Sierra Loop - Manzanar National Historic Site - Saturday, September 8, 2018

Waning Crescent Moon

The Manzanar National Historic Site is a few minutes north of Lone Pine, CA on U.S. 395. It features a large Visitor Center, some rebuilt historic buildings, and the remnants of the Owens Valley Reception Center, aka the Manzanar Relocation Center, which from 1942 to 1945 served as an internment facility for Japanese Americans during World War II. "Internment facility" is a euphemism for concentration camp. More than 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent were housed here. There were nine other such sites in America during those years.

War Detention Center was another name for it.

I arrived before the Visitor Center opened, but luckily, I had the Auto Tour Route to myself. The original barracks and other buildings are long gone, but signs and foundations tell you where they used to be and there are several spots where you can get out and walk. I was humbled and sad and deeply moved by my solo experience at this site.

Guard shack.

Owens Valley sits in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada. It is a frighteningly hot desert in summer and when the snow flies in the mountains, it can get bone-numbing cold. This is a climate only a coyote or a badger can love. Fierce wind and dust storms are frequent.  No one in their right mind would try to escape on foot without food, water, and an excellent plan to be whisked away in a vehicle or on horseback.

Watchtower.

The last prisoners left in 1945. The mother of one of my teaching colleagues was one of these. Several residents of my home town are either former incarcerees or their descendants. Just as a person who has never been in combat can never really understand what a veteran experienced in war, one who has not been imprisoned in their own country, a country of immigrants whose ancestors displaced millions of indigenous natives to claim it as their own, can ever know the feelings of the residents of Manzanar. Visiting these grounds on a quiet morning, walking through the remains of gardens and barracks and infirmaries, might be as close as you can get. If you are not at least sobered by the experience, you have no heart.

Pleasure Park

It was so amazing how people worked together and built structures from scratch to preserve their personal dignity and capture the beauty of the natural surroundings.

Bridge over what was surface water at the time in Pleasure park.

The cemetery at the rear of the property is still maintained in honor of those who died while incarcerated. 

I have no words.

Over the course of my life I have had the pleasure of a few long friendships with Japanese American men and women. One gentleman in particular with whom I worked for several years impressed upon me the value and beauty of service to the community in which I was employed. His unwavering kindness and respect for himself and for others motivates me to this day. My dear friend Al Tanabe is gone now. I will never forget the quiet joy with which he worked. No complaints. Just quiet joy.

Peace, Love, and No More War,

Jim

TBC

Sierra Loop - Lon Chaney's Cabin - Friday, September 7, 2018

Waning Crescent  Moon

Perhaps the best thing about Big Pine, CA is the classically appointed triple-roof gazebo that graces the center lawn of the otherwise unremarkable Big Pine Motel. Rather than try to describe its intrinsic motor-court, motellian rotunda-slash-yard-art style and its hexagonally supernatural Old West zeitgeist, I will simply allow you to feast your eyes on this little digital photo.

Big Pine Motel classic gazebo.

The equine weather vane - gosh, it is so powerful - evokes the promise and the memory of winter and sleighs, the ancient earthly theme of change over time, and the Martin Buber dichotomy of I and thou

or maybe just heads or tails. It also indicates which way the wind is blowing, in case you are lousy at directions. The deer are pretty cute, too.

But I did not come to Big Pine to stare at gazebos. No, I came to take a shower, but I did not really need the shower until I hiked my daily hike, this time 3.5 miles up the North Fork Big Pine Trail to Lon Chaney's Cabin. And 3.5 miles back, of course. This was not the first time I attempted to go to this cabin. About twenty years ago, I snowshoed this trail in the dead of winter with a backpack on, to practice suffering hypothermia and falling into tree wells. In a blizzard. What fun. It was a great success.

This time the weather was perfect and I only carried a tiny day pack with water, lunch, snacks and a jacket. Carrying a jacket on a day hike is like a reverse rain dance. If you bring it, rain will not occur. To my surprise, there were very few cars in the hiker parking lot and I made good time up the long, straight, exposed, initial stretch of trail, working up a good sweat and taking in long, clean lungfuls of mountain air with every breath. I passed some younger guys laboring with heavy packs. I was happy not to deal with all that this time. 

