A Brief Sierra Update
SFGate’s Tom Stienstra posted a brief run down of Sierra Nevada conditions. Not a lot of detail, but a few interesting facts and observations including:
- Crane Flat campground in Yosemite will open very soon and Tioga Road campgrounds will likely open later in June.
- Although we had a drier than usual spring, he reports that cooler than normal spring temperatures have slowed runoff a bit.
By the way, if you look at the photos accompanying the article and you eventually find yourself ascending the cable route on Half Dome… don’t do it the way the folks in the photo are doing it!
Predicting a Paucity of Public Postings
‘pologies for that… And for that.
Groan. ;-)
The postings here will continue to be sparse through the month of June. A lot of “personal stuff” going on – all good personal stuff – that will continue to dominate my attention for a few more weeks.
My Take on 'Sleeping Systems'
Having just read a post at the Mt. Whitney and Eastern Sierra Hiking Blog (see “On Backpacking…Sleep System“) I thought I’d add my two cents on this topic.
To my way of thinking, a backpacking “sleeping” system includes several components: sleeping bag, pad, ground sheet, shelter, clothing – and for some, a pillow.
Sleeping Bag – My current first-string sleeping bag is the Marmot Helium that I purchased a few years ago. This is a really fine sleeping bag with 800+ high-fill down, great design features, and a weight of around 2 pounds. The high-fill down decreases the weight and allows the bag to stuff smaller, taking up less space in a smaller pack. The version that I use has only a half zipper – this decreases the weight and cost a tiny bit and isn’t a significant drawback for me. The 15 degree rating is sufficient for me into the colder October season in the Sierra and is more than warm enough for typical summer conditions.
I have also used a lighter 30 degree bag, Continue reading
About Those Rock Walls
High above certain parts of the San Francisco Bay area – notably in the grass-covered hills of the East Bay – there are extensive and apparently very old rock walls extending great distances.
Tom Mangan’s Two-Heel Drive has a post summarizing some very interesting information about the aboriginal sources of some of these features:
Evidence of indigenous Bay Area people.
A Web wayfarer named Bob Bardell dropped by yesterday and sent me a note pointing to EastBayHillPeople.com, a companion site to a guidebook describing evidence of Native American culture in the East Bay hills. Hikers in particular can soak this stuff up, because so much of it is in open country like parks and open space preserves.
(Take the link to see Tom’s full post and a lot more very interesting information.)
Tom also includes:
As long as I’m on the subject of pre-Californian peoples — remember the stone walls at Ed Levin County Park? I pretty much assumed they were put up by 19th century Amish settlers, but somebody left a comment a few months back offering evidence of a much more intriguing possibility:
About the walls. When the Spanish first came to the Bay Area with the Portola’Äô expedition, Fray Juan Crespi mentions the stone walls in his journal, citing that the Ohlones viewed the walls with a certain mystacisim [sic]. The year was 1768. Kinda hard to imagine an Amish group predating the Spaniards.
This is more than an interesting abstraction for those who have come across these walls and wondered. I also had been led to think that they must have been created by some newer European arrivals, though the stories of “bored shepherd” spending their spare time building huge rock walls never quite made sense to me. The Fray Juan Crespi description only increases the mystery.
Access to Mt. Whitney – a List of Passes
The Mt. Whitney and Eastern Sierra Hiking blog covers almost all things related to hiking/climbing Mt. Whitney. A post (“Mt. Whitney From Horseshoe Meadows“) covers some alternate approaches for those who either can’t or don’t want to use the usual Whitney Portal approach.
I’ve been over almost all of the passes mentioned, including Army Pass, New Army Pass, Kearsarge/Forester Passes and I’ve approached from the west over Kaweah Gap and up the Kern River.* The only pass that the article mentions that I haven’t done is Cottonwood Pass. If I’m not mistaken, this is a more southerly route and doesn’t go quite as high. Here is a quick summary of some of my experiences on these passes:
- Army Pass is an old route out of the Cottonwood Lakes area that ascends to the Sierra Crest near Mt. Langley. It is really quite a wonderful and direct route, but it has not been officially maintained for decades. The last time I travelled this way – a couple times over a several day period – most of the trail was in good shape, but a few key spots had been obliterated by rock slides. I recall at least one that made me nervous about the exposure. So, doable, but not for the faint of heart or the newbie.
- New Army Pass more or less replaced Army Pass and now seems to be more heavily used than the older, unmaintained trail. The ascent of New Army Pass from the east side is one of the most steady and “gradual” of any east side pass I’ve been on. Despite the fact that it crosses the crest (in sight of Cirque Peak) at over 12,000′, it really isn’t a very hard route at all, and you are rewarded by some incredible and open panoramas at the top.
- Kearsarge Pass and Forester Pass afford a route to the west side of Whitney that starts at Onion Valley. This isn’t an easy route, nor is it a short one, but it travels through some very scenic and alpine country. The trail ascends from the Onion Valley trailhead to cross Kearsarge Pass (just below 12,000′) and then descends to Kearsarge Lakes, a popular first night destination. From here you drop into the Bubb Creek drainage and then ascend to Forester Pass (over 13,000′) on a route that wouldn’t be overly difficult save for the very high elevation. The trail drops quickly from Forester and then travels a number of miles above timberline before finally encountering trees again near Tyndall Creek.
In all three of these cases, once you cross the Sierra crest you typically make your way by one or another route to the standard west side approach to Mt. Whitney, though variations are possible, especially if you come over one of the Army Passes.
I notice that the authors of the post don’t mention some other approaches. For one thing, they don’t consider the starting on the west side of the Sierra. It is possible to come in over Kaweah Gap and then go up the Kern River before ascending to the Muir Trail. This is a long route, but not that much longer than coming from Kearsarge/Forester.
