Yosemite is alive and kicking in the Spring, so we did a little road trip. One day, after kayaking the Merced River, we decided to jam up to Yosemite Valley to do a quick evening hike at Yosemite Falls.
Here's a shot of Dave on the Merced - notice that he forgot his drytop. Brrrrr. I wasn't any better at remembering things, and realized (once at we were at the trailhead) that i had lost my shoes somewhere back at the river. So i had to hike in flip-flops.
I guess Dave felt bad so he hiked in his Tevas. Here's a shot at the top of the falls:
To avoid all the crowds on this classic hike, start in the evening with about 2 1/2 hours of daylight left! You'll pass only a few stragglers - and hopefully you'll elude the captain-safety-know-it-all hiker dressed head to tow in brand new REI techy gear, who cant resist giving you the scolding glance for starting the hike so late. Or maybe it was the flip flops?
The hike is about 7.2 miles round-trip with 2,700 feet elevation gain. Its not too long, but certainly steep. I highly recommend hiking shoes.
Here's a shot looking straight down the upper waterfall:
This is what the National Park says: "One of Yosemite oldest historic trails (built 1873 to 1877), the Yosemite Falls Trail leads to the top of North America’s tallest waterfall 2,425 feet (739 m) above the Valley floor. Do not stray off the marked path, as you will find steep drops adjacent to the trail. Enjoy spectacular views..."
Here's the webcam to check conditions before going.
Every winter and spring, we see this contagious stoke, this perma-grin, apparent on all the faces that come back from Brush Creek outside of Kernville. Finally Dave couldn't take it anymore, he had to go check it out. Thanks to Geno, who showed him all the lines, he got the most air time of his life! He couldn't really articulate the intensity of the experience... just all this stuff about "the ultimate freeride park" and something about "paddling up to the edge of an infinity pool and seeing the earth drop out before you..." He's got the Brush Creek fever.
Thats Dave and Geno peeking over the top of the Triple Drops. For some perspective, check out the picture below. Its the same picture...just zoomed out. You can just barely see them (the size of dots) at the very top of the rapids.
The scenery was magnificent, even though its the middle of winter.
Brush Creek is considered a classic in the boating world, and often called a "freak of nature." Even though its a steep narrow creek and there are nonstop drops and waterfalls, it is relatively safe for this type of kayaking.
This 26 mile loop made a wonderful 3-day backpack trip in the Golden Trout Wilderness of the Southern Sierra. We hiked from the Jerkey Meadows Creek above Lloyd Meadow Creek to Little Kern River, up and over to Kern Flat, and down the Kern River to the Forks of the Kern.
The graphic above shows the Needles in the middle foreground with the Kern River in the gorge to the right, and the Little Kern Drainage in the middle. The blue line is our backpacking route, with Kern Flat being at the top right. The Forks of the Kern (the put-in for one of the most epic wilderness kayak/rafting runs in the US) is at the lower right of the loop.
The first day, we hiked 5 miles up to Jerkey Meadows and down to the Little Kern River. The granite bedrock gorge was filled with wonderful swimming pools and small waterfalls. It also happened to be one of the best fly fishing creeks I've ever been too. I bought a specific Little Kern Fly from Kern River Fly Fishing, and literally caught a beautiful Golden Trout on every cast.
There was no one around, and we set up camp on a secluded pool in comfy pristine sand! Since it was only 5 miles in and a relatively easy hike, we had time to swim, fish, and explore the area.
Because it was late in the season, the water level was low and fairly warm.
There was no need for backpacker food - we ate fresh fish for dinner!
Here's a photo of the Little Kern just below the trailhead.
And another picture taken near our campsite:
On the second day, we hiked up and over a pass on our way to the Kern River. We passed Flat Iron, several meadows and springs, and then made the long descent through the burnt-out Doe Meadow on our way to Kern Flat.
Wildlife tracks were everywhere - there certainly seems to be a healthy supply of bear, coyotes, and deer. The Kern River is absolutely beautiful in this area!
