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July 3-5, 2009 - Caribou Lake Trail to Triangle Lake over the 4th of July holiday weekend. This was my first visit to the
Caribou Wilderness. The trail took us along a beautiful route in the 5000-7000 elev. range past several small lakes. Six
miles in to Triangle Lake where we made a basecamp. On Saturday, we dayhiked 4 miles into the backside of Lassen NP and
visited Butte Lake and the Fantastic Lava Bed.
Participants: Deire C. Deirdre M., Arsenio, Denise, Monica, Sheila, Julie, Jen, Dave and myself.
June 20-21, 2009- Island Lake backpack organized by Maria. This was an overnighter for us. This was also Dave's first trial
trip to see how comfortable the equipment was for him. From the trailhead at Carr Lake, it was 2 miles to Island Lake in
the Tahoe National Forest.
May 18, 2009- On Sunday, I went dayhiking in the Yuba River area off Hwy 20. The road up to Bowman Lake wasn't cleared of
snow at the distant end, so I decided to hike the section of th Pioneer Trail from the bridge on Forest Rd 18 up and over
the ridge over to the first lake up there.
I saw some good displays of wildflowers, lizards, and a snake.
May 1-3, 2009- Lava Beds National Monument.
Drove up to the north end of the state and visited the lava tubes. There was a big rainstorm hitting northern California
that weekend, but it wasn't too bad where we were. The most rain came Saturday night when we were in our sleeping bags.
Minor inconvenience: It seems we forgot to pack the tent. Gerry-rigging a 7' X 7' nylon tarp with lines tied to low
tree branches and hiking poles for uprights worked fine.
August 21, 2008- Added link to the Pine Creek weeklong backpack with Don, Bryce & Britt Tanner, Jen Marks, and Claudia
Swanson.
I am in the process of uploading an album of pictures from an 8 day backpack to the Emigrant Wilderness from 8/09 to 8/16.
This was an Outdoors Club trip led by one of the local guys in the Sacramento area.
I'm thinking of getting a small fishing kit for backpacking use. One of the guys on the last backpack had a nice mini
spincast reel that didn't cast like a "toy."
Zebco micro fishing reel
July 9, 2008 - I've linked in the photos from my winter trips up into the Sierras. In looking at all the snow in those photos,
I miss winter and the clean, crisp air.
July 8, 2008 - Okay, the link to the Silver Pass backpack (Week #1) photos is up.
I am still in the midst of uploading more photos and captioning them. I took a lot of pictures. Some are of scenery,
but many are of the trail work before, during, and after we worked on the section. (These might not be so interesting to
those who weren't there.)
The air quality in Sacramento is in sad contrast to the wonderfully fresh, clear air up at Silver Pass. I hope that this
terrible fire season breaks with an unseasonal drenching storm, or ~something~!
Juy 5, 2008 - I've just returned from the week #1 of the Silver Pass weeklong backpack trip. Despite some misfirings at the
beginning, middle, and towards the end of the trip, it was overall an excellent experience with some exceptionally nice folks.
The mosquitos were very numerous at this site. Not just in the morning or in the evening, but all day long. We needed
to work while our head nets were on. If you slapped your hand on your arm or leg, you'd likely see 3 or 4 'skeeters drop
afterwards. Bug spray and head nets required.
September 24, 2007- August was such a busy month for me, that I've gotten behind in my photo posting. There was a weeklong
trip along a segment of the Theodore Solomons Trail, a weekend trip to the Hoover Wilderness, and the weeklong camping in
BRC.
I'm uploading the TST trip now,and the Hoover Wilderness trip will be up, next! The Hoover W. trip was the merger of
4 existing backpack trips into a sort of Classic Chaos Reunion trip. Don & Carlos were visiting from Barcelona and everyone
wanted to be able to visit with them.
July 23, 2007- I'm still uploading my Courtwright Reservoir photos, but I've put the link up to the album here so you can
check on what's up, so far.
July 19, 2007- I've uploaded the pictures from car camping near Mono Hot Springs last weekend and started on uploading the
pictures that I took at the trail crew training week session with the Trailshots (Mike Ketscher, Daniel, and Diana) near the
Courtwright Reservoir.
On the drive from the trailcrew site, I stopped at the McKinley grove of Giant Sequoias . I hadn't known of this small
grove. It was nice take a walk along the path and photograph this little-know place. What a difference from visiting the
ones that are surrounded by cars, buses and touring groups.
June 16-23, 2007 -The Kip Camp backpack was a great trip! There were 10 of us, in all: Steve, Tony, Rhoda, Andy, Chris, Don,
Daniel, Rick, Jim, and myself. We all met up by the mule packing area past VVR Saturday afternoon. In the morning, we drove
up the bear Creek Trailhead OHV road and hiked in 7 miles to the Kip Camp base location at ~9000 ft elevation. It was
beautiful hike in! The trail largely followed Bear Creek up. There were some tall stone steps that were tiring for a short-legged
person like me to haul up near the top. The day was very warm and sunny.
