November 8, 2025 - Giant Forest

 

Title: November 8, 2025 - Giant Forest
Hike Info : Description :   Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking 

Trail head: Giant Forest Parking Lot

Trail:  Moro Rock, Soldier, Alta Trails

Destination: Loop

Distance:  3.63 miles

Start Time: 11:53

End Time:     3:21 

Travel Time: 3:27  (1.05 mph)

Moving Time: 2:35   (1.41 mph)

Elevation Rise:  767'

Descent: 740‘

Maximum Elevation: 6,774'

GPS Tracks

Description:

Today it is just Sherri and I who will be hiking.While I do enjoy hiking with my children, there is something which is good to hike with my wife. As often as I have done that, it does not get old doing that-it is something special to have a wife who is not only willing to hike, but enjoys it.

 

Sherri on Moro Rock Trail

We leave the house at 9:30 with Sherri driving. As we go down Highway 180, I casually ask Sherri how much gas is left-less than half a tank. This calls for a gas stop at the Valero at the corner of Academy and Kings Canyon. I put in five gallons, even to give us a comfort level today. Turns out gas is a little bit cheaper up the road in the foothills.

We stopped at Big Stump for a pit stop. I take over driving down the General’s Highway. We get to Giant Forest at 11:40. Our boots hit the ground a few minutes before noon on the Moro Rock Trail.

Just a note, we have done this route several times before. I noticed that the Moro Rock Trail at times I have called it the RimRock Trail. Later today day, I noticed a sign with RimRock on a different trail. There seems to be more people on this trail than what I have seen before. Still, it is not a congo line of people, so the walk is still enjoyable. 

At the start, we get a view of Deer Ridge which seems like it should have more of a name since it is so prominent. This area got burnt in 2021 with the KNP Complex Fire. so the trees are sparse. We quickly get into the land of the Sequoias. Also there are several broadleaf trees which are in various stages of being deleafed. What leaves remain show color.

We get to where the trail turns towards Moro Rock, but that is not our route today. There is a large Sequoia where the various roads come together. About 1, we eat our lunch by this tree. Several groups go by us, looking us over-I do not think they were jealous of our peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches.

We temporarily leave our trail and walk about a third of a mile along the road to Crescent Meadows. At the Buttress root system, I play photographer and take pictures for a couple of groups before we move on. Before the Tunnel Log, we turn off of the road and onto the Soldier Trail. There we stop for a few minutes. Sherri’s phone will do satellite messaging. She wants to make sure she can use it, so I find a log while she plays with her phone.

Usually the Soldier Trail has maybe two or three people on it. While I am sitting there, at least two groups go by. When a third couple -a father and daughter I think-goes by, I make a comment about my private trail. They stop and we have a friendly talk. By this time, Sherri had joined me. I found out that they are from Minnesota where Sherri and I are going in June. Naturally we asked about what they think we should see. Turns out that Alice works at the aquarium in Duluth where Rachel will run her half-marathon on. Alice gives us some places to go:

• Devil's Kettle
•  Generally, the North Shore of Lake Superior
• Grand Marias

Alta Trail

They take off and we take off shortly after them-we will not be catching up-they look like they can travel. When we traveled the Soldier trail in November, it has been a week earlier. There usually is a brightness of red and yellow leaves, offsetting the red bark of Sequoia Gigantia. Today the deciduous shrubs and trees are mostly bare. Still, walking this area is usually peaceful. Today, there are more people than we usually see. It still has a sense of peace about it. I guess this is what Randy White, in his book Consummation! calls a vigorous peace.

We stop for a few minutes at the top of a 6800’ ridge to eat an energy bar. The rest of our trip will be downhill. The part off of the ridge is a step 200’ When we descend this slope, we come to a trail junction. It is starting to get dark, so we elect to go down the Alta Trail rather than head over our traditional route to Bear Hill. The Alta Trail takes us down another 200’, but a bit less steep. We stop occasionally to see light streaming through the trees and the few remaining Fall leaves.

The trail wraps around to the Giant Forest Museum. There we crossed the highway to the parking lot and our car. We could have probably made it to Bear Hill as it is 3:30 when we got back to the car. We are content with what we did today.

By the time we get back to Fresno it is dark and we are hungry. DiCicco’s on Kings Canyon sounds like it is a good place to fill our stomachs. Steven joins us about ten minutes after we get seated. We are content.

 

 

Flowers and Plants

 

June 28, 2018 - Delilah Lookout

Title: June 28, 2018 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Flowers and Plants

Trail head: Delilah Lookout

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

I woke up a bit later this morning, but the sun was still behind the mountains, showing light through the filter of dust and smoke in the air. Not much of either, but the light was growing with power. The first thing I look for is the truck we were concerned with last night. It has moved a bit. Now, partially hidden behind some bushes and small trees, but still there. Then I read an e-mail saying that the road is open and the truck has a right to be there. So far there is no sign of life in that direction.

