had accumulated a thick, wet, sticky layer of icy snow.

When it came time to hitch up (after about an hour and a half of packing up), the car windows were completely covered in ice and snow. I was able to clear them off a little bit, but I could hardly see anything. Fortunately, Felice skillfully guided me back so that we were able to drop the hitch onto the ball the first time.

The next question was whether the car would be able to move the trailer over the soft wet dirt and through the deep snow. I put the SUV into "four-wheel drive low," the high-torque setting. No problem! Quite a relief. We were able to move onto the roadway and slowly drove out of the woods for a couple of miles to the highway. As we expected, the highway was not yet plowed (since the storm had been a surprise to everyone), so we drove very slowly through deep snow to the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park. It was sort of dreamlike -- the dark, deserted highway, the blowing snow, at 3 a.m., with the trailer trundling along behind us, pushing through the deep snow.

Since the roadway had been very cold prior to the storm, the rain had frozen to the pavement, creating a layer of black ice under several inches of snow. The trickiest part of the drive was on the banked turns, where the highway designers had intentionally tilted the roadbed in order to accommodate cars traveling at 45 mph. At 10 mph, however, the car and the trailer tended to slide sideways a little. No big deal, but it was interesting. (I had decided not to attach the anti-sway bar to the trailer, since I was concerned that if the trailer slid sideways, it would drag the back of the car along with it. I'm not sure that was the right decision, but we made it out okay.)

We toyed with the idea of heading down the hill to Fresno but decided that it would be safer simply to sleep in the trailer in the parking lot near the ranger station at Grant Grove. When we awoke the next morning, there was still quite a bit of snow and ice on the trailer, although it had rained again in the early morning hours (since Grant Grove is only at about 6500 feet):



In the morning, one of the rangers asked us what we were doing in the parking lot, and we explained. She told us that we had done exactly the right thing: other campers who had stayed throughout the night at Big Meadows had gotten stuck and had to call for tow trucks to get out, which was enormously expensive. So we didn't feel too bad about evacuating, even though we missed our lovely remote campsite.

And actually, to tell the truth, the "midnight blizzard fire drill" was sort of fun. It was a challenge, and I was pleased that we were able to deal with it in a calm, methodical way, without rushing, and without making mistakes. We had to force ourselves to follow our checklists carefully, even though our instinct was to scramble out of there before the snow got too deep. Plus, the whole experience gave us the spurious sense of being rugged individuals having a legitimate adventure. It was also fun to work as a team to solve the little problems we encountered.

So, instead of heading home right away, we went for a morning hike in Grant Grove itself. The low clouds and fog obscured the tops of the snowy trees:



We later took a hike through the North Grove area. If you have never seen a Sequoia up close, here are some indications of the actual size of these trees. It is difficult to find a place where you can take a picture of an entire tree from top to bottom; we found a couple of places along a fire road in which I could stand far enough back from the tree to encompass the whole thing. First, a long shot of one tree -- look for the little orange dot at the bottom of the tree -- this might be worth clicking on to enlarge, and then hit back to get back:



And, from the very same picture, here is an enlargement of the orange dot, i.e., Felice:



Also, here she is peeking through a cleft in a grouping of trees:



And here's a close-up of the cleft, again from the same picture:



To get another feel for the scale, here she is next to a tree trunk:



We decided to stay another night at the Azalea campground, which was very quiet:



We discovered that camping in cold and snow is not impossible or unpleasant, as long as the temperature does not drop much below 20 degrees. (Any lower than that, and the plumbing might be damaged.) We had plenty of electrical power, with two group 27 deep cycle batteries. We could run the propane heater during meals and when showering. The only problem was what to do with all of the damp clothing -- we hung it up on hooks, but things did not dry very quickly.

The next day (Monday), we took a hike through the Redwood Canyon grove. It was very wet and just above freezing; imagine the "refrigerated vegetable room" at Costco. But we didn't mind because we were properly dressed. There was even a little remnant of fall color on the dogwood trees:

Santa Cruz and Montana de Oro, October 2008

We took a quick trip up to Santa Cruz in early October of 2008. We biked the Skyline to Sea trail in Big Basin and hiked up to Berry Falls:





Gold Falls was just a little further up the trail:



We also rode in the Forest of Nisene Marks and in the Henry Cowell Redwoods; this was taken on an early morning walk in Henry Cowell:



On our way home, we camped at Montana de Oro in the Morro Bay area. Although we did see some sea otters, they were not very close to shore. The wind was offshore and we could see the entire Big Sur coastline to the north:



The waves were smaller than usual, but they still surged and crashed on the craggy rocks:

Fall Color in Eastern Sierra -- Sept. 2008

We took a quick trip during late September to the Bishop Creek area of the Eastern Sierra. On the first day, we took a short hike to Bull Lake (near South Lake), and Chocolate Peak was in the lake. (Remember to click on the picture if you want to see a larger version and then hit "back.")