We worked between base camp and the juncture of the PCT and the Bear Ridge Trail on the first day (Monday). On the second
day, we split the team: some continued to work on the trail leading to bear Ridge, and the rest of us started doing VTM out
of camp going towards Selden Pass. We broke into brushing and water bar teams and leap-frogged up the trail until we got
to the junction with the Lake Italy trail. By Wednesday, we'd made it to the "famous" bear Creek Crossing that,
in earlier, wetter years, was much more daunting to ford.
Food this week was fantastic! Kudos to Steve and Rhoda for the varied and tasty meals. They were ~much~ appreciated!
We got so much done that on Thursday, we took a free day and just hiked across , went past Marie lake and on up to the
10,800 ft Selden Pass. As a coincidental happening, within ten minutes of the Kip Camp crew summiting the pass, three members
of the Shooting Star Meadow crew also summited.
Pictures were taken of the spectacular views from Selden.
April 22, 2007- Yardwork day. A couple of friends came over to help in taking down an overgrown volunteer tree in my back
yard.
April 7-8, 2007 -camping at Beal's Pt with Maria and Francis. Dave, Mike, and camped out near Folsom Lake for a relaxing
and fun holiday weekend. Time to dust of the bikes and ride around onthe American River Bike trail.
March 22, 2007-I just finished reading Eric Blehm's book, "The Last Season". It's about the 1996 Search and Rescue
operation for a seasoned backcountry rangerr.
Wow. A very excellent read.
I recommend it for those for enjoy the Sierras and like a good mystery.
http://www.thelastseason.com/
Jan. 23, 2007 The Annual snow camping trip to the eastern side of the Sierras was postponed/cancelled last week (MLK weekend)
due to lack of snow.
Bummer, grrr, drat and darn!
I opted not to stay at home and instead drove down to Morro Bay to spend the weekend there. The cold Siberian front
that's been chilling the rest of the state made it cold even on the coast!
Some friends drove up I-80 last weekend to do some recon and found icy roads and frozen waterfalls, but no snow.
November 6, 2006- I've loaded up my pictures from Burning Man this year.
Oct. 11, 2006 I've uploaded photos that I took last weekend in Yosemite.
On the first night, we camped across the river in Lyell Canyon where we were snowed upon during dinner!.
Instead of continuing on, we backtracked to get a spare sleeping pad out of one of the cars. The nexr night was spent
out near Sunrise.
it was nice up there. Crisp, cold nights, no mosquitos, and less crowded trails.
Sept. 26, 2006 (Tuesday) I have the pictures up from last month's backpack trip to Lois Lake with Don and Richard.
I will be posting photos from the trailcrew trip to Clover Meadow trailcrew trip soon.
Sept. 25, 2006 (Monday) I uploaded photos from the special HSVTC backpack trip into the Jennie Lakes Wilderness. The original
time scheduled for this trip had been in June. However, there was still 8 feet of snow at the top of Poop Out Pass then.
It was a good trip. We got loads of work done on the trail.
It was nice to get one more multiple-day backpack in while the weather is still good.
July 25, 2006 (Tuesday) Okay, the 6-day backpack photos from the Mammoth to Yosemite trip are up! We had thunderstorms and
lightning as well as hot sunny weather on this trip.
i had the chance to test out two products: Bullfrog 45 sun block lotion and Repel Lemon Eucalyptus mosquito repellant
(DEET free). Both worked extremely well. I did not surn my arms even though I wore short sleeves out in full sun. The
Repel worked fine, too. it smells ~much~ nicer than the Cutter's Deet based spray that I saved for spraying on my outer clothing.
The lemon eucalyptus scent of the entirely plant-based repellant was nice and didn't feel icky on my skin. The mosquitos
on the eastern side of the Sierra were really numerous and voracious. A bug net was essential equipment if you didn't want
to be constantly swatting at flying pests.
I will definitely use them both again!
June 28, 2006 - I've just uploaded the pictures from the Santa Cruz Island trip and the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew backpack
trip to the Monarch Wilderness..
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The two pictures on this page are ones that I took along the Deer Meadow trail. I've never seen a mushroom that looked
like a meringue pie before! I took that picture on Saturday, June 17th. When I walked by it again on June 23rd, it hadn't
dried or shriveled yet. I also saw another one not too far away that was only the size of a single-serving tart. Alas,
my camera batteries were all "spent" at that point, and I could not take a a photo of the "junior" fungus.
Carol Z. told me that she thought they were called "pineapple puffballs". We saw a couple more like this on
the early August backpack through the southern park of Sequoia, near Garfield Grove.
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