June 17, 2016 - Lewis Creek

Title: June 17, 2016 - Lewis Creek
Hike Info : Description :  Extra Photo's : Animals : Flowers and Plants

Trail head: Cedar Valley Road

Hike Info:

Type:  Hiking

Trail: Lewis Creek Trail

Destination:Red Rock Falls

Distance: 5.99 miles

Start Time:  8:38

End Time:  12:49

Travel Time: 4:10 (1.44 mph)

Moving Time:  3:09 (1.90 mph)

Elevation Rise: 1,322'

Maximum Elevation: 4,279;

Description:
We need to get some miles in to do the JMT. But in my mind, this is really, lets try out some new boots day. A week ago my new Asolo Evo's came in and I have been walking around the neighborhood with them. But now for the real test, on a trail.

New Boots

We originally thought of doing Ostrander Lake. But with the President coming, we did not want to hit the Yosemite Zoo on steroids. Then lets go up to Grant Grove and do Park Ridge from the highway. That should give us a pretty good work out. But then we needed to be back by 2:30 for a doctors appointment. Are we doomed for a hike today? Of course not! You are reading this blog aren't you?

Selfie Time!

We decided to do an old stand by-the Lewis Creek Trail outside of Oakhurst. We leave after 7:00am and stop in Oakhurst at Judy's Donuts. Good coffee and donuts, but no public restrooms. So onward to the Cedar Valley Road trailhead. We are the only ones there and hit the trial at 8:40.

Weather is nice, not too cool, but not hot either. Lots of wildflowers are out. Only a minimal amount of bugs. Could be a lot worse. We are doing pretty good. Sherri is actually pushing me, which is good, but tells me how out of shape I am. Not much new to write about on this trail-we have been over this so many times. But there are a lot of downed trees. Most of them pretty manageable.

Going over a log at the start

Sherri climbing the trail

As we approach Corlieau Falls, the trail starts going up pretty nicely. But there is eye candy in the midst of this section. So we get to stop and take a break at the platform overlooking the Falls. They are going at a pretty good pace today. So there is more visual there than usual. But the trail continues to go up pretty steeply. But employing the one step at a time mode of climbing, we do pretty good. Here we come across the first set of people on our hike. Nothing exceptional as they are going down to the platform to see the Falls.

Gary at Corlieau Falls

Sherri at Corlieau Falls

The push to the top of Corlieau Falls always gives the legs and lungs a strain. But that is why we are doing this hike today-to our them used to being punished. Of course, as we are going up, they do ask, what have we ever done to you? But at the top, it levels out for an eighth of a mile where we meet up with the shortcut from the Highway 41 parking lot. After that, we cross Lewis Creek to reach the east side.

Up until two winters ago, there was a nice big log with a side rail to help you across. That winter a storm washed away this log, which was disintegrating anyways. For awhile they had some cut up logs for steps across. But those washed away last winter. Now, there is a bunch of sticks, maybe two inches wide going halfway across with a good size limb completing the journey. Gary's prediction: this will be washed away this winter as well.

Inspiration

More logs to go around

The trail is now a series of short inclines followed by some flat places. And did I say trees? That is trees across the trail. but there are ways around and so they are more interesting side trips than major obstacles. There are other distractions though. Flowers are blooming everywhere. And the many butterflies flittering around us are wonderful to watch. To name a few: Tiger Swallowtails, Common Buckeyes and California Sisters. Of course, they are hard to catch without a net, so we chase after a few with a camera and catch one who has decided to pose for us.

Now we come to the end of our trail: Red Rock Falls.  These falls are really just the creek going over some large rocks. What is interesting is that an old log is stuck in the middle where the water goes over and under it. I am sort of lazy, having sit down to enjoy an early lunch sandwich. Sherri on the other hand, must be more energetic as she goes to the bottom and snaps off a few photo's. But we both enjoy spending a few minutes at the top, gazing at the flowing water.

Red Rock Falls

Top of Red Rock Falls

Walking with Mountain Misery

But now we are on our way day. I would like to be off the trail by 12:30 to get us back home in time. We make some pretty good time.  Stopping only a few places. Not much huffing and puffing. But we do stop, like to take a picture of a California Sister. We get back to the car at 12:50 Where find two sets of people looking for the other falls-that would be Red Rock. Sherri does the honors of instructing these poor wayward people that they have to go all the way back up and beyond Corlieau Falls to find it. Usually this is my job. W are back home by 2pm, content with our hike.

