Laurabelle’s Blog

Back in August (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm behind) my college friend Maggie and her other half, Louis, came to California for a hiking trip with Jeff and me. The destination was the Rae Lakes Loop in Kings Canyon National Park. Our permit reservation was for entrance on the Thursday before Labor Day, and we planned to take five days (exiting on Labor Day itself). We were doing the clockwise circuit, up Paradise Valley, around to the John Muir trail, past the namesake Rae Lakes on day three, over a 12,000-foot pass on the fourth day, and then back down to the trailhead. The entire loop is 46 miles.

We drove to the park on Wednesday and car-camped overnight; the campgrounds were almost deserted. The next morning it took us longer to get going than we wanted (I don't know why it always takes so long!), and we didn't quite make it to the trailhead by 9am, the deadline for picking up our reserved permits. As it turned out, our lateness didn't matter after all; the rangers were detained elsewhere so hikers were directed to self-register.

The first couple of miles were flat but relatively shadeless and over reflective sand; even in the morning we became hot. That phase did pass, and presently we entered shadier environs.

On the last weekend in July, Jeff and I went backpacking in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It was a good trip (much better than our last few), but the adventure started early this time.

I had planned everything carefully in advance; we had our wilderness permit and everything ready to go. But at the last moment, Jeff wasn't sure he could get the time off after all. This was doubly frustrating because the reason he couldn't have the time off was the same reason he needed some time away from work. It was rather poetically ironic, but irony isn't much comfort. He did end up getting a half-day off on Friday and a full day on Monday, which was enough; we didn't have to cancel the trip.

So Thursday evening we packed the car, Friday morning I drove him to the train station, and at about noon he caught a train to meet me at work in the early afternoon. Of course we had forgotten something at home, but that was just a brief stop and then we were on our way.

On I-505 (between I-80 and I-5 west of Sacramento), we saw a minivan stopped on the side of the road, with people standing behind it waving their arms at the oncoming cars. We stopped; it turned out they needed a wrench because their passenger-side front tire had more or less exploded, and they needed to put on the spare tire. They had a wrench, but it was old, and one of its corners was split so that the socket wouldn't quite grasp the nuts. Our wrench was unfortunately too small. After substantial non-progress with the old broken wrench, Jeff hopped the barbed wire and went to knock at some nearby farmhouses to see if anyone there could help. This produced a nice ex-Navy chap named Billy with a lot of tattoos, a truck, and a rugged T-wrench! Jeff and myself now having served our purpose, we got on the road again.

The rest of the drive to Lassen was uneventful. Due to our late start and delay on the road, we ate dinner on the road and arrived at Summit Lake South Campground at about 9pm. (It was not even quite dark yet.) Happily, I had reserved a campsite online, so all we had to do was find our spot and set up the tent. Squatters had their stuff at the site we got there (a big group had overflowed from a nearby campsite after the campground host told them they had too many people for one site), but they left politely when Jeff told them we had the site reserved. Apparently they had entered from the other side and hadn't seen the signpost.

This weekend Jeff and I tried our hike to Sky High Lakes and Summit Lake a second time. I guess the third time will have to be the charm for this one.

We drove up to Yreka on Friday and got to the ranger station in Fort Jones just in time to get our campfire permit for the year. The lady who issued our permit mentioned that there might be snow on the trail, but we weren't sure her information was accurate or relevant to us (she was reporting information given by rangers and didn't seem familiar with the trail herself). We decided to proceed with the hike regardless.

We spent the night in a motel and got on the trail by about 9am on Saturday morning.

The trail was lovely and felt easier than it had last year, both because the temperature was more comfortable and because Jeff had new boots (and therefore complained less). The streams were deeper than last year but still passable; we encountered a few snow patches at medium elevations but nothing to worry about.

I am not generally a spontaneous person; I like to plan things out. Jeff and I had plans for this weekend (maybe not perfect plans, but plans nonetheless). As you might guess, our plans didn't exactly work out.

We had been planning to hike the Alder Creek Fall trail (starting at Wawona near Yosemite's south entrance). I worked a slightly short day on Saturday; Jeff picked me up, and we headed straight to Yosemite. The drive was excellent — nice traffic levels, and we saw no fewer than four large gliding birds that we thought were California Condors (I could be wrong — I don't remember seeing white on the bottom of the wings although I didn't get that good a look).

The plan was to stay the night in Wawona, then start on the trail on Sunday morning. It would be a two-day hike, in-and-out, camping at Alder Creek Falls. Unfortunately, what I hadn't planned for well enough was where we would stay the night on Saturday. I had sort of figured that would work itself out, I think; I guess I figured there wouldn't be many people there in the off-season. When we got there and realized that, gee, there were people there and we didn't have campground reservations, we panicked a little and decided to start hiking with the last of the sunlight and camp somewhere on the trail. Then when Jeff tried to fill out a wilderness permit (on paper from my organizer since they were out of actual forms), he noticed that the Alder Creek Trail was closed for controlled burns. Expletive!

