Fern Ledge and Yosemite Falls
From Yosemite Explorer – Yosemite in pictures:
Fern Ledge: John Muir’s Yosemite Falls
There is nothing in Yosemite Valley quite like a hike to Fern Ledge. Within minutes, the Fern Ledge hike will take you from the bustling, crowded, Lower Yosemite Falls area to a quiet, unmaintained trail that leads you past dense beds of flowers (Elegant Brodieia, Larkspur, Yawning Penstemmon, Live Forever, Giant Red Paintbrushes and more), winding up open slabs leading to Fern Ledge, the most staggering place from which to experience Yosemite Falls. Jutting out into the actual waterfall about 200 feet from the bottom and 1400 feet from the top, you can lie on your back for hours and watch the water comets cascade down past you. Fern Ledge was a favorite spot of John Muir’s and the site of Ansel Adams’ famous photo looking up Upper Yosemite Falls. (And my not famous photo of the same, which, surprisingly, is not as good as Ansel’s.) That said, though the hike is [Yosemite Explorer – Yosemite in pictures]
Follow the link to the full article at Yosemite Explorer – it is full of background information and trail information.
Mitchell Peak – I Must Do This Hike!
Tom Stienstra at SFGate describes the hike to a Sierra peak that I must visit – it shares my last name!
An overlooked hike that should be on everybody’s list. From 10,365-foot Mitchell Peak, you can extend your arms and feel like the entire Sierra Nevada is within your reach. Scanning from right to left, you can see nearly 100 miles of the Sierra crest, crowned by the distant row of 14,000-foot peaks in the…
[SFGate: Tom Stienstra]
I think I’d like to organize an expedition before the summer is over!
Pollution from China Affecting the Sierra
Tom Mangan reports:
China’s pollution landing in California. Airborne crud from the China boom is settling in the High Sierra, according to this story my employer published today.
This story hammers home the myth of “cheaper goods from China.” These goods are not cheap, they’re just being sold at a discount against their environmental costs, which are spreading around the globe, and will have to be paid. All buying cheap stuff from China accomplishes is fobbing off the rest of the cost on future generations.
The story notes that China is primarily poisoning itself — which comes as small relief, frankly. Our buying their stuff is causing this to happen.
[Two-Heel Drive]See Tom’s blog for more on this story.
An Apology for Multiple RSS Feed Posts
In what I think is an unavoidable side effect of importing and republishing some articles from the old version of this site, there seems to be a steady stream of old posts appearing in the RSS feed. Sorry about that…
Colin Fletcher Dies
Colin Fletcher, a backpacking guru who wrote the book on the art of a good walk, died Tuesday at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. He was 85.
I think it is fair to say that Colin Fletcher‘s writings had the earliest and biggest effect on my developing interest in backpacking when I was much younger. My first recollection of Fletcher comes from high school, probably before my first real pack trip. A friend, with whom I eventually took my first pack trip, came from an outdoor family and either he or his father loaned me a copy of The Thousand Mile Summer, Fletcher’s great recounting of his epic walk from one end of California to the other. At the time of his walk there was no Pacific Crest Trail and I’m not even certain that the Muir Trail was a fully evolved thing – so Fletcher made his own route. In typical idiosyncratic Fletcher Form he managed to include the peak of White Mountain in his journey. He wrote a similar book about his journey though the Grand Canyon, The Man Who Walked Through Time.
Fletcher’s best known book was his seminal equipment and technique guide, The Complete Walker. This volume came out in multiple versions and influenced a generation (or two) of backpackers. Fletcher’s books were not the typical dry “equipment guides” that we often see – they were full of his unique and humorous (but, when necessary, profound) characterizations and opinions. To this day, I still use a number of them:
“When in doubt, doubt.”
(I wonder how many readers recall others? “Noah’s cape” and “Noah scape” anyone? ;-)
Ultimately, The Complete Walker was not really about what gear you should buy or what techniques to employ in a given situation – though you certainly could get that information from the book if you wanted. His books were – and are – a grand lesson about how and why to enter the wild world and how to be open to and, in so many different ways, prepared for that experience.