We weren't able to hike as far as we had planned because we kept having to stop and admire the aspens. All of the pictures that you see here are unaltered -- this is how it really looked. The next few shots were taken on the east side of South Lake:





We could look down the cliff through the orange aspen and toward the turquoise water of the lake; if this scene had not been painted by nature, it could have been criticized as too garish:





The next day, we drove over to North Lake. From the road up to the lake, we could see Mount Darwin and Mount Powell:



The entire canyon of the north fork of Bishop Creek was covered in aspens:



The volcanic Piute Crags lined the north side of the canyon:



The south wall of the canyon was granite; there are so many big peaks in this area that this 12,000 foot crag near Loch Leven does not have a name -- how about Finger Peak?



Later that afternoon, it started to get stormy. Here is the same view of Mount Darwin (see above) on a cloudy afternoon, instead of a sunny morning:



The next morning was showery, which (paradoxically) seemed to make the colors even more intense:



(If you're wondering how we obtained the time exposure of the water, I use a neutral density filter, which allows me to slow down the lens speed.) After hiking along the creek, we went up to Lake Sabrina. The granite walls of the canyon were wet and dark:



As soon as we hit the trail, a thunderstorm rolled in over Mount Darwin:



The hike to Long Lake was a little soggy, but it cleared up for a few moments here and there:



The lake reflected Mt. Goode, a 13,000 foot peak (on the left) and Hurd Peak (on the right):



As we approached the 11,000 foot level, the rain turned to sleet -- note the stylish hefty bag:



The sun came out briefly in the afternoon, above Lake Sabrina:



During the night, there was more rain (and snow at the higher elevations). The next morning, we could see the top of Mt. Tom from the campground:



We headed up to the North Lake area again to do a different hike; once again, the view of Mount Darwin from North Lake Road was astounding, with snow in the higher elevations:



We were surprised to find aspens reflected in Grass Lake; none of the guidebooks mentioned them:



Later that day, the sun came out as we crossed Bishop Creek:



That evening, we drove south to the Lone Pine area, staying at Tuttle Creek, a primitive Bureau of Land Management campground in the shadow of Lone Pine Peak near Mount Whitney:



Perhaps not too surprisingly, the stars in the high desert were brilliant. Here is Jupiter, along with the Milky Way, over the Sierra crest:



(This was a 30 second time exposure, and I set the ISO to 3200. Apparently, with enough time, the camera can see colors in the Milky Way that are not ordinarily visible to the eye.) The next morning, we watched the sun come up over the White Mountains to the east and catch the Sierra to our west:

Eastern Sierra, July 2008

We spent about a week near Bridgeport, Calif., camped at about 9400 feet in the Toiyabe National Forest. This was true "boondocking" -- no campground, no water, no nothing -- we had to bring it all with us. Very cool, quiet and peaceful (except for a few folks on dirt bikes):



Our first hike was up to the top of the Virginia Lakes Basin -- the area above treeline (about 11,200 feet) was wild and windblown:



The Lundy Lakes area was filled with waterfalls and wildflowers:



These are columbines:




I am told that this is foxglove:




These are leopard lillies:



We next hiked the Green Lakes basin -- we made it all the way up to East Lake in the Hoover Wilderness on a hot day:



We headed over to Tioga Pass in Yosemite and hiked the Twenty Lakes Basin, mostly above the treeline:



On our way south, we stopped off at Rock Creek. Mt. Morgan lies to the southwest of the canyon:



Our last hike was up to Kearsarge Pass from Onion Valley, a 10 mile round trip with a 2500 foot elevation gain up to 11,760 feet:



The trail was very well graded and maintained, but it was a big day for us. Felice relaxed by a stream while I took endless "wildflower & waterfall" pictures:

Mammoth Lakes, June 2008

In June of 2008, we camped for almost a week at Coldwater campground near Mammoth Lakes at 9100 feet -- very cool, quiet, and breezy. The campsite was between two rushing streams; the snow in the higher elevations was melting fast, and the streams were full. We started with a day of mountain biking, which turned into snow biking. (Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge, and click "back" to get back to the blog.)




We then hiked up to Emerald Lake:





Almost every hike we took was in the Mammoth Lakes basin, near the campground. The 11,500 foot Mammoth Crest hovered over everything:




The stream flowing into Arrowhead Lake tumbles over basalt blocks:




I took a lot of time exposures of the cascade. (For the benefit of folks with a digital SLR and a lot of patience, these were taken at about a half second at about f 32 (not 3.2!), with an ISO of 200.)






