Dan's Outside

I go, I see, I do, I walk, I think, I like…

A Day for Free-Heelers

From SFGate:

SKIING / Free-heelers get their days. Skiers from around the West will head to Bear Valley Mountain Resort next week for the annual Telemark Ski Festival. The festival will run Feb. 8-10 at Bear Valley, which is just off Highway 4 in the central Sierra east of Arnold (Calaveras County)… [SFGate: Tom Stienstra]

As a mid-level telemark skier, and I did go to one of the previous Telemark Ski Festivals at Bear Valley. It was great fun, and I got to work with some really excellent instructors. Recommended.

January 31, 2008 Posted by | Commentary, Events | Comments Off on A Day for Free-Heelers

New Almaden Quicksilver Story in the Merc

Tom Mangan (master blogger at Two-Heel Drive) has a story in the San Jose Mercury News describing a project to create a historic trail at New Almaden Quicksilver Park, one of my favorite local hiking areas.

January 31, 2008 Posted by | Commentary | Comments Off on New Almaden Quicksilver Story in the Merc

Hopeful Weather Signs for California

Compared to last year, this year’s storm season in California is starting to create a bit of optimism. Last year was a drought year in California – there were few spring flowers, the snow never was very deep and it melted early, and things dried out early and dangerously during the summer.

I’m hearing some hopeful news. Where I am in the SF Bay Area we are ahead of normal rainfall amounts at this point. I just heard a snow survey report that the snowpack is about 25% thicker than normal for this time of year. People visiting the southern California desert areas are reporting significant rain and the beginnings of spring plant growth.

With a few days of sun next week I think we are about to witness the yearly but still miraculous eruption of green that marks the start of the new year in California.

January 31, 2008 Posted by | Commentary | Comments Off on Hopeful Weather Signs for California

Time for a Photograph

I just noticed that there are no photographs on this home page – that doesn’t happen very often, so here is a recent photograph.


Bird Rock and Winter Surf, Dusk. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. December 30, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

(A reminder: Photographs are posted daily at my photography web site.)

January 27, 2008 Posted by | Commentary, Ocean | Comments Off on Time for a Photograph

Dare We Hope?

Last year’s rainy season in California was a bust. Precipitation was half of normal in many areas of the state and much lower than that in many parts of southern California. Last April I returned from Death Valley and drove home up the east side of the Sierra on Highway 395 – in early April it looked like mid-summer already with almost no snow left. By late summer parts of the southern Sierra were as parched as I’ve ever seen them.

This season started out with some surprise early season rain and snow storms – I saw snow several times during October visits to the eastern Sierra. But then the tap was shut off and it looked like we were heading into a second drought year.

During the past few weeks things have really turned around. First, the early January “storm of the decade” dropped a lot of rain and snow all over California. Since that time the wet weather has continued almost unabated. It has rained much of the past week, it is raining today, and it promises to remain cold and damp for the rest of the week.

Maybe, just maybe we’ll have something like a normal season this year? Spring flowers? Desert flowers in April? Sierra wildflowers throughout July? I’m becoming more optimistic!

January 27, 2008 Posted by | Commentary | 3 Comments

Joining the Site

One can join this site and comment on posts. That said, I automatically and immediately delete any membership applications that come from generic (random letters and numbers) yahoo, etc. email addresses and which do not include a real name, etc. Been getting a few of those the past week or so…

January 26, 2008 Posted by | Site News | Comments Off on Joining the Site

Another End of Term Bush Insult?

Expect to see a string of this stuff during the remaining (mercifully short) year of the environmental disaster known as the Bush administration. A week or so ago it was the opening of sensitive arctic areas to unnecessary oil production, yesterday it was a plan to kill more wolves, and today it was a plan for more corporate welfare for logging firms in Alaska.

About the wolves:

Under pressure from another alpha predator, human hunters (along with state officials eager to keep hunters happy), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has changed a rule in a way that has wildlife campaigners howling.

The complaints are not about the section allowing someone to kill a wolf attacking, say, a dog or livestock. It’s the part about states and tribal governments having the right to allow greatly expanded killing of wolves in “non-essential” populations where local officials determine that wolf packs are taking too big a share of deer and elk herds also coveted by hunters.

What is a “non-essential” wolf. Anyone?

January 26, 2008 Posted by | Commentary | 4 Comments

Yosemite Valley Railroad – A Piece of History Lives

Almost since I’ve lived in California I remember wondering about the railroad bed that follows the Merced River along the canyon bottom approach to El Portal and Yosemite Valley.

Thanks to Andy Frazer (see here also) I came across the web site describing the restoration of the observation car from the train that travelled between Merced and El Portal (at the Yosemite border) for something like 40 years during the first half of the last century.

January 26, 2008 Posted by | Commentary, History | Comments Off on Yosemite Valley Railroad – A Piece of History Lives

Black Diamond Mines

Tom visited the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve this weekend – a place I’ve never hiked and barely heard of. Among other things, his piece includes photographs proving that spring is here – well sort of… the California lowland hills are starting to head toward that impossibly green condition we’ll experience only a few weeks from now.

January 22, 2008 Posted by | Commentary | 1 Comment

Mt. Hamilton Land Protected

According to SFGate, a “ranch the size of San Francisco [is] to be protected from development near Mt. Hamilton.

A huge stretch of land near Mt. Hamilton that is roughly the size of San Francisco has been donated as a conservation easement by the Hewlett and Packard families to protect the property from development, the Nature Conservancy said today.

The protection of the 28,359-acre San Felipe Ranch from development will complete a 70-mile long corridor of protected natural lands that extends from Pacheco Pass to Livermore Valley, according to the Conservancy.

The land, which has oaks, year-round streams, seasonal ponds and wildflower meadows, was volunteered as a conservation easement by the families about 10 years after the Conservancy identified the ranch’s “combination of the large amount of intact flourishing habitat and the location” as one of its top priorities for protection in the Mount Hamilton and Diablo range just outside San Jose, according to a statement by the Conservancy.

Not a lot of information was yet available when the article was released, but this sounds like a great development for everyone who loves the outdoor environment of Central California.

January 20, 2008 Posted by | Commentary, Environment | 1 Comment

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