We hiked a little ways south along the river and found a nice campspot near some excellent fishing and swimming holes.
Once again, the fishing was world class with unique Golden-Rainbow hybrids...and they were big!!
We spent most of the 3rd day fishing and hiking all along the river - about a 12.5 mile hike. About 7 miles down, we reached the Forks of the Kern, where the Little Kern meets the North Fork. Here, we passed several day hikers and rafters getting ready for a super low flow 4-day trip down the Kern River to the Johnsondale bridge.
The remaining portion of our trip took us uphill from the Forks, and back to the trailhead. We cant wait to return and explore more of the area. Hiking/climbing down the Little Kern Drainage and kayaking these upper sections of the Kern River are now on our list of things to do!
This was a great day and a perfect place for a late season hike! Rock Creek Canyon, in the Eastern Sierra north of Bishop, is filled with superb hiking trails. On this particular trip, we hiked out of Mosquito Flat, above Rock Creek Lake, and on into the Little Lakes Valley. There are several other trails near Rock Creek Lake: Hilton Creek/Lakes, Tamarack Bench, Sand Canyon for mountain biking, and numerous backpacking options. We took the Morgan Pass Trail.
One of the the unique features of this area, is that the trailhead is at 10,300 feet! So, immediately you're immersed in the high alpine lake terrain.
After entering the John Muir Wilderness and a hike up the Crankcase Grade, we followed a creek filled with darting brook trout. The trail splits after a steep-but-quick climb; a deviation from the mellow pace. Backpackers often head Mono Pass, but we continued through the Little Lakes Valley.
We came upon Mack Lake, and then upon the ultra scenic Marsh Lake. Unfortunately we didn't have our fishing poles; it looked like some excellent brown trout habitat! I know the Big One is lurking in there.
The hike meandered along Ruby Creek and on up to Heart Lake and Box Lake. As we were enjoying the beautiful Box Lake, the T-shirt weather started to turn a little chilly as clouds rapidly developed and hovered over the Sierra.
The happy forecast of sunny weather was starting to look a bit off - it was looking like a storm was brewing.
So we had to keep jammin' up to see Long Lake before the weather turned to nasty!
Well, right when we got there it started snowing! So i didn't get any pictures of Long Lake, 'cause we weren't hanging out too long. The trip back went quite a bit faster. With no jackets, wet snow, and a breeze coming off 13,000 peaks, we were motivated to move fast.
I guess it was another lesson learned: always be prepared in the High Sierra - at least have a jacket! Although, i think we've said that a million times before... its just more fun this way!
This mountain bike ride, called the 'Cedar Creek Ride', is one of our new all-time favorite epics! Its beautiful, rugged, long and hard, extremely remote, and fuuuuuun! You pass through so many different ecosystems, its like being on 5 different rides.
There's different versions of the ride that can make it longer, shorter, or slightly more downhill-orientated. We started at Sherman Pass, where Cannell Trail starts, about an hour north of Kernville in the Southern Sierras.
The initial singletrack climb takes you to one of the best viewpoints in the Sierras, at Sherman Peak. You look straight into the heart of Domelands Wilderness, up the dramatic Kern River Valley to Mount Whitney, and across at the Needles and the Western Divide. (Sorry, no photos of this right now - you'll have to ride it to see!)
Then after a curvy forest descent, we pedaled through lush meadows and streams and into one of the several sections of burnt-out forest. After many miles, we arrived at the Cedar Creek drainage. It was flying time! 4,000 feet of rugged singletrack bliss. It was like the nearby Cannell Plunge on crack; but not quite as long!
Towards the bottom of Cedar Creek, the views open up to Mineral King to the north and the Needles right in front of you! We turned and rode a couple demanding miles on Rincon Trail. Another less-technical option is to ride this trail all the way out, but instead we dropped down to the River Trail.
This trail is gnarly. The first rocky section passes a mine, and proceeds narrowly along a steep cliff. Scary!
