Kristina Lena

When I got to Saltlake City I stayed for a few days with Christina Udy, a friend from Peace Corps. We went for a hike one day, then we went to dinner with her family. She has some boisterous siblings. One is a very commited mormon and her children wear collared shirts and have neatly combed hair, another lets his kids go to bed any time they want, he tries to give candy and soda to his nephews and nieces that are prohibited these things by their faith.
Since I was in Saltlake I thought I would be remiss if I didn't go to the Mormon Temple. According to Mormon tradition young people are expected to spend two years as missionaries. Many of the young men are sent abroad, however some conservatism keeps them from sending out their young women so freely. Women are more likely to spend their missionary years working closer to home. Some few of them get to work as guides around the temple. I think that the mormons must choose only the most attractive young women for this duty, to tempt any men who might visit the temple to convert to Mormonism. Unfortunately for them, I was visiting the temple with an attractive young woman who was not inclined to have me converted.
Picture: Kristina Lena looking up at Jesus. We sat on padded benches regarding the statue for a while. A tour group came through and the guide pressed a button promting the deep resonating voice of God to speak about the creation of the cosmos.

Driving Across Nevada

High way 6 across Nevada was not as boring as I expected it to be. Nevada has a number of mountain ranges running north and south and as I headed east across the state I got to cross them. Coming out of the moutains in California I could see the next range a head with a broad flat vally between. After driving straight across the plain I wound my way up and over the next pass. As I came over each range I could see the road stretching straight to the next range; no trees or buildings to block the view. The longest straight away was 26 miles.
I stopped at the Lunar Crater, which was about 10 miles down a gravel road. The Crater is actually volcanic in origen but seems out of place in a mostly flat landscape. It has an uncanny resemblance to the female lake mount Manangouba. Exept that there was no greenery and there was sand instead of a lake in the bottom.

Halfdome

Climbing Half dome in Yosemite I noticed an interesting example of stratification. Not in the geological sense. Yosemite has one type of granite rock that goes all the way up. There were definite lines drawn in the types of people that I met along the trail. In the town on the valley floor there are all types of people in the giftshops and being carted around in trailers on tours, they were predominantly over weight, elderly, or handicapped.

The first part of the trail up the mountain was past some waterfalls. The population that most used this trail was families with young children, and some retired folks who wanted to go for a short hike. After getting up past the falls there is a relatively flat area through some pines. The trail connects here to some back country campsites so the people on this section of trail are likely to be carrying larger packs. Several middleaged couples and a large highschool group were coming down this part of the trail.





As the trail continues up hill from there it is the twenty to thirty age bracket that dominates. Many of them couples in trendy sports wear, the unwritten rule is that women are not allowed to carry the day pack, although most of them appear in excellent shape and quite capable.





There were lots of people at the top, but the two that every one looked up to were the ones that had the 'biners hanging off there belts with a rope slung over the shoulder. They came up the hard way.

Pictures: First - At the top, along the steep edge there is a ledge hanging over thousands of feet of empty space. Second - The last 400 feet are lined with cables to aid climbers to the top, there are as many people waiting at the bottom of the cables as there are on top of the mountain. Third - There is a pile of hundreds of old gloves at the bottom of the cables, most of them are in pretty bad shape.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks border each other and the only way to get to Kings Canyon is to take a road that passes first through Sequoia.
Sequoia has lots of short trails that lead to view points or particularly large trees. There are lots of people roaming around. One trail I took led me into an immense campground where it came to a cross walk and left me standing with no where to turn except cutting across campsites or following the paved roads. The largest trees are surrounded by fences and loops of interpretive trails, although even the smaller sequoias are immense compared to any other tree.
After driving along a road next to a raging river through the narrow Kings Canyon I arrived at the Road’s End trail head. Looking at the map I randomly selected one of the trails and headed up to Paradise valley. On either side of the valley are massive granite cliffs. The trail to Paradise valley climbs up past a waterfall to a friendly valley with three campgrounds stretched along it. As the trail crosses the rocky area near the waterfall I met a couple coming down the trail. They said that there was a rattle snake up ahead. I kept my eyes open and, as the trail got steep and went up some rough stairs of granite blocks, I saw the snake, right under the corner of one of the stairs. Farther up as I passed a gap in some rocks at the side of the trail I heard a rattle, I took a step back and as I crossed in front of the gap again the rattle repeated. After I peered among the rocks I spotted the second rattler. Then on the way down there was one more stretched full length on the trail. He posed just long enough for a picture and then slid off to one side.
It is acceptable to park/camp along the road in a National Forest but not in the National park. So I drove about a couple of miles out side the park boundary and pulled off in a turn out near the river.
In the morning I got up and drove back to Road’s End. This time I headed up to Avalanche Pass and a spot on the map called The Sphinx. Shortly after I started hiking I saw a bit of movement to the left of the trail, as I approached I heard something moving up the hill. When I got up to the point where I saw the movement I looked up through the trees and saw a brown black bear. He was completely unconcerned with me and I watched him for a while until he disappeared in the trees.
As I hiked along the valley floor I looked up at the cliff faces and sitting on top of one was a pile of rocks that looked vaguely like the Sphinx he even had a small pyramid next to him. I took the right fork in the trail and started up a long series of switchbacks. Sphinx Creek was always near by, but took the more direct route; tumbling straight down the ravine. The trail climbed out of the trees and gave some very impressive views of the valley as it crossed and recrossed a rocky area. Eventually I arrived in a fragrant valley full of pines. The trail crossed the stream and then started switch backs up the other side of the valley. After the trail turned back on itself one last time it went almost straight for a mile across to Avalanche Pass. The wind has swept the ground bare around the wonderfully wind swept old trees in the pass.
On the way down I stopped at the first switch back and headed up and over the ridge to sneak up on the Sphinx from behind. From a rocky outcropping on the end of the ridge I spied him down the other side. I followed a narrow ridge down through the trees and scrambled up the bare rock of the pyramid. From there I could look about 4000 ft down to the valley floor. The Sphinx itself was well protected by a gap that I dared not attempt.
Arriving back at the parking lot the bear was in the trees near my car. He was tearing up the bark on dead trees looking for grubs.