The first part of the trail is sunny and pretty straight with a little shade here and there.

Up ahead, I could see the falls and I knew the switchbacks would be coming soon. They were short and not as steep as I remembered, so very soon I was approaching the shady, cool, gurgling, restful paradise of "Second Falls." For this time of year, the waterfalls were still pretty impressive and I stopped to take pictures and chat a little bit with a large group of strong backpackers who were also enjoying the spot. 

One of the rocky switchbacks that lead to the falls.

The head of Second Falls on the North Fork Big Pine Creek.

From the falls, the trail leveled out and proceeded through cool, shaded woods a mile or so to the cabin. I picked out a place where my memory told me was probably the flat area I pitched my tent and froze my hiney off back when, definitely the coldest (and dumbest) night of my life. 

Lon Chaney, Sr., the Man with a Thousand Faces, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc., etc. built a cabin (had a cabin built) up on the North Fork during his heyday as a famous Hollywood actor in the old black and white movie era. Big Pine was and is fairly close to L.A. so the cabin provided him with a place to get away and chill whenever time and the weather allowed. Now owned by the U.S. Forest Service, it was beautifully built  and is still well maintained, set back thirty feet or so from the creek and shaded by tall pines. It is locked and boarded up to protect it from animals and vandals, especially the latter. The huge front porch and stairs are a perfect rest stop for hikers coming and going from and to the scenic lakes and the Palisade Glacier along this trail. 

The porch.

The large group of hikers from the falls stopped and ate their lunches at the cabin while I was there. They were from Bakersfield, many of them oil field workers, some in construction, all late 20s guys who work hard for a living. They have been doing trips like this together for several years, good, hardy folks with a love of the mountains. When they moved on toward First Lake, I was able to take the full peaceful measure of the cabin's locale and sneak in a few minutes of shuteye on Lon's porch. I didn't think he would mind. 

The porch.

You do need a fireplace up here.

I took a few photos of the cabin and headed back down trail to see about that shower. This little hike was my favorite of the whole trip. I don't tell you that so you and your friends will come here and love it to death. There are already enough initials carved into the rails of the porch, okay? If you come, be on your best behavior and respect the property.

Solid. Bear-proof.

Lon's privvy.

Peace, Love, and The Phantom of the Opera,

Jim

TBC

Sierra Loop - Rock Creek Pie - Thursday, September 6, 2018

Waning Crescent Moon

One of my favorite places to visit on US 395 is Tom's Place, little more than a dot on the map, but an exit from the highway that leads to Rock Creek Road and up into some eye-popping scenery. This particular day was sunny and slightly crisp, just right to drive by the shimmering aspens and handsome, posture-perfect lodgepole pines.

Sometimes adjusting to higher elevations makes me slow and lazy. I stopped frequently on the road and soaked in the holy quiet of the forest, once even slipping into sleep on top of a sun kissed picnic table. The farther up the road I moved, the more people I encountered. They were nice enough, but sort of hyper-motivated to get to road's end where the trail heads are. Tailgating on Rock Creek Road? Poor form.

I decided not to compete with the tailgaters for a parking spot. I turned around and reminisced about previous trips, eventually pulling into the Rock Creek Resort to eat lunch. Out of curiosity, I inquired about the price of a night's stay. Over $200. That sounded so crazy to me I couldn't begin to fathom it. $200? For a cabin in the woods?

I shook that off and ordered a reasonably priced burger at the gift shop/deli counter. Soon I was joined by five other hardy senior citizens, fresh from a day hike and hungry for pie. I discovered via polite, serendipitous chit chat that one of the ladies was the daughter of a woman who was raised in San Juan Bautista. Huh. What do you know? This day was also the daughter's birthday, so they all celebrated by adding a scoop of ice cream to their pie. Wow. I enjoyed my burger, but I must admit to serious, runaway pie jealousy. Droolworthy, deliciously presented sweet little old lady pie imported from a bakery in nearby Bishop. If I were a rich man, I would happily pay $200 for a slice of Rock Creek Resort apricot pie a la mode. You can keep the cabin.