Then the trail drops down to part of the wilderness section of Kern River, known as the Forks of the Kern. Beautiful! The trail, which is relatively flat here, is the most technical on the ride and there's 4 miles of it. You either hate it or love it! There were plenty of short hike-a-bikes over boulders. But, we cooled off and swam in the river a few times. We loved it!
Here's a quick video on a fun section of the River Trail:
Email if you want more info on this bike ride. We're planning to ride another version of the ride soon!
This is a GPX file of a different version of the ride (Taking Sherman Pass Trail at the start, and coming out on Rincon Trail rather than the River Trail).
Just outside the eastern border of Yosemite, off Tioga Pass, we pedaled some beautiful high alpine singletrack. Fall is certainly a great time to ride; all the tourists are gone, the air is crisp and clear, and it feels like you have the entire mountain range to yourself! We rode the rarely-biked Saddlebag Lake loop, Bennettville Trail (& hiked around the mines and old ghost town), and Lake Canyon Trail. (Some pictures and a short description of the area from The Mud Blog are depicted here, and copied below):
While mountain biking inside of Yosemite National Parks is not allowed, there are some great options just outside the park boundary. Trails on the Eastern Sierra side, near the Tuolumne Meadows entrance, offer the best scenery and singletrack. Two great biking options are Bennettville Trail and Saddlebag Lake Trail.
Bennettville Trail follows a section of the historic Great Sierra Wagon Road and scenically weaves past the infamous mine, the Great Sierra Tunnel, on its way to the ghost town of Bennettville.
Nearby, the Saddlebag Lake Trail is a mountain bike blessing. Absolutely amazing high sierra scenery surrounds this loop, which is nestled between Hoover Wilderness and Yosemite.
Another ride in the area, Lake Canyon Trail, requires a bit more aerobic exertion. Details and maps of the ride are depicted in Mountain Biking Mammoth. Enjoy!
Yesterday we went hiking up above Johnsondale, just as the first snow of the season was brewing in the distance. After months and months of perfect sunshine and blue skies, seeing the ominous clouds was energizing! There is so much to explore in this area ranging from the Western Divide and the upper Kern River.
We started hiking near Elephant Knob and followed Dry Meadow Creek (an epic steep creek kayak run) for a bit. We ended up wandering a trail running perpendicular towards Peppermint Creek miles to the north. The views were awesome...Sentinel Dome, Dome Rock, the Needles and several other geological features were in view.
We took a lunch break on a granite slab that overlooked the Forks of the Kern run and the Kern River Trail, another spectacular hike. We could see all the way from Split Mountain in Wofford Heights and into Golden Trout Wilderness to the north.
The only evidence of humans was an old motorcycle track; otherwise it was just deer prints, bear track, and coyote poo. Rad! We'll have to check out more of the trail, but it could make a good mountain bike ride.
After looping back, we got the urge to go check out The Needles on the Western Divide. The Needles are a group of huge granite spires and domes that lunge out above the Forks of the Kern, and are extremely popular for rock climbing.
The storm seemed far enough away, that there could still be some excellent views. We did see newly snow covered peaks out towards Mt Whitney.
But - of course - the storm intensified right when we got to one of the best viewpoints in the Sierras; the Needles fire lookout. (See the fire tower perched on top of one of the granite knobs in the picture below.)
The wind picked up and it started snowing as the visibility dumped. After climbing all the rickety steps up to the tower, we had about 2 minutes before the ranger closed it down due to lightning.
The only thing was that there was no lightning! It was the deer hunting season opener, and some poor deer bit the dust. It was very obviously a gun shot to everyone up there...except the ranger lady. She was all panicked and argued that there was lighting RIGHT above us! Oh well... we couldnt even see to the bottom of the Needles at this point. It was fun enough just hiking in a storm! Finally some precipitation!
Kiteboarding is a brand new sport for us, but it allows recreation in yet another Sierra environment: windy lakes! With the newer technology that allows full-depowering of the kite, sudden gusts are not an issue anymore. Last week, we flew the kite at Lake Isabella in the Kern River Valley. Completely surrounded by scenic mountain views, this lake almost always has wind. Perfect!
