Caches on PCT section C starting at Cottonwood Canyon trailhead

I got to the trailhead later than I intended because it seems I always underestimate how long it will take me to get organized, have breakfast, and drive. It also took me longer to find some of the caches than I estimated. I got close; I could see the Whitewater River and hear the water, but I adhered to my turn-around schedule and made it back to the trailhead just after sundown.

It was a nice day, in the high 70’s, and just a light breeze. The first caches weren’t too difficult, but after cresting the pass and starting down into the Whitewater drainage, a different cacher was hiding the caches and chose to make them more difficult.

Elevation graph: 2500 ft in 13 miles

Back at the motel, I was too tired to invest much energy in finding a restaurant, so I just went to a nearby mom and pop Greek restaurant (Nina’s Pita and Pizza) that only had 3 tables and ordered takeout. The Yelp reviews were good, and my gyros plate was very good.

[View slideshow]

123456►

We took advantage of the open road as we drove over to Lone Pine and back. I didn’t see any snow or ice on the road, but it certainly has been cold—the creeks and lakes are frozen. Tenaya Lake was very interesting. It was completely frozen over and people were walking, skating, and playing all over it. Note the lack of snow on the shore and on the ice. That seems so incongruous.

On our way back over Tioga Pass we stopped at Lembert Dome and hiked up to Dog Lake. There were a few icy patches on the trail that were getting slick on our descent, but we avoided taking a spill. I kept thinking how this shouldn’t be possible at this time of year. We shouldn’t be able to drive to the trailhead, and we certainly shouldn’t be hiking at 9,000 ft elevation without snowshoes. I hope it breaks loose and snows a lot soon.

[View slideshow]

12►

The boulders of Alabama Hills and Mt. Whitney

Mobius Arch frames Mt. Whitney

Interestingly, a couple of years ago we searched for the Eye of Alabama with just descriptive information—no GPS coordinates—and failed. We hiked all over the general area and never saw it. This time I spotted it easily from the road. Go figure! Check out the slide show for photos of more arches.

I should also mention that we skipped the motel continental breakfast and headed to the Alabama Hills Café. I forget which omelette we had, but it was so good! And large enough (4 eggs) for both of us.

[View slideshow]

123456►

Death Valley landscape from Zabriskie Point

We arrived in Bishop in the late afternoon and I thought dinner at Amigos would be better than anything in Lone Pine. To kill a little time we browsed Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery. Beautiful photography—I’m not patient enough to learn the techniques to capture photos like that. Dinner was great but we discovered that the signature dish we really like is only served as a special on Saturday.

Wednesday morning we headed from Lone Pine to Furnace Creek and Golden Canyon. The trail-head was already busy and the parking lot was full, but we just parked across the road. While there were a lot of people close to the trail-head, after a couple of miles they thinned out. We hiked all the way through Golden Canyon and up to Zabriskie Point (lots of people again). After getting a few photos, we headed down Gower Gulch to return to our car. There were few people on this part of the trail.

Twenty-mule-team wagons at Harmony Borax Works

On Thursday, we returned and first hiked to Darwin Falls. The trail starts up a dry wash but soon runs along a trickling stream in a brush-filled canyon. Amazingly, there is a small waterfall that apparently runs year round. We met a returning hiker who told us there was an upper falls, but it looked like more rock-scrambling than we wanted to attempt.

Our next stop was Mosaic Canyon which had some interesting geology. Lots of jumbly rocks with a layer of marble in between. After a mile and a half or so the trail hits a dry-fall and we chose to go no further.

We stopped at Stove Pipe Wells to look around and upon returning to our car noticed Toyotie (my friend David’s Toyota 4×4) nearby, so I looked for him in the café and chatted a bit. Then we drove out to the west side of Titus Canyon but decided we didn’t want to hike in on the road (one-way traffic east-to-west). So, we started back, but detoured a little ways up Wildrose Canyon and stopped for some photos at some old ruins—the Journigan Mill. (Check out this paper by Russ Journigan describing mining, milling, and being shut down by the feds. Fascinating story.) While we were there David and his family drove up as well. I wonder what the odds are of unanticipated encounters in Death Valley.