I should have photographed this group and their pie. They were beautiful.

Peace, Love, and a Slice,
Jim

TBC

Sierra Loop - Operation Normal - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 Continued

Waning Crescent Moon

What do normal people do on an eastern Sierra vacation? I wanted to find out, so I shadowed all the cars leaving Yosemite via Hwy 120 toward Mono Lake. I was determined to learn how to have fun  like a regular old Jim cruising the highway and pulling over to see what's what. Maybe take a day hike, eat lunch by a lake, chat with Peggy and Sal from Reno, pet their dog and squint into the Sun like regular Jims do. Take a selfie by a historical marker. Buy a coffee mug with my name in block letters under a picture of Half Dome in the gift shop at the Mobile station.

Oh by the way, there is a Mobile station near the intersection of Tioga Pass Road (Hwy 120) and US 395. You can get gas there, of course, but the used-to-be-cool thing about it is the Whoa Nellie Deli inside. There is a gift shop, too, but the thing that used to be cool was the food, cooked by a former chef or something like that. It was really good and pretty cheap at first, maybe around the turn of the century. Now the food looks pretty ordinary and the prices are all jacked up. Good grief, people have loved the Whoa Nellie Deli to death, too. It even has its own Wikipedia page, etc.

I ran into the Deli, failed miserably at hanging around with the throngs of people inside, ran back outside, took a snapshot of the lake, and scooted the heck out of there. One thing that can't get too screwed up is the view of Mono Lake and Negit Island.

Mono Lake and Negit Island

Mono Lake, of course, is famous because of the history of the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water's nefarious scheme to corral the lion's share of eastern Sierra water and send it south via the LA Aqueduct to fill up your swimming pool and rinse off your Lamborghini. Mono Lake, without its annual replenishing from Sierran streams, nearly died and so did the lifestyle of a gazillion migratory birds that depend on it for survival. Only a major citizen rebellion stopped LADPW from robbing Mono Lake of its very last drop. Bravo, citizens, bravo. Stay vigilant.

Highly recommended reading: Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. In it you will find the story of LADPW and Mono Lake and everything else you might ever want to know about water and history and politics in the West. That book changed the trajectory of my life completely. Right after reading it, I met a set of brilliant  teachers who positively shaped the ways I see the physical world and inspired me to be the best student and human being I could be. The fact that I have to make a special project out of trying to act normal has nothing to do with them whatsoever haha.

From the Whoa Nellie Deli, I hung a right and headed south on US 395, away from the Boot Fire and toward Convict Lake. There are no obvious convicts there today. Possibly there never were any convicts there. The Paiute didn't call it Convict Lake, they called it Wit-sa-nap. Then the local Mono County fellers called it Monte Diablo Lake for a while, Then one day, a gaggle of prisoners escaped from Carson City, split up into two bunches, killed a Pony Express rider named Billy Poor (poor Billy, insert sad face here), got everybody and his uncle p.o.ed, and eventually ate posse lead like all bad guys do. Monte Diablo Creek was changed to Convict Creek and eventually the lake followed suit. Is any of this true? I do not know. But a good legend brings in the tourists and the fishermen, so what the heck, why not?

What I do know is that the bottom of Convict Lake was originally scooped out by a glacier and when the glacier melted back as the climate warmed up, it left behind a terminal moraine (a big pile of rubble) that acts as a dam and lateral moraines (big piles of rubble) that act like side walls, containing the water that flows down out of the mountains into a gorgeous, clear mountain lake at about 7,850 feet above sea level. The mountains behind it are capped by colored, folded metamorphosed sediments, the remains of an old ocean floor that was lifted up by the enormous forces of the Sierra batholith and the Sierra Frontal Fault. It's mighty fine to look at.

Convict Lake aka Wit-sa-nap

If you are blessed with healthy limbs, you can hike on trail all the way around the lake, an absolutely beautiful, but hot, way to spend a good chunk of the day. Perhaps the coolest feature of this popular stop, though, is the approximately one mile long asphalt path from the parking lot down a ramp right next to the water. Wheelchairs can maneuver their way to sturdy lakeside decks with railings. That means that fishing in an alpine lake is accessible here for a whole lot of people who rarely get such an experience. I for one am thoroughly impressed. If that kind of thing is what it means to be normal, I am all for it.