Here is a short video of our first real day kiteboarding:
One of our favorite hikes is the Black Mountain Peak loop! Our whole family joined in for this one. Starting at the Virginia Lakes in the eastern Sierra, we hiked up the wilderness trail for a few miles and then turned at Green Lake to hike up flank of Black Mountain.
I still cant believe how AWESOME the views are!! From any of the 3 peaks that we climb on this hike, you can see into Yosemite, east towards Bodie ghost town and Mono Lake, down into Lundy Canyon, and on and on.
Here's the loop as seen on Google Earth. The actual hiking varies from shale climbing, to a popular hiking trail, to jumping and skipping down the steep slope of pure shale. Good boots really help on this one!
Its hard to tell, but in the picture above, i'm hiking with my dog on the flat part of the ridge. Just an indicator of how massive this area is. Thats Mono Lake in the background.
After hiking the Black Mountain peak, we descended along this ridge and then climbed up to the top of Mt Olsen.
One of the most fun parts of the hike is the descent back down to the lakes. We traversed around until we could find some of the smaller and looser chutes of shale. Then we just jumped and slid the whole way down! After a full day of hiking, we were back down in less than 10 minutes.
It was super hot at 10,000 feet, so we ended the hike with a refreshing jump in Red Lake!
On our way north this summer, we couldn't avoid the attraction of that prominent feature in the distance: Mount Shasta. In the most northern region of The Sierras, the 14,000 ft volcano's glaciers glimmered for miles.
Until the 1920's, the mountain was called Mt Sisson. But, that was just too wimpy of a name.
All the glaciers, valleys, thriller trails and ultra-scenic whitewater make it quite the adventure destination. So we spent a couple days exploring this area - which was clearly not enough!
We filled up one day with some superb mountain biking. A big 'Thanks!' goes out to the adventure girl from Israel that helped out with a shuttle. Here's a quick clip of one of the many the trails in this northern region:
The diamond in the adventure ruff is McCloud River, however.
Its gorgeous, fun, and always changing....but ICE cold. The river flows through a gorge surrounded on all sides by the immense and private Hearst estate; completely inaccessible to the public except by boat. We couldn't believe that this run inst more popular...it just felt like a classic.
The shuttle is kind of a hassle if you don't have 2 cars; its not exactly on a main route. We lucked out though! After parking our camper at Lake McCloud, the take-out, we found some nice local fisherman to give us a ride in the back of their truck all the way to the put-in! This saved us one loooong bike ride to get back up to our boats, which were hidden in the bushes near the river. In hindsight, this hitchhiking ride really saved our day. We paddled back to our camper right at sunset. With the additional bike ride shuttle, we would've been kayaking hours after dark.
The water was flowing super low...less than 200cfs... so we started at the lowest put-in near the border of the Hearst property. The McCloud is basically a narrow lush creek at this point, and there's definitely a lot of maneuvering and sliding over rocks for the first couple miles.
But all of a sudden you hear a roar, and the little creek changes! Big Springs, several pure natural springs gushing out of the hillside, adds 1000-1500 or so cfs to the flow. Immediately the creek turns into a river! And coming from the land of drought, this was truly amazing!
We were also stoked that you can just drink the purest coldest water right out of the springs; no water bottles needed on this trip. We stopped and drank our fill at a few large springs along the way.
So once we passed Big Springs, we were immediately in a 3 mile long class 3/3+ rapid! There wasn't even one pool in this section, just continuous whitewater!
We passed lots of play spots and waves, but the water was just too cold to roll very often. I'll certainly be wearing gloves and a hood next time.
During the last few miles of the run, the river mellows out and some of the most odd sights appear. We came around a bend, and there was a neighborhood of Old European-style mansions lining the water....out in the middle of no-where!
Some of the houses where Medieval dungeon-looking, some were like giant Danish cottages painted with mythological frescoes, and one was A GIANT castle-replica that went on and on in size. It was situated on a peninsula, where the entire river rapped around it on almost all sides. It was too big to get a picture of. Just the pool situated on the edge of the river was too big to take a picture of! The strangest thing was being able to float RIGHT under their windows and peak in!