More interestingly, there is no mention of Shepard Pass. Maybe this is a good thing. I’ve been over Shepard once, traveling from west to east at the end of a trip, and I am well aware of why this pass has a fearsome reputation. It starts virtually in the desert of Owens Valley, almost literally at the base of the Sierra, and then it climbs and climbs and climbs, with the depressing exception of a several hundred foot elevation loss midway along the route followed by additional unmitigated climbing. The climbing is often rather steep, and the terrain becomes quite rough in the upper reaches of the pass. Oddly, once you complete this brutal climb and cross the crest near a small stagnant lake, the remaining hike down to the JMT is a lovely little cakewalk through nearly flat and wide open alpine meadow with stupendous panoramic views.
* I’m doing yet another Whitney trip later this summer – despite my “decision” a year or so ago to not “do Whitney” again. I’m still not that enthusiastic about ascending Whitney – “been there, done that” – but the rest of the trip retraces a pack trip I took many years ago from Sequoia across the Kaweahs, and I do look forward to covering some of that terrain that I haven’t seen in many years.
Continuing in an Ironic Vein
Everyone knows about the stunning view from the famous “Wawona Tunnel View” in Yosemite Valley – from the iconic winter photograph by Ansel Adams or from their own visit to the park. I’ve made my own share of photographs from this location. I prefer to go there on a freezing winter evening when all of the intelligent people are back at the lodge around the fire – a bit of light rain or snow makes it even better – so that I can enjoy a bit of solitude while taking in this view. (A steep hike up to the old Inspiration Point overlook is a good alternative when the crowds are otherwise unavoidable.)
A couple years ago I started a sort of stealth project to photograph visitors to the parks and other places. (At first I did this while waiting for the light to come to the landscape, but later the visitors themselves became an interesting subject.) Some of these photographs are meant to explore the responses of people to these powerful places – but the intent of some of the others is admittedly ironic.
Here are a couple recent examples from a certain well known place:
Yosemite Valley Tunnel View. Yosemite National Park, California. May 9, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Yosemite Valley Tunnel View #2. Yosemite National Park, California. May 9, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
(A hint: There may be more to these photographs than is immediately apparent… :-)
Another One From Tom
From another weekend post at Tom Mangan’s Two-Heel Drive:
Dana Hull of the Mercury News talks to people who are trying to bring back the era of unstructured play and get kids interested in outdoor adventures.
As summer approaches and Wii sales climb toward 10 million, a growing number of parents and children’s advocates worry that child-driven, unstructured play – time spent exploring creeks and climbing trees without computer screens or adults hovering like helicopters nearby – is vanishing from the lives of many children.
The shift is so worrisome that many Bay Area parents and advocates like Bird are pushing back. They’re forming a loosely organized “movement” to bring play back from the brink that some call “Leave No Child Inside.”
Follow the link to read the rest of Tom’s post.
I certainly see the effects of this trend among my students. (I teach at a Bay Area community college.) I’m continually astonished at the number of students who seem to live “virtual lives” as much or more than real ones, and I feel sorry for them. I’d guess that the majority of my students have never been to the other side of the mountain range that rises west of my campus, where they could visit the shoreline of the world’s largest ocean. I know that a shocking number of them have never been 40 miles north to San Francisco. And only a small percentage have been to the Sierra Nevada and almost none are aware of the astonishing landscape on the eastern side of that range.
But almost every one could tell you who “won” on American Idol this week.
Report on California's 'Crumbling State Parks'
From Tom Mangan’s Two-Heel Drive:
Report on California’s crumbling state parks – Paul Rogers of the Mercury News documents the decay of the California state parks system, and just how bad it’s gotten. From part one:
This Memorial Day weekend, campsites are booked from Mount Shasta to San Diego. But California’s state park system – once considered the best in the nation – is falling apart.
Its 278 parks include priceless locales that define the state’s history and natural splendor: Sutter’s Mill, Lake Tahoe, towering redwoods and “Baywatch” beaches.
Yet throughout the system, sewage pipes are crumbling. Roofs leak and thousands of scenic acres are padlocked for lack of rangers.
If you believe we need state parks, and that we need them not to be tattered embarrassments that horrify the tourists, pick up a copy of today’s paper and read this report — the graphics illustrate the forces that got us into this mess, and the photography shows in stark detail how bad things have gotten.
Part 2 on Monday deals with what can be done about it. [Two-Heel Drive]
Not My Usual Memorial Day Weekend
For a number of year my talusdancers friends and I have done a traditional Memorial Day Weekend trip to the eastern Sierra. It has almost become a ritual: camp in the desert on BLM land, ski at Mammoth, take in at least one fine dinner in a restaurant and fix another over a fire at our camp, perhaps do a short ski tour out to Minaret summit if conditions permit. This trip has been in many ways the complement to our annual October “last pack trip of the summer” – the Memorial Day weekend trip says, “Good bye winter (skiing) and hello summer (backpacking)” while the October trip says “Good bye summer (backpacking) and hello winter (skiing).”
But not this year.
My friends are out on the “East Side” as I write this, most likely skiing at Mammoth at this very moment. But I’m at home. (And, no, I’m not upset – I’ll be in the Sierra again soon enough… ;-) Little choice really. There is a lot going on here this spring. My daughter is getting married in less than a month! My oldest son is moving back to the area – with a bit of help from me. The end of the spring term is approaching – with the necessity of staying on top of grading all those papers.
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Dan's Outside 
More of the Same…
From SFGate:
You’d hope that maybe, just maybe, the supposedly best candidate that the party in power can offer as an alternative to the current, uh, leader might recognize the possibility that perhaps we cannot drill our way out of this problem.
But, of course, that would be a vain hope.
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June 17, 2008 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary, Environment | Comments Off on More of the Same…