Rose Hips along the trail around Convict Lake

Peace, Love, and Day Hikes,

Jim

TBC

Sierra Loop - Abandon Ship? - Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Waning Crescent Moon

Sometime between going to sleep last night and waking up this morning, a board meeting was convened in my poor old brain's once powerful, now atrophied and all but forgotten frontal lobe. A unanimous decision was made on my behalf, in the twin interests of my own health and safety. Given the 60% likelihood of more thunderstorms today in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River and the unclear status of the Boot Fire about fifty miles northeast as the crow flies (that dad burn crow sure gets around), my planned 3 or 4 day backpacking trip up along the river was cancelled.

"Yeah," I said to my self, "that's probably a good call." I was thinking of last May when I ignored all the telltale signs saying not to do that bike trip and bingo, those two broken ribs.

So I rolled up all my wet gear, stowed it in the back of Spugly and bade farewell to that cursed bog of a campsite. If I wasn't such a Leave No Trace aficionado, I would have carved "Do Not Camp Here Ever" on sign post #23. Instead, I just putted over to the Backpacker's Parking Lot by the closed-for-the-season White Wolf Lodge, where I spied three large boulders gleaming in the morning sun. Perfect. That's where I spread the tiny tent components and groundcloth to dry while I scarfed up some God-grown vittles. Mmmm - oats, chia seeds, walnuts, dried milk,and apricots - breakfast of frontal lobe board champions.

I had no plan. That lame ass board of directors failed to provide me advice on what to do once the hike was axed. What? They forgot? So I was left with my normal em oh of drifting along innocently appreciating the beauty of the moment until something attractive or sensible occurs to me. I packed and got on the road, two things at which, alas, I excel.

I saw these scenes as I drove east on Tioga Pass Road toward Tuolumne Meadows. I have seen them tens of times before, but I still like them all.

I thought about all my teachers and the trips I took with them around California and Arizona and Utah, learning how to explain things to people and how to sketch processes and features. This set of diagrams is typical of what I eventually used in my classroom - I don't know who drew them - I saw this display in a visitor center and I snapped a picture of it. I hope you can read it in this little format. It is really quite elegant.

As I neared Tuolumne Meadows, I passed Tenaya Lake and stopped to walk around a little while on this sandy beach. I couldn't help myself. I always stop at this same sandy beach. 

From these pictures, You can't tell that there were people crawling all over everywhere else. Yosemite, even this less fabled part of Yosemite, like all the rest of California, is being loved to death. The shine is starting to come off the apple and no one is even noticing. Ansel Adams must be rolling in his grave, if he is still there. I mean, if you can roll, you can dig, right? The beautiful, busy trails of the back country have a quota system and rightly so. Now I think the park as a whole needs one, too.

Right then and there, I decided to leave. Let the youngsters have it now. I have crawled all over the place for many years and it is time for me to give it up. As the song goes, if you love somebody (or in this case if you love some place), set them free.

Peace, Love, and Adios,

Jim

TBC

Sierra Loop - White Wolf Float Trip - Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Waning Crescent Moon

Flash! Crack! Boomity-Boom!

I have not experienced a mountain thunderstorm in so long that I forgot how powerful one can be. The sky gets so stoic, impossibly quiet - eerily so - then the suddenness of the manic thunder gets instantly personal. Marauding sound waves vibrate through the forest and the granitic rocks, rattling your chest cavity and involuntarily startling you. Lying on your mattress pad in your zipped-up-tight tiny tent during a storm like this multiplies the sensory input to the point of camper delirium. What was that old safety thing about counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder? To judge the distance the storm must be away from you?

Flash! Crack! Boomity-Boom! It is here!

First comes the hail, small but loud and quick to melt. An hors d'oeuvres, an appetizer, a rat-a-tat-a-tat teaser. And then (soon) the rain ensues. Drop. Drip. Pour. Pelting crescendos. Full on, all out, buckets full of rain. Hard rain. Rain with a purpose. Kamikaze rain, Cossack rain coming just for you, holed up right there in Yosemite National Park White Wolf Campground site #23.

