Leakage from a Cluttered Mind » Outdoors

Circa 1960 backpacking

Phil — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:54:25 +0000

Note the high tech backpacks. I’m bringing up the rear on the right.

I ran across these photos while sorting through some of Dad’s old prints. I can’t remember which trip this was or where it was. Clearly it was a boy scout trip, since that is our scoutmaster leading the way. I’m sure it was in the southern Sierras—all of our backpack trips were in that area.

In those days we made our backpacks from army surplus pack frames with an open top 5 gallon tin for a container. With no hip strap and very little padding I’m not sure how we managed. Didn’t have a light-weight down sleeping bag either.

Fishing, our favorite pastime

We did these trips just for the experiences—enjoying the challenge and the beauty of the high country. However, once we had arrived at a destination and set up camp we always gave a try at fishing. Sometimes we caught a few and sometimes not. On this trip we clearly caught a few and promptly found an old fire pit and grilled us some fresh trout. All you need is a little salt and maybe a bit of butter.

Our catch

Nothing better than a fresh fish dinner from an outdoor grill

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May day bike ride on Tioga Road

Phil — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:52:25 +0000

Self-portrait blocking the scenic mountains

On the weekend I found out that Tioga Road in Yosemite (which I knew had been completely plowed, but not yet open) was open to bikes. I did this ride last year (although 7 weeks later in the year) and enjoyed it enough to want to go again.

The temperature was nice (in the low 60’s) and sunny in the morning. By mid-afternoon the clouds were building and I was afraid I might get a little rain shower. The road was clean and dry except for where repair work was being done and they had scraped debris out of the edge of the road onto the road surface and were scooping it up with a skip-loader. I had about 2 miles of this and luckily didn’t pick up any sharp objects in the tires. Other than the road crews and a ranger patrol I only met 2 other cyclists.

I wish I was stronger. I’d love to be able to get to Olmsted Point. After the climb out of Yosemite Creek canyon it would be fairly level with really magnificent views. Unfortunately, after I crested the ridge at 8300 ft just before the descent to Yosemite Creek (which gives up about 900 ft), I could tell I needed to turn around. As it was, I logged 32 miles and 3300 ft of climbing.

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Hiking/caching on the PCT near Mt. Laguna

Phil — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:05:37 +0000

Garnet Peak with the Salton Sea way off in the distance

Choices, choices! Do I go with my friends and bounce around in a 4×4 south of Ocotillo Wells or find a nice place to hike? I was sure both would be enjoyable, but in the end the attraction of hiking in trees at near 6,000 ft on the Pacific Crest Trail won out.

My trip planning research had revealed a large concentration of caches on the PCT near Mount Laguna in the Cleveland National Forest (south of Julian, if that rings a bell). Then my GBA friends mentioned Phil’s Memorial Cache (the oldest active cache in California) was in the same area. So, I decided I really wanted to spend the day hiking, not driving.

I left the motel in Borrego Springs about 8 am and drove south with a stop in Julian for a coffee and then on to the trailhead at Penney Pines. Now there used to be pines here, but a fire a few years ago took most of them. In no time, I was hiking north on the PCT and finding caches. The trail is an easy hike, but just to the east is a dramatic drop off, so the views east to the desert and the Salton Sea are great. And, from one of the high points, I could see the Pacific Ocean (or a fog bank) to the west. Unfortunately, it was fairly hazy.

After a 4 mile hike that I turned into a loop by hiking back along the road, I drove to another trailhead and began a hike out to Big Laguna Lake. This trail was another fairly level one through pine and oak forest. It was a very enjoyable area, and I found several caches on the way to the lake. This hike was 4.8 miles.

Stats for the day: 8.9 miles, 1100 ft of climbing, and 28 caches.

I drove back to Borrego Springs, thinking that I might meet up with my friends for dinner, but when I got there they were just getting dinner in El Centro. After dinner, I drove back to Palm Springs for the night.

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Hiking Mecca’s Painted Canyon

Phil — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:17:57 +0000

Peering down in the slot canyon

Near the north end of the Salton Sea is the little community of Mecca (sorry, despite what you may have thought from the headline, I did not take a hike in Saudi Arabia), and just a few miles east on a dirt road is the trailhead for Painted Canyon. I had never heard of it, but noticed it because it has a high concentration of geocaches. It must be publicized somewhere, because there were a surprising number of people there.