You might be asking, how was the boots? They were pretty good. Maybe a millimeter or two too short on my left foot as I could feel the end of the boot there. But they felt good overall.

Extra Photo's

Corlieau Falls

Corlieau Falls

Animals

California Sister

Flowers and Plants

Foxglove

Wildflowers along our path

Crimson Columbine

June 7, 2016 - Delilah Lookout

Title: June 7, 2016 - Delilah Lookout
Trip Info : Description :   Animals 

Trip Info:

Type:  Lookout

Lookout: Delilah

Description:
Sherri and I are privileged! Five years ago we stumbled upon the Park Ridge Lookout, when it was being staffed. Even better, the staff was being trained and we were invited to put our names in for the next year's volunteers. So we did. This will be our third year staffing lookouts.

Delilah

Each year before you can staff a lookout, you need a refresher course. This year we will be trained by Brent at Delilah-we may be able to do park Ridge later on this year, but we shall see. We leave Fresno at 7:30 after voting and get to the turn off to Delilah off of Hwy 180 about 45 minutes later. Then it will take us another 45 minutes to go about 9 miles down this twisty sometimes paved, but mostly dirt road, before we see the Delilah lookout.

Brent is waiting for us. Once we climb the 80 some-odd stairs up to the lookout cabin, we start the routine of being a lookout: The radio is turned on already, along the with hand-held where we pick up the Sierra National Forest chatter. We look over the white board with its notes, then the log. At this point, we go and do the scan of the area.

Egads! There is a smoke!

And that is where the excitement starts.  After a few minutes, Sherri says, I think I see a smoke. Sure enough, so we start figuring out the place of the smoke, which we determine is just south of Summit Meadow, between Dinkey and Bald Mountains. As we get this together, we are thinking that Brent is a bit too calm and letting us walk through this. He has us call Buck Rock who has been plotting out the fire as well. When we put the two sightings together we are within a quarter mile of each other-impressive-this is from 19 miles away. It turns out this is a prescribed burn called the Providence Burn-close to Providence Creek. We get to watch this smoke all day long.

Looking north from Delilah

We do get a chance to look around. While we have seen the effects of the Rough Fire from other hikes, seeing it from Delilah gives us a sense of the vastness of the fire. Delilah sits right on the western edge of the Rough Fire. So as we look down the ridgeline, you can see green on one side and a blackish-brown on the other.  Looking across Mill Flat Creek towards Hoist and Verplank Ridges it is a see of destruction.  Even towards Lake Sequoia there is this exhibit to the fire. But right at Delilah, there is green for about 200' to the east of us-then the fire took over.

Looking southeast from Delilah

To the south of us is not black, but brown. These are trees which have died recently-I suspect after the Rough Fire. But even where there is green, the green is a faded green, showing the last resemblances of life before they die as well.

Trees, both dead and dying

Our new RAWS station

Delilah rarely receives visitors. So we are somewhat surprised when a father and his daughter arrives. he is out scouting for a place to shot, but finding everything all closed down due to trying to take care of hazards from the fire. They stay around about 20-30 minutes. Enjoyable showing them the sights. Then a crew from NOAH is setting up a RAWS station. After they are finished, they climb up the stairs and talk to us for awhile. The reason for the station is that after a fire, there is a lot of particulate matter released. They are trying to get a measure on the effect of the Rough Fire. By the way, the station is NR6G-12. You can find it by looking at findu.com.

Sierra is having a busy day. We hear on the radio a fire close to Jerseydale, which is a work center. It is called the Dove Fire, as Brent correctly guesses. A half an hour later, another smaller fire breaks out close to, but different from the Dove Fire. Later on there was a call that all suppression, detection and aircraft were on duty until 2000 hour. We called I around 6:00pm to determine if they wanted us. The bottom line was we could go.

The rest of the day was to drill on finding locations where make believe fires were, and to make sure we had the use of radio correct. Evidently we did ok. on these. Brent did give us a list of things to work on:

• When taking the weather, use the shady side
• Keep stuff off of the firefighter table and counter tops.
• When speaking on the radio, use clear text-there is a standard terminology.
• Fill out forms, double check them, then communicate.
• It is ok to mark the glass covered maps. Draw lines, arrows, dots, .. with the markers.

Brent left around 4:00pm. A good thing about a lookout station is that you get to observe so much. Outside the station is a hummingbird feeder where they come right up to you-within 3 feet of us. We stayed until 6:00pm and left after cleaning up. On the way down, we had a pizza at Bear Mountain Pizza.

Animals

One of our hummingbird friends

And another one