You marvel at the sturdiness of your tiny tent, made in China, designed by nerds in Seattle, sold for cheap by a Pennsylvania dude on Ebay. Flash! Crack! Boomity-Boom! You start to get used to it after thirty or forty minutes. You start to feel a rhythm to it. You start to let it rock you to sleep and before you know it you're out, napping, dreaming about something long forgotten. Or never known. Or actually happening. Elsewhere. Vaguely familiar. Gauzy. Pop! You're awakened by silence, rain gone, it's cooler, approaching cold. Your eyes open, real world now, at least a consciousness you're used to, you look out the side window into the tiny tent vestibule where your sandals are floating.

FLOATING!?!

You look out the other side and there is standing muddy water two inches deep. You pull your arms out of your mummy bag and put your hands down on the floor of the tiny tent to push yourself upright and squish-squish it feels like the soft mushy floor of a river raft. Your tiny tent, except for the part in touch with the ground due to the gravity of you, the gravity of your intensely awake self, is floating. Holy Samuel de Champlain, Batman, you are sitting in a lake.

Credit the Chinese seamstresses (seamsters?) and Seattle nerd engineers (enginettes?), for the wonder that no water whatsoever leaked inside the tiny tent. Briefly, you consider just accepting the status quo. Why go out there and get sopping wet and muddy if the tiny tent can hold a lake at bay, so to speak? But, of course, you do not. You cannot. You unzip the fly, stick your clammy cool feet in the muddy cold sandals and wiggle your way out into Lake Champlain. It covers your feet and it's shockingly wet. In fact, it is cold enough to register on your foul language triggering meter as a full fledged "Motherf--er!!"

That little burst warms you up. You spring into action - well, sixty-six and three quarters years old action anyway.

Free-standing tents are great. You always stake them down initially regardless, but if it rains hella hard and you find yourself afloat, you just get out, pull up the stakes, grab the whole enchilada, and move the tent where it should have been in the first place - up on high ground. So it went.

I didn't take any pictures. It didn't even occur to me. I simply re-staked, dried my tootsies, re-entered my lair, and went to sleep. It only rained a little bit the whole rest of the night.

Peace, Love, and To Be Continued (TBC),
Jim

Thrilla in Chowchilla

New Moon

Just outside Chowchilla, CA, right off Exit 164 from Highway 99, a smidge down Avenue 21 1/2, is the Fairmead Landfill. Right next to the Fairmead Landfill is the Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County. Inside the Fossil Discovery Center is where you could find me and Mike Carroll and his grandson Riley this morning. We were getting educated in the air conditioned museum, clicking on the QR symbols and reading up on all the Pleistocene critters excavated in the surrounding area. As soon as we stepped in the door, we were greeted by a biggo Columbian Mammoth skeleton.

Ten tons big from 500,000 years ago.

In 1993, the first fossil was found in the Fairmead Landfill by an alert worker who noticed something that looked like bone. It was a Columbian Mammoth tusk buried 35 feet below the surface in the sandy clay of the Turlock Lake Formation. Since then, hundreds of fossils have been found by paleontologists, leading to the eventual building of the Fossil Discovery Center.

The Fairmead Landfill can be seen in the background.

Both herbivores and carnivores are present in the collection, including horses and camels, plus ground sloths, dire wolves, smilodons, and Short faced bears. Fossils of many common animals that are still alive today are also here, like badgers, turtles, geese, coyotes, kangaroo rats, foxes, and rabbits. For a small, out of the way museum, the Fossil Discovery Center packs a big wallop. If you are anywhere close, drop in and check it out.

Ground sloth.

Smilodon (saber-tooth tiger), the California state fossil.

The Short faced bears could run 40 mph.

Allosaurs were extinct long before the Pleistocene, but the Center has some nice replica skulls on display.

For a small fee, kids can dig for replica fossils in a shaded pavilion outside the museum, learning to identify the animals from their skull and jaw bones. It's pretty fun!

Riley can dig it you and can, too.

Peace, Love, and Get Smart,

Jim