From the preface to the original edition of The Complete Walker – my copy of which sits on my lap as I type this:
“I was gently accused of escapism during a TV interview about a book I had written on my length-of-California walk. Frankly, I fail to see how going for a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains can be judged less real than spending six months working eight hours a day, five days a week, in order to earn enough money to be able to come back home to a comfortable home in the evening and sit in front of a TV screen and watch the two-dimensional image of some guy talking about a book he has written on a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains.”
Exactly. ;-)
OK, Here We Go – Big Changes Coming!
I’ve taken steps that should move this site to a new hosting service sometime in the next few hours. If all works more or less as planned the following should happen:
- The home page URL should stay the same: http://outside.danmitchell.org/.
- The stories and photographs currently on the site may disappear for awhile as I do some complicated behind the scenes work.
- The layout of the site will likely change radically. That is going to take awhile to work out.
- This site may temporarily live on at an alternate URL, perhaps http://outside.danmitchell.net/. If you can’t find me at the current address, try that one.
- The RSS feed will change – I don’t know yet what it will be, so please visit the the site in the next day or so and get the new feed URL.
See you soon!
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Tuolumne Campground Opens
Yosemite Blog reports:
Tuolumne Campground Opens for Season – Tuolumne campground is now open and in operation. Sites are available on a first come-first served basis until July 14th when 1/2 the campground will be open for reservations.
Looks like good timing for me since I’ll have some time during the first weeks of July.
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Tuolumne Campground Opens
Yosemite Blog reports:
Tuolumne Campground Opens for Season – Tuolumne campground is now open and in operation. Sites are available on a first come-first served basis until July 14th when 1/2 the campground will be open for reservations.
Looks like good timing for me since I’ll have some time during the first weeks of July.
—–
A Backpack For Your Backpack
I saw post at Trailcraft today about the idea of taking a daypack along on your pack trips. This is not as wacky an idea as it might seem, at least if you take a few layover days and explore the surrounding terrain.
I used to carry pretty heavy “old school” internal frame packs. (Before that I used to carry really old school external frame packs, but that ancient history is a story for another time.) My favorite from that era was my gigantic Mountainsmith Crestone II – a capacious single compartment pack that was excellent in every way… except that it weighed around seven pounds. One nice feature of this pack – a brilliant feature, actually – was that the large top pocket converted into a functional fanny pack that could be used to haul just enough gear on most day trips away from base camp.
After I finally “saw the lite” and began to move to lighter equipment I picked up my current favorite pack, the Mountainsmith Auspex. Although not a true ultralight pack, it is about half the weight of the Crestone II. Its capacity is smaller, but sufficient for multi-day trips. Much of the weight savings comes from simplification (no side pockets, etc.) and lighter materials, but it still has an excellent, fully padded suspension system. When pressed, it can handle significantly more weight than the lightest ultra-light packs.
This pack is easily roomy enough for a 5+ day trip, but beyond that things get tight. Fortunately, Mountainsmith produce a small, attachable companion pack, the Boogeyman. It weighs in at only 1 pound, has a minimal but decent set of shoulder straps, and attaches nicely to the back of the Auspex. It is truly a minimal pack, though made of decently sturdy material matching the Auspex – there are not pockets whatsoever and a no stiffeners. But it is sufficient for summer day hikes away from camp since it can handle extra clothes, food and water, and a few other essentials.
It attaches to the back of the Auspex in a somewhat cumbersome manner, but it nicely extends the capacity of the pack such that I’ve done trips of up to 9 days with this setup and I think I could go longer. (I’ll find out this summer on a 10-12 day trip in the southern Sierra.)
Unfortunately, the Boogeyman pack is no longer made, and I’m not sure that the Auspex is around any longer either. But there are other similar options out there that work more or less the same way, and I can report that it is a good strategy for both extending the range of your lightweight backpack and for carrying gear away from base camp.
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Dan's Outside 
Temporary Archive of Old Site
I have temporarily archived the old dan’s outside web site content at outside.danmitchell.net.
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June 15, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Temporary Archive of Old Site