After passing all these places, a glacial creek comes in and turns the crystal clear water into a milky aqua color.
Then the river, which is dammed far below, slowly widens and becomes the scenic McCloud Lake. Just as the sun was about to set, we paddled a couple more miles on this lake to the edge of public land, where our camper was parked and Charly was eagerly waiting.
What a day!! Here's a short clip of Big Springs near the top section of the river, and the Hearst Mansions toward the end of the run:
Most people have heard of the great mountain biking available in South Lake Tahoe. Toads, Christmas Valley, and The Flume are "must-do" trails for most visiting bikers. (Toads is our favorite! ...and CV rules too! Ah but the Flume trail is unrivaled in beauty!) Anyways, on our last trip up there, we decided expand our horizons and check out 2 new trails (new to us, that is).
One day we rode one section of the Tahoe Rim Trail is called 'The Bench', a great out & back ride on the southeastern side of the lake. The Google Earth view of the ride is shown above (you are looking southwest.)
This trail had a little of everything fun in mountain biking; some smooth fast sections, plenty of technical challenges, a great view of the lake at the end.... I think it was about 12 miles long with around 1200 feet of cumulative climbing. Although, it seemed a bit longer than that. Maybe because we went with our local friends that have superhuman lungs and technical skills. No time to sit and enjoy the scenery - we were jamming!!
Later we stumbled upon a trail called Corral Creek near the bottom of Toads. We didn't expect too much since its an OHV trail, but we believe in serendipity. This trail rocked! Lots of back to back banked turns with little natural hits all over the place gave this trail great rhythm. Even our dog looked like he was carving turns as he sprinted the entire way down. It was way too short though, less than 3 miles, but there were many offshoots that we didn't have time to explore. We'll be back.....
Here's another views of the ride looking southeast over Heavenly ski resort. We made a loop by riding up a parallel dirt road. It appears that many people do shuttle runs on the singletrack section though.
Its been a pretty sad year for whitewater in California. The lack of snow this winter really hurt the river levels this year. BUT, there's still some decent water to be had on the lower Kern River below Lake Isabella! Water is released from the lake and the Borel Canal above the 11+ mile section of class 4 from Miracle Hotsprings to Democrat take out. (The run can be cut in half by taking out at Delonegha boat launch.) Lately the flows seem to be ranging from 700 cfs -1150 cfs. I'd say 1,000-1,100 cfs is the most fun, with the most play spots throughout the run. I am constantly surprised that this run isn't completely packed with boaters. There are tons of great waves, play holes, class 3 and 4 rapids, and great scenery with an easy shuttle.
Here's a short video of Deadman's Curve, a class 4 rapid above the Delonegha Bridge, at about 1,000 cfs:
It just took hearing the forecast of 113 degree heat in the southern sierras, and we promptly planned a 4-day backpack trip in the high Eastern Sierra. We settled on a trip into the Mt Humphreys lake basin, with no real detailed plan. Mt Humphreys is just shy of 14,000 feet and can be accessed by Piute Pass out of the North Lake/Sabrina Lake area west of Bishop. Most of our hiking and camping was above 11,000 feet, yet it was still hot!
From North Lake trailhead, we hiked a scenic 6 miles and 2200 feet in elevation to the pass. After paralleling a lush and shady creek, the trail passed by a series of trout-filled lakes encompassed by the huge jagged peaks typical of the Eastern Sierra.
At Piute Pass, the views opened up dramatically as a giant plain of barren rocks, lakes and distant peaks came into view.
At this point i understood why one of the biggest lakes in the region was called Desolation Lake. This lake was our destination for the night.
After another couple miles of fairly easy hiking we charged cross-country to arrive at this huge lake. There was one serious bummer that we weren't completely prepared for: mosquitoes ! Even though the surroundings had so much barren rock, there was plenty of grassy marshy areas and small ponds for those nasty pests to breed. Our group, consisting of 4 tired hikers and 2 dogs, set up our tents at the back end of the lake with Mt Humphreys towering above.