But in our direction, we start getting ready for the new day. Judy will be coming up around 1000. The three of us will refresh ourselves on being a lookout. Sort of a strange thing. Sherri and I have already been in the lookout for three days and Judy was up here last week. And now we are getting refreshed. But there is something which makes sense. The three of us are familiar with the basics-use of the radio, taking the status of the weather, understanding the landmarks around us and the like. But if you are not training with someone else, you can gain bad habits or start into patterns which are not conducive to the effective running of the lookout. Also each person has their strengths and it gives each of us a chance to learn from each other. So it is good to refresh from someone other than Sherri and myself.

Anyway, we have our oatmeal breakfast and tidy up the lookout cabin. Then take the status of the weather and go into service with both Porterville and SNF. Our scans do not show anything abnormal. Even the Anchor Fire from yesterday is not rising up smoke.

About 1015 we see Judy drive up and shortly afterwards she ascends into the tower. We fill her in on what we have seen and heard during the past two days. See the previous two blog entries(June 26, 2018 and June 27, 2018) for a summary of those days.

With three of us in the tower, one can scan and listen while the other two refresh. The first item which we look at is radio. We go over setting up scanning and priority along with the more theoretical of what the groups of channels do. Judy probably has a better idea on how to talk on the radio than either Sherri or I.

After lunch, we then get on to what Sherri and Judy want to work on: map reading. So we spot a points and try to find them on the map. We look at where the Davis fire happened and work through how we got the location and access points for it, along with a practice call in. Then I continue to pick a few points and they find it on the map. Then Sherri plays “Stump the Chump” and has me walk through how I found the point.

Mystery Truck

Someplace in all of this, our mystery truck disappears. Whether it continued on towards White Deer Saddle or left via our Delilah Road, we do not know.

Buck Rock calls us on R5 Project to ask, can we see smoke from Academy and Highway 180? No. CalFire is responding to a fire there and she was wondering. There is a level of haze which obscures the area. Then the fire must have sent up a little more smoke and there it is.

Judy gives us the biggest challenge of the day. She has a spot over where the RoughFire started three years ago. On the map, the terrain looks pretty straight forward. But visually, there is a lot of features which do not look like they are how they are on the map. To me the key thing was to find Garlic Meadow towards the top of the ridge, close to Spanish Mountain. If you follow the various ridgelines down, you can find all three of them Garlic Spur, Rough Spur and Deer Ridge. But instead of appearing to go down the bigger ridge, Garlic Spur looks like it goes diagonal. This is more of an optical illusion, a confusing illusion. We all spent time following these features, getting confused and then sorting things out. Interesting exercise. Probably our best thought here is to pray that no other fire starts in that area when we are on duty. By the way, to give you an idea of the difficulty of pegging where the fire started. It was originally on Garlic Spur. But then it was decided that the fire was on the Rough Spur-hence the Rough Fire. But eventually it was on Deer Ridge where the fire started (36.874°N 118.905°W)

Around 1700 we start cleaning up. As the sun comes in through the northwest window, I see how bad my window washing of yesterday has been. Oh well. Sherri and I have already taken down much of our stuff. But there is still a couple of bags to be sent down with the pulley system. Which generates an oops from me. Why you might ask? Glad you did, I did not notice that not all of the rope had been pulled up, so there was about 30’ of rope where the pulley could fall. I did not notice that until after the pulley left my hand and was dropping with increasing speed on its descent to the ground. I held on tight and was able to stop the pulley. The cooler bag handle held, but our prize Hilo Hattie bag handle did not. Fortunately, most of the stuff in that bag was light and did not make much of an impact when it hit the ground.

We did the normal closing up the lookout and went out of service a couple of minutes before 1800. We said our goodbyes to Judy and went down. Dinner was at Bear Mountain Pizza then back to Fresno. But while we were eating, I read a text from my brother who is taking care of my mother. He is running a fever. I know what I am doing for the next couple of days-on the Mountain View in the morning. Better get packed once I get home.

 
Flowers and Plants

Places: CA-Deer (Fresno

Deer Ridge-' (Rough Spur) (lat, long)

Description : Trips : References : Pictures 


Description:


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Places: CA-Deer Ridge (Tulare)

 

Deer Ridge-5,935' (Giant Forest) (36.5494240, -118.7800232)
Legal: T__S, R__E, Sec__

	Deg	Min	Vertical Deg	Minutes	Distance	Visible
Delilah
Park Ridge
Buck Rock

Description : Trips : References : Pictures 


Description:

From Giant Forest, this ridge is quite prominent. Enough so, that we keep looking for a name of a peak. But on the topo maps, there are none. 

GNIS says that it is 1.25 miles long

There is a second Deer Ridge in Tulare County close to Camp Nelson.

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  November 8, 2025 from Moro Rock Trail, just outside of Giant Forest