We had further adventures on this trip, but not in Death Valley so I’ll describe them in another post. I think Karen enjoyed the trip. Avoiding long drives on bumpy dirt roads and finding interesting places to hike were key to this.

[View slideshow]

1234...101112►

I’m currently working on A Fizzy Challenge – Whiners Edition. One hole in my grid for this challenge is the D3/T4.5 combo. While there are closer-to-home caches that have this combination, I was attracted to the hike to this cache—Dozer Trail. It’s in the Cache Creek area (past the casino and into the canyon proper.) A little research with Google Earth showed the trail (if one can call it that) to be really steep, but the views from the ridge line impressive.

After driving the 115 miles north, I was at the trailhead by 10:30 am. I followed a firebreak cut by a bulldozer a few years ago. It’s beginning to be overgrown, but there was generally a use trail to follow. It is very steep, with the steepest part in the last quarter mile before the ridge. I gained the ridge a little before noon.

There was a lot of scat on the trail, more evident on the lower parts of the trail closer to the creek. It was full of red berries that were abundant this time of year. I’m assuming it was bear scat. I didn’t see any bears, or any tracks. I was surprised a couple of times by quail exploding out of a nearby shrub (now that’s a start when you’re wondering if there are bears around), but didn’t see any animals other than a couple of deer up near the ridge line.

I quickly found the nearby cache and, since I was on the ridge, I hiked a mile along the ridge-top fire road to another cache, called Cache Overview. Along the way I spotted a rock cairn atop a high spot and went over to find the summit register for Glasscock Mountain. I wish the air quality had been better. Visibility was just a few miles so other peaks and mountain ranges were lost in the grey haze.

My descent was trickier than my ascent. First of all, I took a slightly different route and had to bushwhack just a bit. Secondly, I slipped a few times on loose rock and pebbles, but saved myself from a bruised bottom with my two hiking sticks.

My track on Google Earth reveals the average steepness was about 25%, but the last quarter mile to the ridge is over 40%.

Track and elevation profile

Karen and I had completed a nice 5.5 mile hike to Taggert Lake. As I took off my day pack, I removed the GPS and placed it on the Ridgeline’s bed rail, and then forgot about it. According to the track log, we returned to the truck at 1:25. At 1:32:16 we had changed shoes, placed everything but the forgotten GPS inside the truck, and backed out of the parking space. At 1:32:50 we exited the parking lot and accelerated onto the highway. The track ends here, so presumably this is where the GPS fell off onto the road, and the impact switched it off.

The track returns at 1:37:07 a little ways down the road from the parking lot exit. In other words, it lay in the road for 4 minutes (or it took 4 minutes for someone to find it and turn it back on). Three minutes later, at 1:40:04 the track begins to move down the road toward Moose—the visitor center and ranger station. At 1:44 the track ends, until 1:55.

At that time the track locates the GPS at the Moose ranger Headquarters, where it stays on for 5 minutes, maybe while a ranger was checking for an ID and address (which it did not have, alas, but will before I use it again). So, in less than 30 minutes the GPS had been found and turned in at Headquarters.

Now, I estimate that we arrived back at the Moose visitor center (just across the street from ranger headquarters) at 1:42 and realized the GPS was missing. We immediately headed back to search for it and obviously passed the car carrying it. At around 1:55 we were searching in the trailhead parking lot (and at the same time the GPS was being turned in at the ranger headquarters). By around 2:15 we were back at the visitor center filing a missing GPS report, while just across the street at ranger headquarters, a found GPS report had just been filled out.

This all happened on September 15. A month later (which seems a bit long), the two pieces of paper got matched up and I got a call from the park lost and found department, and the next day FedEx delivered my GPS.

Tetons and Taggert Lake

We hiked to specific locations to try to find a moose, and ended up seeing one with a couple of hundred other people just a few hundred yards from the visitor center right at the bridge over the Snake River. Go figure.

[View slideshow]

1234...101112►