Gary-Summer: May 22, 2024 - Full Moon Walk Up Ely Mountain

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

May 22, 2024 - Full Moon Walk Up Ely Mountain

Title: May 22, 2024 - Full Moon Walk Up Ely Mountain

Hike Info : Description : Trail Lessons : Extra Photo's : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking

Trail head: Balsam Forbay Parking Lot

Trail: Balsam Forbay, Dogwood trail, Trail to East Ely

Destination: Ely Mountain

Distance: 4.21 miles

Start Time: 6:43

End Time: 10:51

Travel Time: 4:08 (1.02 mph)

Moving Time: 2:36 (1.62 mph)

Elevation Rise: 773'

Descent: 782‘

Maximum Elevation: 6,925'

GPS Tracks

Description:

Snow is almost gone

Tonight a full moon is on the rise. In retrospect, we may be a few hours early for it, still, it will be a \very round moon. Being May, it is called the Flower Moon. In case this sounds familiar, David Grann wrote a book called Killers of the Flower Moon.

Balsam Forebay

Today was a long day. I get up and send out the beginning of the season lightning notice-no lightning yesterday, nor does it look like lightning then today. Then after breakfast, I mow the lawn. The rest of the day is just doing things. We thought about inviting Crystal, Andrea’s friend, but she was busy. Turns out that the way we went would have been more adventurous than would have been good for her.

Sherri, Steven, Korra and I left our home at 4:30. Steven drove us up to Shaver Lake where we ate at its namesake restaurant, Shaver Lake Pizza

Sherri charging up a hill

. Steven made good time, getting us here about 5:30. This seems to put us into the evening rush hour for pizza. We ordered the 12” combo pepperoni and Hawaiian pizza. It does taste good and we will put it onto our list of places to go along highway 168.

We finished eating and were off by 6:15 and got to the Balsam Forebay about 6:30. It took us a few minutes to get ready. We found out that we left Sherri’s hiking poles back in Fresno (Turned out that they were hidden in a bag, where they should be.). But Steven has her using his poles. So we are off at 6:45.

Steven

We all have walked this before. Sherri and I did it ten years ago; Steven in 2022. Almost all of the route is on Southern California Edison land, along dirt roads. The first segment brings us within sight of Balsam Forebay. We do not visit this body of water, but are treated to a view of the forebay and beyond. This is a view which makes this trip worthwhile.

But wait! There is more! There are some flowers along the way, along with a hill to climb. We get to the junction and take a left and go down Dogwood Road. The operative word is down and we lose all the elevation we gained and more. This gets us to another junction for the trail up the East Ely.

Glow of sunset

This is the steepest up on our route. Steven and Korra do not seem to mind, But the old ones definitely feel it. The last part of the climb is a little bit over rock, but we have gone over worse in our travels.

We get out the top of Ely Mountain just as the sun decides to set, at 8:10 What timing! While the moon will be the star of our walk, the sun does a good job of trying to steal the highlight of the evening. The western sky is a subdued variety of oranges, purples and pinks. But these just gives us sense of depth, extenuating the ridges across the San Joaquin.

But the sun sets and the moonrises. I have seen bigger moons, but this one is really bright. Bright enough to read by, if one wanted to. Bright enough that the stars were pretty much washed out of the sky.

Sherri has a new phone with a much better camera. She is trying out her camera at night for the first time and developing new skills. Me? I keep taking pictures until I get good ones-sort of the brute force method of picture taking. Steven has a new telescope from Vaonis and is using it to take pictures with his phone. So we all are going picture crazy while we are up there. We try all sorts of stuff out.

Moon

By 9:15, I am thinking we will have a walk back in the dark. Even though the moon is bright, there are lots of trees to darken the path. So we pack up and are on our way. Both Steven and Sherri have put on red lights to illuminate us while not destroying our night vision. Korra has a lighted dog halter on which flashes different colors. It is easy to keep track of her.

That steep last part coming up? It is steep going down. We take our time and do not have any issues. Each of us call out obstacles such as downed trees, large rocks and places where water dams have been made. We make it to Dogwood Road and now the route becomes easier to follow and see. We get past Balsam and know that we are almost to the car. My hamstring has been doing pretty good, but as we are about a quarter mile away, I can start to feel it. I start to focus on arriving at the cars. Steven stays with his mother while Korra comes with me.

We arrived back at the car about 10:50. After unloading our packs and putting on our boots, we leave the parking area a little after 11:00.

We thought that was the end of our adventures, but there was one more. Steven is driving again, going about 40mph, when he notices a deer, maybe one or two years old, about three or four feet away from the road. So he starts to slow down and give it a little bit of room. But the deer has other things in mind. It leaps in front of us. Steven tries to brake and avoid the deer. But we caught it square. Steven must have stopped or been going slow enough that the airbags did not deploy. The deer was able to hobble to the far side of the road and looked like it went over the side. We have only been on 168 about a mile or two. A little ways away, we stopped and saw the whole front grill was smashed and the right headlight plastic protection was broken. But the car felt drivable. Steven drove us all the way home without another incident. My appraisal is that there was very little which Steven could do to avoid the deer and he did the best which anybody could have done.