After clambering up next to the cascade, we got ambitious and headed out for Duck Pass at about 10,800 feet. The trail switchbacked up the head of the canyon through snowfields:



This was a pretty adventurous hike for us because we had to find our own way and because it was a long hike -- about 10 total miles, with about 1800 feet of elevation gain at high altitude. Also, the day was cold, windy, and semi-stormy; we could hear thunder in the distance, and we could see rain over Tioga Pass to the north. We later found out that the lightning caused about 800 fires throughout Northern California. The clouds were pretty cool, though:




On another hike, we went down into the Devil's Postpile area to Minaret Falls and Rainbow Falls:



On our way back to Southern California, we hiked up McGee Creek. Not a lot of shade, but some great views and lots of wildflowers:




Up above the 9000 foot level, we came upon a lake created by a beaver dam. The beaver lodge is the little mound in the middle of the lake; we waited to see if the beavers would show up, but they were apparently on vacation:

Zion and Grand Canyon, May 2008

We spent 10 days in Utah and Arizona for our 30th anniversary. (We took hundreds of pictures; here are just a few. Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them, and then click "back" to get back to the blog. Some of them look better when enlarged.)

We got to Zion at sunset on a stormy Thursday evening:

The next day, Friday, we hiked in the rain. Eventually, the sun came out on the wildflowers:




On Saturday, we were off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a showery and snowy day:







After spending Saturday night in an RV park in Jacob Lake, we found an isolated boondocking site near the East Rim:





How isolated? This is a view of the trailer from halfway down our quarter- mile "driveway," which branched off of a remote dirt road:




On a blustery Sunday evening, we took a sunset bike ride from our campsite to the East Rim Viewpoint:




On Monday, we hiked a couple of miles down into the canyon on the Kaibab Trail to a natural tunnel:





On Tuesday, we hiked the Widforss Trail, 10 miles long but not too hilly:




On Wednesday, we moved the trailer about 25 miles to the west on the Rainbow Rim at Locust Point:

If you click on that picture to enlarge it, you can see daylight under the trailer hitch. That's the rim itself. Here is the view from the door of the trailer:




We set up our lounge chairs on a windy ledge next to the trailer:







Our campsite was on Locust Point, in a lush Ponderosa pine forest. There were one or two other groups camping in the area; for some of the time, we were the only people within 20 miles:





Since we were spending several days away from civilization, we had no place to put our trash. We had to hang it up in a tree to keep the animals away:




For the next two days (Thursday and Friday), we rode the Rainbow Rim trail, which follows the rim around five points that resemble five fingers of the plateau overlooking the canyon. The trail meanders in and out of the forest:





Because it was only late May, the wildflowers were not yet in full bloom , but almost all of the snow had melted and the meadows were green:



We got up at 5 a.m. one morning to watch the sunrise:




The rides (over 18 miles each day) were challenging but exhilarating:





On Saturday, we headed back toward home through Zion and stopped to ride to the end of the canyon and back. This is one of our favorite road rides, since there is no traffic, the road is great, and the scenery can't be beat:

Big Sur, April 2008

In April of 2008, we camped at a very pleasant RV Park and campground in Big Sur, among the redwoods. Our first outing was a mountain bike ride to Andrew Molera State Park. During the winter and spring months, there is no bridge over the Big Sur River, so I had to carry the bikes across:



But the absence of a bridge kept the crowds down. We first rode out to the coast:



We then took a very challenging ridge trail, climbing almost 2000 feet:





On another day, we hiked up into the hills above the coastline. The cliffs were lined with flowers:





The views from Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park were lovely:



I couldn't resist this cliché shot of McWay Falls:

Montecito Sequoia, February 2008

We took a quick trip up to Montecito to see Matt, who had been working there for about a year. As it turned out, we got to stay an extra day or two because of a big snowstorm. Felice and Shelley threw themselves into tubing:





Matt took us backcountry skiing, which is like Alpine skiing on cross-country skis (fun but very arduous):



One morning, before Matt woke up, we decided to dig out his car:

Giant Sequoia National Monument, October 2007

In October, 2007, we took the trailer up to the Giant Sequoia National Monument in the Sequoia National Forest, above Porterville in the southern Sierra. The road was very twisty but not impossible. Snow flurries were predicted. We stayed at Quaking Aspen Campground at 7000 feet, which was practically deserted. After a very cold and dark night (no problem, with lots of blankets!), we awoke to find that there had been more than just flurries:



But the snow really added to the experience of hiking in the Sequoias, especially in this seldom-visited area. Freeman Grove was very impressive:



The aspens were particularly striking during the snow flurries:



Even the oak leaves were turning yellow:



After a couple of days, the sun came out and lit up the snowy aspens:



The cold nights made the aspens change color every day, going from pale yellow to gold to red:



On our way back down the hill in Camp Nelson, we came across a New England-style maple:

Tuolumne Meadows, September 2007

We camped for a week at Tuolumne Meadows on the east side of Yosemite, in the Tioga Pass area at about 8600 feet. The nights were very cold -- lots of blankets. One of our first hikes was right nearby, at Lembert Dome, a big granite knob:



Although the trail wasn't steep, the sheer granite face was intimidating:



On another memorable hike, we went out to North Dome, which overlooks Yosemite Valley and Half Dome:



On the way back from North Dome, we climbed up to Indian Arch:



The landscape of the high country was stark, inspiring me to imitate Ansel Adam in black-and-white:









Toward the end of the trip, the weather started to get stormy:



On our way home, we stopped off at Parker Lake, north of June Mountain:



We hiked up to Fern Lake, where the aspens were starting to turn:

Washington and Oregon, June-July 2007

We spent the last two weeks in June and the first two weeks of July, 2007, mostly in northern Washington. We were worried that a month in our tiny trailer would be too much. It wasn't. We started out on the Olympic Peninsula in the Ho Rain Forest:



Our "RV park" was in back of a remote café; the elk paraded across every morning and evening:



We took a hike along the South Fork of the Ho River on a misty day; we hiked for eight hours and didn't see another person. The ferns were enormous -- -- more like trees than bushes:



We discovered that the horsetail ferns had an intricate radial structure when viewed from above:



We then moved to the northern part of the peninsula, staying in the Elwha Dam area. Sol Duc Falls was very impressive:



One afternoon in Port Angeles, we spotted this "wildlife" creature calmly sifting through a garbage can:



On a snowy morning, we went up to Hurricane Ridge. The marmots were striking noble poses for us:



Across a snowy meadow, we saw a deer and her fawn. The fawn suddenly realized that his mother had gotten too far ahead of him:











From the top of Hurricane Ridge, we could see the skyline of the central Olympic Range:





After about a week in the Olympics, we took the ferry over to the Bellingham area and then camped in a primitive campground near Mount Baker. If you click on this picture, you should be able to see the glacier:



Several of the hikes in this area were pretty snowy; sometimes, we had to turn back because of avalanche chutes. But the snow caves were rapidly melting:



As soon as the snow would melt, the wildflowers popped out. These are glacier lilies:



And these are penstemon:



The columbines were everywhere:



On a snowy and windy afternoon, we decided to go for a "snowshoe hike" up on Mount Baker:



Everywhere we looked, there were waterfalls and streams; I don't think that we were ever away from the sound of running water:



In early July, the weather warmed up, and we headed for the Central Cascades. This is a view from Sauk Mountain, toward Canada:



Mount Baker, which was now to our north, looked a lot different in the sunshine:



We hiked up Cascade Pass. The trail passed Johannesberg Glacier, which was shedding large blocks of ice into the canyon. It sounded like thunder:



Along the trail, there were fields of leopard lilies:



We later headed over to the east side of the Cascades to Leavenworth. It was very hot, but the streams and waterfalls were lovely:



We left Leavenworth earlier than we had planned (because of the heat) and headed over to the Snoqualmie Pass area. This is Franklin Falls:



One evening, we went to Snoqualmie Falls and saw a spectacular sunset:

Sequoia National Park, May 2007

We took a quick trip up to Sequoia. Most of the trails were pretty snowy. On our long hike to Heart Lake above Lodgepole, we didn't have snowshoes and had to "post hole" through deep soft wet snow (in other words, our boots punctured the crust and our footprints looked like post holes). But our first view of the lake made it all worthwhile:



There was no one else for miles around, and the lake was still partially frozen:



On our drive back to the Montecito resort, we passed a couple of early-season bears tearing up a log, looking for grubs:





We took a short hike to Lost Grove. Click on the picture and look carefully at the ground between the bases of the trees:

Mendocino and Santa Ynez, April 2007

During Spring Break of 2007, we stopped off to do some bike riding in the Santa Ynez Valley. The poppies were going strong:



This is Felice's favorite oak tree on Happy Canyon Road:



We camped for several days near Fort Bragg. This is a trillium:



The rides in Russian Gulch and Van Damme State Park were mostly along the streams:



The rhododendrons were growing amongst the redwoods:

Yosemite, January 2007

Felice and I spent the first several days of 2007 in Yosemite, hiking and snowshoeing. The first view of the valley after Wawona Tunnel is always exciting. [Remember to click on the pictures to see them full size.]

















One evening, we hiked up the south wall of the valley and watched Half Dome turn orange in the sunset.









In honor of Ansel Adams, I turned a couple of the pictures into black and whites. Here is the full moon rising over Half Dome.











These snowy boulders were reflected in the Merced River.













This herringbone pattern was made by a few slanting logs reflected in the river.
















We snowshoed up to a fire lookout tower near Crane Flat. Apparently, a mountain lion got there before we did.
















The day before we left, it snowed several inches. The next morning, we took a hike near our cabin. The trees and bushes were all coated with snow and ice.