Visalia

I stopped in Visalia to see my cousin Mark. In the afternoon we took a look at his orange orchard. There were a few remaining oranges hanging on the trees that were killed by the frost in January, but the blossoms and developing fruits looked promising. We also stopped at a dairy farming operation. The cows come into the milking barn and take one of 80 spots on a giant carousel. As they are slowly turned over the next few minutes, one man cleans the teats, the next attaches the milkers. After the a few minutes the milkers are removed and the cows back out near the point where they started. The cows apparently enjoy the ride so much that the bull will some times come in and go for a ride himself.

La Brea

On my way out of the LA area I stopped at the La Brea tar pits. I was a bit concerned when there were a dozen school busses parked along the road, but I came in while most of them were finishing up. I didn’t realize the sheer number of bones that they had found. They have a wall in the museum with 400+ skulls from dire wolves. Some other species are less numerous but there are still hundreds of individuals found in the tar. There were some interesting skeletons and models in the museum, and a nice park with some bubbling tar pits.

Uncle Bob

I left Ventura and drove to Ontario, where I stayed a couple of nights with Uncle Bob. While he was teaching school I washed and vacuumed out my car. Then we made a short day hike up Icehouse Canyon after he got done with school.

Santa Rosa

I reached Ventura and met Lisa at her house. We went shopping to find food for the week and packed up.
Tuesday morning we headed out to the dock to board the boat to Santa Rosa.
It was about a 3 hour ride out to the 3rd island in the Channel Island chain. On the boat I met Anna, a botanist and Betsy who is working with the St Louis Zoo collecting information about the captive breeding of the island foxes. When we arrived the departing staff left the vehicles on the dock, a truck with a crane moved the baggage from the boat to a truck and we drove up to the park service housing. There is a small suburb on the side of a hill where the park staff stay. It was really quite nice. Lisa showed me to the room of a vacationing co-worker; it had a queen sized bed and a bathroom attached. Then we took a ride down to the dirt landing strip where the plane was coming in. Trish got off the plane, she had finsished some fox research on San Miguel island and decided to stay on a week to check things out on Santa rosa.
Over the next week I got to see most of the different areas on the Island. Lisa was busy locating the island foxes using radio tellemetry, so she couldn't go hiking with me, but when she had to drive to the far flung corners of the island she could drop me off (and Trish and Betsy who were less busy) and we would only have to hike back, making it possible to see things that we wouldn't have been able to get around to otherways.
The grove of Torrey Pines that grow on the island is one of only 3 in the world. They don't grow very tall but some of the gnarled trunks are pretty thick. The dry air blowing over the pines is very fragrant.
Down at the beaches on the south side of the Island there are wonderful sandy beaches that are occupied and odorized by dozens of elephant seals. The elephant seals are very lazy and indifferent to people walking by. We also saw some harbor seals laying on the rocks off shore, but they are much more wary of humans and floundered into the water when we came around the corner.
At a place called China Camp there is an Chumash graveyard and mizzen. As the beach erodes away bones and other objects are uncovered. there were many bones that were not human, and the Chumash affinity for red abolone was apparent by all of the pearly shell fragments. I found some ribs and a couple of Skulls that were exposed. The crania were intact but the jaws and facial structure below the eyes had eroded away.
Lobo Canyon is the most spectacular of the many canyons that radiate from the center of the island. It is not grand in scale but the sandstone has erroded in some unique shelf like formations.
I made along day hike out to Carrington point on the north west of the island. the rocky cliffs along the shore here make for good seabird nesting. There are several natural arches that have formed along the surf line.
There was plenty of variety to keep me busy on the island and I think I went at the right time of the year. Lisa said that the weather had just turned nice, in the winter it tends to be foggy and cold; and there were a myriad of tiny wild flowers blooming all over the island.
Tuesday rolled around again and the boat came and those of us on the island left while the other shift came on.