After a morning swim the next day, we decided to hike up and over past Forsaken Lake to the lager of the Humphreys Lakes. There were almost no mosquitoes, and we found a great tent site nestled in the rocks just above the lake. We called it good and set up camp. We spent the rest of the day, July 4th, fishing, swimming, and hiking.
For our most dramatic viewpoint on the trip, we hiked straight up the steep shale to a ridge on Mt Humphreys. We had planned to hike the peak, but its Mordor-looking towers required some gnarly mountaineering skills. Our destination turned out to be a knife-edge ridge with some of the most dramatic scenery i have yet seen in the Sierras!
These mountains are basically gigantic spires and cliffs that drop straight down to the Owen's Valley floor. Its so steep that my fear of heights quickly kicked in, and i was basically crawling around on hands and feet to maximize all the views. Awesome! After the steep hike up, we jumped and skated down in about 2 minutes!
That evening Charly, our adventure buddy dog, got into a fight with the local scavenging marmot. He actually got his head wedged into some rocks while the marmot gnashed out at his face. He got cut up pretty bad.
The fishing was excellent early the next morning. One of the smaller lower lakes was filled with small but gorgeous Volcano Creek Goldens, while we caught larger Brookies in the Humphreys lakes. We then set out south to Muriel Lake. After finding some awesome camp sites at the outlet, we decided to day hike up to the Goethe Lakes. The storm clouds were building, but unfortunately never materialized above us. We were hoping to get some much-needed rain in the sierra.
Up a Goethe Lake it was fairly windy and stormy, but still the water looked like the purest blue...almost like Crater Lake in Oregon. Was formed from the Goethe Glacier, which still exists up on the flanks of Muriel Peak.
The hiking around the lake is basically giant boulder hopping. There's no trail and no place to camp, which made it seem even more pure and gorgeous!
At first we assumed there's no fish in the lake due to the lack of vegetation. But just when we were about to give up fishing there, a good sized rainbow grabbed the lure. It turned out to be a great day!
And topping it off, was watching a superb sierra sunset from our camp that evening.
The next morning we packed up and hiked the long way back down to the trailhead. During the hike, the thunderclouds were growing fast. About the time we reached our truck, that storm had started the Inyo Complex Fires that raged across the Eastern Sierra for a couple days. (See my last post on that little adventure.)
Here's a GPX file of our route and a Google Earth shot of the trip:
As we hiked out of our last backpacking trip west of bishop (subject of the next post), the thunder clouds were building fast. After only 10 lightning strikes, 5 brushfires were started throughout the Eastern Sierra...The Inyo Complex Fire.
By the time we got to Big Pine, HWY 395 was closed. Bummer! We decided to camp that night since there was no logical detour.
Instantly we were in EXPLORE mode! Driving east towards Death Valley, we followed a series of dirt roads up into the Inyo Mountains east of Big Pine in search of a campsite with views of the fires.
Not only did we find a great campsite with panorama views of the entire valley, including the closed highway, we happened to park at a long lost trailhead. After climbing the adjacent peak to check out the surroundings, we determined that this trail dropped over 3,000 feet back down to the Owen's River on the valley floor. The mountain bikers in us were thinking one thing...perfect singletrack!! It passes by 2 old mines; one of them named Montezuma Mine.
The fires finally subsided by morning and we were back on our way through 35,000 acres of scorched land. We plan to come back with mountain bikes and check out this Montezuma Mine Trail. It can be looped with dirt roads, or shuttled for the long downhill descent. We'll let you know how it goes!
What's all this about? We will be blogging about our adventures throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains as we explore this vast region via mountain biking, hiking, climbing, backpacking, kayaking, backcountry skiing, and whatever else we can think of!
We're motivated to spread our love of nature, photography, and outdoor sports as we sojourn in the Sierras.
Sierras: (n.) Some of the most amazing and rugged mountains in the world, ranging from Oregon to Mexico.
To Sojourn: (v.) To journey, abide, inhabit, travel, vacation, adventure.