Northern Calif & Oregon Cascades, July 2006

Felice and I spent much of July in the redwoods of Northern California and in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. We stayed for three weeks in our tiny trailer, and it was (amazingly) very comfortable and a lot of fun. A day by day description of the trip would be very repetitive -- lots of hiking and biking along beautiful streams, through the trees, in the mountains. [Remember to click on the pictures to see a bigger version -- the pictures look a little better blown up.]

We started out in Northern California. Although the coastal redwoods are not as massive as the Sierra Sequoias on an individual basis, they are much more numerous, and they grow in lush surroundings. They tend to cluster in family groupings, like this:



Felice and Redwoods


Some of the state parks (and national forests) permit mountain biking on selected trails through the redwoods and along the rivers. These are "singletrack" trails, which tend to be challenging -- full of roots and rocks. But it was a pleasure to be able to ride through the deep forest on narrow paths cushioned with bark chips and leaves:



Singletrack in Redwoods


We spent a lot of time taking pictures of wildflowers. (In fact, we have about 800 pictures; be glad we aren't posting more than just a fraction of them.) Here is a small sample:



Columbia Lily





Lupine




Some tall pink flower


On our honeymoon in 1978, we spent some time at Clear Lake, east of Eugene, Oregon, and we were happy to discover that the lake is still as blue as it was back then:



Clear Lake


After riding and hiking in central Oregon, we went north to the Columbia Gorge. There are probably 20 or more major waterfalls in the Gorge, and we hiked to virtually all of them. Again, it would be redundant to post pictures of all of them; here is a representative sample:




Ramona Falls is very lovely -- the water cascades down over hexagonal basalt columns:




We hiked to Tunnel Falls on a hot day (a 14 mile hike!). There is a tunnel immediately behind the thundering waterfall:





We next stayed at Mt. Hood, an 11,000 foot volcano not too far south of the Gorge:



Mt. Hood and Bear Grass


The wildflowers (mostly lupine and Indian paintbrush) were just getting started on the mountain, since the snow had recently melted:




Lupine on Mt. Hood

Santa Cruz Redwoods, June 2006

in June of 2006, we spent several pleasant days hiking and biking in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. We stayed in our little trailer, in a quiet RV park across the river from Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.




This is typical of the mountain biking that we did each day. There are several former railroad grades or logging roads that wind through the forest for many miles, generally contouring along the hillsides and across small creeks.




Many of the smaller redwood trees were showing a lot of new growth (the lighter green vegetation) after a season of heavy rain.





Because of all the rain, little "Tiptoe Falls" was flowing pretty well. I took this time exposure (at about a 15th of a second), using a handy stick as an improvised monopod.





It was a good season for wildflowers. This is a wild iris.




We aren't sure what this is. Goldenrod, perhaps?

Southwestern Utah, April 2006

Here are a few shots of our trip. The formatting of the blog is very poor -- but you get the idea. If you want to see a particular picture in more detail, just click on it. When you want to get back to the blog, just hit the "back" button. [This is probably obvious to most folks, but it was news to me.] Each caption refers to the picture below.



The plateaus of Utah are cut by streams that sometimes form "slot canyons," some of which are so narrow that you can't see the sky. We did not go into any of those, but we did see a couple of really narrow canyons. You can see Felice in the orange jacket in the shot below -- we had to hike through the stream.







The canyon walls and rock formations were eroded by wind and by "frost wedging," where the snow melts and freezes, breaking the softer rocks apart and leaving the harder rocks as caps. The archway below was formed by wedging. In the distance beyond Felice, a snowstorm is approaching us.








Biking in Red Canyon on a cold and windy day. Great paved bike trail near the highway. Lots of steady climbing at 6,000 feet, followed by a great downhill run.






Another slot canyon, this one at Bryce Canyon.





There was still snow at the higher elevations in Bryce in mid-April -- this part of the park is at 8300 feet.





"Hoodoos" at Bryce.



More hoodoos, backlit.





Slot canyon, looking up. There was ice on the floor of this one, covered with a thin layer of mud.





Slot canyon, looking sideways.





The biking was great -- the main canyon road in Zion prohibits cars, and the shuttle buses were not a problem. This is one of the greatest biking roads we have ever been on.











This archway is about two thousand feet high. It's called a "blind arch" because it is not cut all the way through the mountain. The sheer walls of Zion are created when the river cuts into the softer layers of sandstone toward the bottom of the strata. The top layers, which are harder, resist the undercutting as long as they can and then peel off in huge sheets.

That's all, folks!

Sequioas in a Blizzard, March 2006

We went snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park during a major blizzard in March of 2006 -- four feet of snow in two days, temperatures below 20 the whole time. I had always wanted to see the giant trees in heavy snow, and I got my wish!