Pictures: 1) Betsy and Trish hiking in Lobo Canyon. 2) A natural bridge over a small inlet near Carrington Point, and me running to beat the auto timer. 3) Standing on the beach with the elephant seals. The large males with their namesake snouts had left the beach earlier in the year, these are the molting juveniles who are sticking around. 4) Dirk and Anna making a botanical transect. They measure off a line 30 m long and identify the plants at 30 cm intervals; giving 100 points of data that can be compared to the species present along the same line from year to year. Now that the ranch has stopped raising cattle the plant diversity is slowly reverting to its prior state. Many plants need two or more good years in a row to establish themselves and get their roots deep enough to survive a drought year. The right combination of good years might not come around more than once in 10 0r 20 years it will be along time before the island returns to its previous state.

Pinnacles

As I was driving down the 101 I was hungry and I saw a brown sign that indicated there was a park off the next exit. I thought that it would be nice to eat lunch there so I got of the freeway. I had to drive up a windy little road but eventually came to Pinnacles National Monument. I took a hike around a loop and saw some California Condors along the way. The trail led through a talus cave, which is formed when large chunks of rock fall and block up the top of a narrow canyon, leaving empty space at the bottom.

Picture: I Played around with the auto timer near the entrance to the cave.

Cinco de Mayo

I showed up in San Francisco on May 5. After Coming across the Golden Gate bridge I followed the directions Monica had given me through town and over the hill. The cross streets on the steepest hills have stop signs, which means I had plenty of opprotunities to test my skills with the stick shift.

I found Monica standing on a street corner and she quickly hopped into the front seat with all of the junk that should have been in the back but had migrated forward after I used it. She took me around several blocks looking for parking. We found a spot and fortunately it was the weekend so I could just leave my car there.

We started the party with margaritas at Monica's appartment. We had to mix them strong because the store was out of margarita mix. We headed out to the bar and I got to see Susan for a little while. The Corronas came with festive little ponchos draped over their necks.

The 6th Monica and I hung out at the park with her Cousin, went on a cable car ride and went shopping at Macy's. We cooked some fish and vegetables and made a nice dinner.
Picture: Waiting for the trolly. The guy operating it had to pull levers that moved huge gears to change the car from one under ground cable to the next.

Redwoods

I drove down I-5 in Oregon and branched on highway 199 to California. 199 is very nice winding among giant trees and then coming out along the coast with views of the ocean. At Crescent city I turned on 101 which continues through the Redwoods state and national parks, however there is more of the tourist quitch along the roads and the roads were a bit busier.
I took a secenic by way down a gravel road along the coast and pulled over in a turn out. I put the seats down in the back and spread my blankets out and spent the night there.
In the morning I pulled over after seeing a sign for a trail head. I took a 3 mile loop through the trees. Three miles was a bit much, once you've seen one . . . Picture: Me in front of a pretty big tree. This one was bigger than average but not exceptional among the trees in the forest.

10 Waterfalls in 8 Miles

After a final day rock climing, I finally got out of the company appartment in Seattle. I spent a couple of days staying with Uncle Jerry and Aunt Faye in Bellingham. While I was there I got to see my sister Andrea and my cousin's family. Then I headed south.

That night I pulled into Silverfalls State Park in Oregon. It was late and there was no one at the gate so I just pulled in and parked in a camp site. For the first time I folded down the seats in the back of my car and spread out my blankets. I slept pretty well, if I lay at a slight angle I can stretch out flat with out bumping my head or feet. It rained over night but that didn't disturb me in my car.

In the morning I got up and moved to the picnic area and trail head. The most popular trail is an eight mile loop that takes one past 10 water falls. The weather was kind of grey but I put on my new shoes and carried my rain jacket along. There were 10 very nice waterfalls along the trail but the thing that really fascinated me was a dead beaver laying right in the middle of the trail. Apparently he had fallen from a cliff above the trail, but he was in good condition.

It didn't rain and I even saw the sun now and again as I walked along. The trail was like a side walk. Even though there was rain the privious night and every thing was wet my shoes came out looking like new. That was kind of dissappointing.

Pictures: 1- The tail of a dead beaver. 2- Lower north falls, seen through moss covered trees. 3- Middle North Falls, I walked the path that leads behind this fall to get this picture from the far side.