This made me pretty mad at the park ranger who had responded to Jeff's query about hiking in the Wawona area that weekend, since she had not mentioned any controlled burns. I'm sure they plan these things in advance, and that's important information!

Jeff and I planned a hike in the Marble Mountain Wilderness for our first wedding anniversary. This was to be a three-day, eighteen-mile hike encompassing creeks and lakes and ridges. All the good stuff, really.

The hike started out well, if warmer than Jeff would have liked. We drove up to Yreka on Friday and stayed in a motel that night, then got up bright and early in the morning. We got on the trail at about 9am and trod gently uphill through woods, streams, and warm humid air. Jeff was miserable in the heat, though I was uncomfortable only in the direct sun, of which there wasn’t too much. The air did cool off in the higher elevations.

We didn’t see any animals on the trail, but there were many insects, including a dragonflies and a few gorgeous clouds of brilliant butterflies. I wish it were possible to capture those on static film.

Friday was a holiday at Jeff’s work, so I took a day off too, and we made a day trip to Yosemite National Park.

The day commenced at 3:30am, and we were on the road by 4:40am. The highways were empty that early in the morning, so we made good time and reached the trailhead shortly after 8am. It isn’t much of a trailhead, just a little gravel parking lot with a couple of road signs that there’s a trail somewhere around. It was 8:30am when we hit the trail.

The guidebook described the first half-mile as punishing, but we found it to be nothing of the sort (possibly because it was still early and the air chilly). Before we entered trees, the top of the hill featured lovely views of Yosemite Valley, including El Capitan and Yosemite Falls.

Yesterday Jeff and I went out to Mount Diablo and hiked the Mitchell Canyon and Eagle Peak loop. We meant to do the hike last weekend but didn’t make it; this week we had better luck.

In fact we had a fairly active weekend. Friday evening was guest night at Berkeley Ironworks, so we invited a co-worker and her fiancé to climb with us. We had planned to have them take a belay safety class, but I ended up teaching them myself, which was rather cool. They passed the test (by BI staff, not me) with flying colors. They seemed to enjoy the climbing too, although it was a bit difficult for them (as things always are when one begins).

That wasn’t enough climbing for me, so we went back Saturday evening. I was perhaps still a bit tired from the evening before, but I nevertheless reached the top of two new 5.6 routes, one of which I had been trying off and on, and another I had never attempted.

And then, of course, we hiked on Sunday.

Jeff and I went hiking yesterday for the first time in an embarrassingly long while. The venue was Donner Canyon, at Mount Diablo State Park. It was a beautiful day and a pretty little loop hike, though not greatly spectacular.

I did get a nice shot of Jeff being majestic in a mountain-climber way.

Last weekend Jeff and I went to Yosemite National Park for the wedding of one of his best friends. It was a tiny, beautiful wedding in a huge and magnificent park. I probably would have had the wedding in the warm indoors, or failing that, in the daylight so that the cliffs and trees and waterfalls could be seen, but that’s just fine, because it wasn’t my wedding.

But speaking of the dark, the first time we saw Yosemite was after sunset, and thus we were rather underwhelmed by the park. As we wound along narrow twisting roads, all we could see in the blackness was trees, more trees, and eventually the buildings of Yosemite Village — hardly my idea of a spectacular vista.

When we went back the next morning, we could hardly believe what we had been missing on the previous evening. I kicked myself black and blue that I had forgotten my camera.

But no matter; we will go back. No question of that.

Jeff, a friend of his, and I made a little trip to Angel Island yesterday. It cost us nearly $40 for transportation (yikes), but Jeff is glad we went. That’s good, because we’re on a strict budget and I’m not so sure it was wise. Oh well, that’ll just be our fun for the month.

Angel Island is in San Francisco Bay, a bit north of Alcatraz and rather larger than that famous island. Angel Island was at times a military base and an internment camp for Chinese immigrants and then WWII prisoners of war; now it’s a California state park. The internment camp at China Cove is undergoing renovation and reconstruction until the end of 2006, so we unfortunately were unable to view the historical information there.

We did take a nice hike around the island, up to the top of Mount Livermore (the highest point on the island, though hardly a mountain), which afforded us lovely views of the surrounding Bay. As we rounded the western side of the island, we watched a sailing race on the water below. I forgot my camera, of course, but Jeff’s friend had his. In fact it may be just as well that I forgot mine, since the friend said several times, I’d take a picture if we weren’t facing into the sun, and then the couple of pictures he did take turned out fuzzy. I guess the day was meant to be remembered, not recorded.