[Click on the pix for a larger view. And once the larger view comes up, hover over the picture with your mouse -- a ball will pop up in the lower right corner, and you can click on that ball for an even bigger picture. Click "back" to get back to the blog.]





We started out in Grant Grove, which is normally crowded with tourists. We were virtually alone.






It was snowing so hard that we could hardly see the top of this family of Sequoias.





The highway was closed, so we had to hike down a fire road into Redwood Canyon.





During the summer, we are not allowed to get so close to the trees, for fear of compressing the soil around their roots. But the rangers said that with this much snow, we can get as close as we want. The snowshoes gave us amazing mobility.





The snow was falling at the rate of several inches per hour, piling up on the branches.





The Hart Tree trailhead marker is almost buried in the snow.







We tried cross-country skiis -- very nice, very fast, but harder to control than snowshoes.





A couple of times, the sun broke through.





During a sun break, we climbed up Baldy Ridge, but just as we got to the top, the clouds swirled in and the snow started to fall again.






The creeks were buried under the snow, but we could still hear the water underneath.

Baja Trip, Feb. 2006: A Long Drive To Pet a Whale [But Worthwhile].

[Sorry for the clunky format -- not a professional blogger. Click on the pix to see a larger view.]

The first day we drove all the way from Orange County, California, down past San Quintin [mostly agricultural], and into the desert to El Rosario, about halfway down (a total of 350 miles). We went much further than we had expected, and the roads were in excellent condition (albeit rather frighteningly narrow -- passing the occasional slow truck was a white knuckle experience). I can highly recommend Cafe Jalisco in Maneadero (handmade corn tortillas!), and Mama Espinosa’s in El Rosario (scallops and fish in garlic sauce!). We stayed in Baja Cactus in El Rosario, which was quite nice (but which did not have any heat).

The second day we drove through some serious desert (cacti of all descriptions and shapes) to San Ignacio, another 350 miles. The drive was surprisingly interesting and pleasant. At San Ignacio (an actual date palm oasis!), we stopped in at the Kuyima whale watching office in town; fortunately, due to a last-minute cancellation, we got a "room" right on the lagoon in one of the cabanas. (Ordinarily, reservations are crucial during the whale season, but we didn’t really know when we were going or when we would arrive; we were prepared to camp, if necessary.) The last hour of the journey down to the ocean was jolting over a really rough rocky dirt road in our Nissan Pathfinder 4x4, which was a lot of fun (really). I wouldn’t take an ordinary passenger car on this road.

The lagoon itself is a huge and deep bay, cut into the flat desert. The desert in this area is amazingly dry, much drier than the Mojave. There's almost nothing growing in the sand. The encampment at the lagoon consisted of perhaps a dozen little 10 x 10 huts on the beach, plus a communal dining palapa.




This is the whole camp, as seen from the bay.





This is our hut. Very modest.




The outhouses (and the outdoor showers, with solar heated water) were only a short walk away. Everything in this encampment was very ecologically correct, from the composting toilets to the wind-turbine powered electrical system.

As we were carrying our stuff to the cabin, we heard these loud whooshing noises, which turned out to be whales spouting in the lagoon just behind us. We took a long bike ride in a psychedelic sunset, followed by a long after-dinner walk through a warm desert wind, under the most brilliant stars (by far) that I have ever seen in 54 years of fairly avid stargazing.







The third morning was very calm. We took a ride with a guide in a panga [skiff] out onto the lagoon. We were surrounded by whales on all sides, blowing, breaching, rolling, fluking, spy hopping, and mating (rather explicitly!). It was mind-boggling and overwhelming. It got to the point where we wouldn't take a picture unless it included both (e.g.) a whale blowing and a whale spy hopping. Single behaviors were just too common to photograph.




This is spyhopping.







More spyhopping, with the desert mountains in the background.





More spyhopping, this time with another whale spouting on the left side.



After lunch, we went out again, hoping to see mothers and their babies (which we hadn't seen during the morning). Sure enough, we saw several pairs.




Here's a Mom and a baby.


When we would spot them, we would splash the water, and they would swim toward the boat. The mother would seemingly encourage the baby to come toward the boat to be petted. One baby finally summoned up enough courage to do so.





He's heading for the boat.





He swam right to my wife, and she petted his skin. She said that it felt like soft wet leather. As you can imagine, she was excited out of her mind (the wife, not the baby).














No one has any idea why the whales encourage the babies to approach the boats. It doesn't make any sense. Perhaps they enjoy being scratched.

Late that afternoon, we drove back to San Ignacio and stayed in an extremely modest motel (La Posada), which was clean but threadbare. We ate dinner at Renee’s (more scallops and fish in garlic sauce), and breakfast at Tota’s (good Mexican eggs and omelettes).