The landscape is desolate and rugged. It is heavily eroded, with the washes having near vertical sides a hundred feet high. Ladder canyon (so named because of the 3 or 4 aluminum ladders required to get past the dryfalls) is a true slot canyon, 3 or 4 feet wide at the base. After climbing out at the top of ladder canyon, the trail continues on among the ocotillo until it drops back down into a large dry wash which I followed back to the trailhead.

Since it was mid-afternoon, I headed for Borrego Springs where I intended to meet up with my friends from the Geocachers of the Bay Area (GBA). I pulled over for a break at the service station at the intersection of Highway 86 and S22 and spotted a familiar looking vehicle with a familiar face peering out at me. So I met up with my friends earlier than expected.

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Hiking on the beginning of section C of the Pacific Crest Trail

Phil — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:57:17 +0000

Caches on PCT section C starting at Cottonwood Canyon trailhead

From a geocaching perspective, there is an interesting section of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that begins just north of I10 near Cabezon. My goal for the day was to start at daybreak from the Cottonwood Canyon trailhead and hike north as far as the Whitewater Preserve. I didn’t achieve those goals, but had a great time anyway.

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

During the 13 mile hike I only ran into one other hiker, and that was near my turn-around point. On my way back, as sunset was approaching, i was serenaded by coyotes—never saw them but there was much barking and howling. Finished with 32 caches found. If I ever get back to the area I’ll start at the Whitewater Preserve trailhead and try to find the other 20 or so caches on the PCT in this area.

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.

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Mentryville: hiking in the rain

Phil — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:23:23 +0000

Before driving home from our motel in Santa Clarita, we decided to take a little hike (and find some geocaches), even though it was lightly raining. Since checkout time wasn’t until 12 noon, we could hike, but still shower and change into dry clothes. We started our hike at the end of the public road in Pico Canyon and hiked up a paved trail to Mentryville, and beyond. Mentryville is now a ghost town, but was founded as a very early California oil town. Wikipedia has a brief article. There are a number of caches along the trail. We found six before we decided we were too wet and cold. It’s and interesting place and worth getting a docent led tour. Besides there are a lot more caches farther up the canyon.

Need to train more for long, hard hikes

Phil — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:51:52 +0000

A hike I want to do is 14 miles and 4,000 ft of climbing. Today I hiked 9.5 miles at Del Valle Lake and climbed 1600 ft. It went fine, but I can tell I need more conditioning. It was a very nice day. I hiked in just a t-shirt. Here’s my track log and elevation profile.

My track at Del Valle

Elevation profile

Tioga Road is still open

Phil — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:15:06 +0000

We’ve had very little rain, which means the Sierras have received very little snow. No snow means (besides the ski-resorts hurting) all the roads over the Sierra passes are still open. In particular, Tioga Road through Yosemite is still open and it usually closes for the season around Thanksgiving. In fact, according to this document with records starting in 1933, this is the latest the road has been open.

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.

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Alabama Hills arches, 2011

Phil — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:03:24 +0000

The boulders of Alabama Hills and Mt. Whitney

Just west of Lone Pine, the Alabama Hills are a picturesque range of boulders of all sizes. In fact, it is so picturesque it has been used for location shots in hundreds of movies, mostly westerns. A pamphlet available at the visitor center describes a driving tour that stops at several of the film locations. We did that interesting tour a couple of years ago, and even watched a couple of the highlighted movies on Netflix.

Mobius Arch frames Mt. Whitney

This trip we were interested in arches, and Alabama Hills has a lot of them. The one shown here is the most popular and even has a marked trail leading out to it. I had done some internet research and found the GPS coordinates of a number of other arches, so we set out to find and photograph them.

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.

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Death Valley after Christmas 2011

Phil — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 04:20:52 +0000

I have never been to Death Valley (except for a very brief visit to Eureka Dunes), so a visit has been high on my to-do list. Karen, however, has not been enthusiastic and whenever I brought the subject up she usually talked about alternatives like Mammoth, Bend, Grand Tetons, Smokey Mountains, or White Mountains (the New Hampshire ones). It’s hard to argue, because I love those places too, but I just insisted we go right after Christmas and sort of guaranteed her a good time.

Death Valley landscape from Zabriskie Point

We left on the 27th (Tuesday) and drove to Lone Pine by going through Yosemite over Tioga Pass. That was a strange experience because usually the pass is closed for the season around Thanksgiving. There just hasn’t been enough snow to permanently close the road. It was cold because Tenaya Lake was frozen and people were playing all over it.

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

We looked around a bit at Furnace Creek, toured through the museum, stopped at the Harmony Borax Works for some photos, and then headed back to Lone Pine.

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.

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