Gary-Summer: Ely Mountain

Showing posts with label Ely Mountain. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

April 29, 2025 - Mt Ely

Title: April 29, 2025 - Mt Ely
Hike Info : Description : Background : Extra Photo's : Animals : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking

Trail head: Balsom Forebay Parking Lot

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

Destination: Mt Ely

Distance: 4.42 miles

Start Time: 10:37

End Time: 2:23

Travel Time: 3:46 (1.17 mph)

Moving Time: 2:36 (1.70 mph)

Elevation Rise: 890'

Descent: 861‘

Maximum Elevation: 6,930'

GPS Tracks

Description:

Sherri at start of trip

Rachel has been with us two weeks and we have not been able to go for a hike yet. But today is the day. The question is where to go? The choices which we have narrowed down to are Musick Meadow or Ely Mountain. Which one to go on?

I got up around 5:40. Just did a few things which I needed to get done--at least in my mind they needed to be done. By 9:15, we are all in the car. Fortunately, both of our choices are close to Shaver Lake, so we can discuss it on the way up to Shaver. It was not much of a discussion. We decided to go to Ely Mountain.

Korra, the snow dog

We arrived there at 10:30 and hit the trail by 10:45. We have done this walk before, but in the evening for a full moon walk last May. The route we follow is an SCE road almost all the way. The first couple hundred yards is an incline. While my legs are OK, I can tell I have not been up at elevation for awhile.

Unknown dome

We drop down to the Balsam Forebay area and enjoy that view of the water. The ridge which Kaiser Peak is on looks down onto the water-it is a ways away. The road then rolls along for a way. Sherri spots a dome-she calls it a Half Dome, but it looks like a full dome. Not sure what it is, but Kerckhoff Dome is someplace in that vicinity.

QR Code for AllTrails

We come to a junction. Fortunately for us, there are two clues. First a little circular arrow points the way and second, there is an AllTrails QR code enlightening us. Sherri interrogates that, but Steven knows the way and leads on. The road leads down a ways and then we start climbing Ely Mountain proper.

Remember that comment I made about not being at elevation for awhile? This climbing up the road is doing me in and I am quickly huffing and puffing. I walk a ways and then stop and breathe. Sherri thinks that I am stopping to wait for her, but that is only an appearance.

Eventually we leave the road and get to a high point. It does not look like where we were before and there is not much of a view. I tell them I am going to wander around and look for a good view. Steven takes a lead and we find a trail which leads up to a higher point with the view. This is where we were last year, instead of at noon, it was with a full moon.

We made it there around 12:15 and had our lunch. There was a discussion about whether we have lunch now or save ourselves for pizza later. We have lunch. This is between looking around at the various sights and the clouds hovering overhead, we stretch our time on top of Ely to about half an hour, not that we are in any rush. What can we see? We look right down onto Shaver Lake. Then to the east of the Lake is Bald Mountain-one of the many by that name. Then looking to the northwest, I saw Shuteye. And close to straight north is Kaiser Peak. There is a lot more which we could have identified if I had spent the time to gaze, wonder and figure out. It is still a wonderful view.

I did say clouds didn’t I? Last Saturday I did a presentation on clouds and thunderstorms. You would think I would be at least a semi-expert on the subject and be able to identify the clouds which I am seeing. I am just enjoying the clouds or as Judy Collins says:

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It’s cloud illusions I recall

I really don’t know clouds at all.

The way down is the same up all the way back to the car. One thing which I did not note coming up is that there is still snow on the trail. It is rather patchy and only a couple inches thick in most places. It was pretty firm going up. But coming down the sun has melted a lot of the snow. On the downhill stretches the snow can be a bit slippery. But none of us fell.

We get back to the car about 2:25. There is still a hunger for pizza. We stopped in front of Shaver Lake Pizza and see that it is closed today. But the Pub and Grub is, so we stop in for a bite. We have eaten here before and the waitresses have been friendly. Today is no exception. She tells us she is going to Italy next week and Rachel relays some of her experiences from there. We have burgers which are pretty good and then are on our way. We make 4:30. I think most of us were still feeling the effects of not being at altitude in awhile as we all took time to rest.

Background

Dome. That dome we were seeing is at 354^o, at lat/long of 37.162, -119.258. When plotting this out on Google Earth with a topo map overlay, the dome is called Mushroom Rock.

Extra Photo's

Cloud over Shaver Lake

Balsam Forebay

Steven, Rachel, Friday and Sherri

Rachel and Friday

Sherri

Shaver Lake

Kaiser Ridge

Baldy Mountain

On the way out: Rachel, Steven and Sherri

Animals

Flowers and Plants

Manzanita

Snow Plant

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.