On the fourth day, we drove to Bahia de Los Angeles, on the Gulf of California side, about 250 miles away. Again, the roads were surprisingly good, and we had no trouble finding gas (which we had been told was going to be difficult). The bay itself was very beautiful, with deep blue water and pink islands scattered offshore. We stayed in another decent motel (Costa del Sol) and took a couple of long bike rides on dirt roads on the hills overlooking the Gulf.




We ate at Las Hamacas and La Palapa (more seafood in garlic sauce). The next morning, we had breakfast north of town at Raquel and Larry’s, a modest but pleasant hotel right on the beach. They have a great shaded upstairs patio for meals -- very pleasant.




This makes it look like we did a lot of sitting around and relaxing. We didn't, but Bahia de Los Angeles is a great place for folks who are good relaxers.


At that point, we could have continued up the Gulf Coast on a series of very difficult [i.e., fun] dirt roads. But we discovered that since we don't fish or dive, there isn't a whole lot to do on that side of the peninsula, and the desert scenery (although interesting) gets to be kind of the same after a few days of driving around. I would guess that folks who like to fish or dive would find the Gulf side really wonderful.

On the fifth day, we headed back to the Pacific side and drove another 250 miles up to San Vicente, 50 or 60 miles south of Ensenada, and stayed in yet another extremely modest motel (La Palma). We stayed there because we wanted to go on a scouting mission down to the coast near Erendira on the sixth day, because we had heard that there were some great surfing beaches in that area, with RV parks suitable for our trailer (which we had left at home in Orange County).

As it turns out, the surfing beaches were pretty good, although somewhat rocky, but the RV parks were nonexistent or too squalid. (At one point, we took a wrong turn because the road to one of the alleged parks was unmarked, and I ended up having to drive the Pathfinder down some very narrow and rocky pathways to get back to the main "road." It was a blast.)

In the same area, north of Punta Isidro, we took an astonishing bike ride on a series of dirt roads that skirted the edge of cliffs above the ocean. This was a brilliantly clear and windy day just after a storm front had passed, and the waves were huge, crashing against the craggy shoreline. Imagine the Monterey, California, coastline, utterly deserted, with miles of mountain-bike-accessible trails and roads at the edge of the water, and you will have some idea of how wild and exhilarating this area was. There were a few houses and farms scattered every few miles, but this was essentially what the coast of California must have looked like 500 years ago. We then drove home on the evening of the sixth day.






Overall, some of the pluses and minuses: the food throughout the whole trip was really excellent. Most of the time, we ordered various types of seafood al mojo de ajo -- sautéed in garlic. We had no stomach problems, even though we ate whatever we wanted. (On the advice of my brother, a doctor, we took two Pepto tablets before every meal!) We even ate fresh dates in San Ignacio (fabulous) and coconut ice cream bars in San Vicente (also great).

The people were very friendly, and the villages were picturesque (dogs sleeping in the dust in the middle of the street). On the downside, the villages were very dirty and poor (dogs sleeping in the dust in the middle of the street). There was trash strewn everywhere, and rusted out hulks of cars and trucks litter the sides of the roads.

Although the roads themselves were in surprisingly good condition, they were really narrow, with absolutely no shoulder, and no passing lanes. When (for example) an RV and a semi truck are passing each other, there is only about 18 inches or less between the two of them. If you have to drive off the shoulder at high speed, your car will roll over, since the drop from the pavement to the dirt is often as much as a foot. In other words, for over 1000 miles, this highway is much trickier than the very worst parts of Highway 395, a notoriously dangerous California road. Your attention can't waver for a moment.

A couple of times, we had minor law enforcement problems. Once, when we crossed the 28th parallel, there was an inspection station, and one of the officers told us that our papers (which we had obtained in Tijuana) were not in order and that we would have to go to a bank to pay for new papers. But we managed to talk him out of that. Another time, I went to pass a truck at very low speed that I thought was turning off the road, and a cop by the side of the road waved me over for crossing over the unbroken centerline. He told us that he would have to hold my license, that I would have to go to Ensenada (100 miles away) to pay a fine, and I would have to come back to get my license. When I told him I wanted to look up the procedures for doing so in materials sent to me by the "sindicatura" (i.e., the agency directed at investigating corruption), he suddenly changed his mind and said that he would let me off with a warning. (I think that he wanted me to offer him a payoff, in lieu of a trip to Ensenada.)

I would recommend that anyone taking a trip of this nature should carry several different guidebooks. We had the Walt Peterson book, the Moon guidebook, the AAA book, and the Baja Almanac, which has very detailed topographic maps. We used all of these reference tools, again and again. Each book told us something different; we put the information all together, and we got a really good picture of where we were going and what was available. I also had a GPS with us, but I never had occasion to use it. It was nice to know that it was available, however.


The same is true for all of my survival gear (a shovel, a jack, tools, tow ropes, etc.). I never got stuck, but I was more comfortable simply because I had it all with me.

Overall, I doubt that we will do this particular trip again, mostly because it involves so much driving and so much desert scenery. However, we will probably go to Northwestern Baja again; some of the beaches were very inviting. For those of you who are put off by the poverty or crime or possible law enforcement problems, I would urge you not to give in to your fears. If you take proper precautions, and you obey the law, and you drive sensibly, and your car is properly equipped, you should encounter no problems that you are unable to handle.

Snowbasin, Utah, January 2006

In January of 2006, we did a few days of skiing at Snowbasin in Utah, north of Salt Lake City. The mountain was huge; the runs were very long, and all of them were served by high-speed gondolas. As a result, even though we were in pretty good shape, we were tired out by midafternoon everyday, just because we had done so much skiing. The snow was perfect. The weather was sometimes foggy and sometimes sunny. Even though this was shortly after New Year's Day, the runs were wide open:



Skiing in the fog and the falling snow was a little challenging:



This tree makes it look colder than it was. I doubt that it was often lower than 20 degrees:



Alongside one of the runs, there was a frozen pond:



The nearby Ogden Valley was still largely agricultural, although some development had begun:

Canadian Bike Tour, July 2005

In July of 2005, we took a bike tour of the Banff area of the Canadian Rockies. This was a guided "inn to inn" tour very luxurious and not at all rugged. Our trip coincided with the height of wildflower season. These are Indian paintbrush; apparently, the Canadian Indians use brighter paint than we do:



The first part of the trip was along the Bow River Parkway:



We rode our bikes up the hill to the Lake Louise resort. The lakes in this area are turquoise because of the "glacial flour" in the meltwater:



Although the roads were fairly level, the mountains towered over us on every side:



This is a yellow columbine:



The most challenging (and exciting) ride was up Highwood Pass in the Kananaskis area:





The moose were not impressed with the scenery:



In this shot, I am holding up my bike with my left arm -- I had shattered my elbow in a bike accident the previous October:



That evening, the moon came up over the Rockies:



We took a walk early the next morning:







Our last day was in Calgary. There was a terrific bike path along the river, and we came upon (surprise!) white pelicans:

Sequoia & Kings Canyon, June 2005

In June of 2005, during the peak of the snowmelt, we headed into Kings Canyon. The river was thundering:



This is the Great Western Divide, from the top of Little Baldy Peak:



The bears were prowling around, looking for some early-season sustenance. This picture was taken with a telephoto; we were probably 100 yards from the bear:



In the early season, just after the snow melts, the "snow flower" or "snow plant" pokes up through the leaf litter. It does not have any chlorophyll and is something like a fungus:



That was a close-up. Here is what the snow flower looks like, next to a Sequoia:

Central Coast, April 2005

In April of 2005, we took a quick bike trip up to the San Luis Obispo area. We rode our bikes along the bluffs at Montana de Oro State Park. If you click on the pictures, you'll be able to see Felice on the bluffs to get a sense of scale:





Acting on a tip in the local newspaper, we headed up to the Shell Creek area, east of San Luis Obispo, and managed to catch the peak of a spectacular wildflower display. This was an "El Nino" year of record rainfall, and the rain triggered acres of flowers. The whole area smelled like honey:

Tahoe and Eastern Sierra, September 2004

We took a drive up to Tahoe for some mountain biking. When we got there, the aspens were just starting to turn:



There were some terrific singletrack trails on the North Shore:




After several days of riding, we headed back home down Highway 395. As we drove south, a storm was coming in from the west. We took a very windy and cold hike to Parker Lake (near June Lake):



The next day, we headed up Rock Creek toward Mt. Morgan. The weather was very changeable, sunny in the morning:



And snowy in the afternoon:



As we were leaving Rock Creek, the snow was really coming down hard. This shot is not doctored; if you click on it, you can see that the trunks of the aspens are in focus. But the leaves are shaking in the wind, and the snow is slanting down:

Costa Rica, July 2003

In July of 2003, we spent in two weeks in Coast Rica. It was the rainy season, but that was the only time that we could go. We started out with a fairly rugged tw0 day rafting trip on the Caribbean side:



The water was muddy but clean; in some of the calmer areas, we were able to get off the raft and float in the river:



We stayed overnight at a primitive lodge in the jungle:



Along the way, we passed several waterfalls. Ben jumped from one of them:



We then moved over to the Pacific side near Manuel Antonio National Park. Plenty of wildlife in the trees:



And plenty of wildlife on the riverbanks:



We went bodyboarding during a thunderstorm -- these waves look bigger than they really were (only about 3 feet):



The sunsets were gaudy. This picture is not retouched:



Neither is this one -- that's really the way it looked:



We then spent several days up in the Monteverde rain forest -- a very adventurous drive, with potholes the size of bathtubs. Felice seemed to enjoy the zip line: