2008 - Week 3


Tuesday, May 13, 2008:
We had planned to leave Pahrump around 8:00am and did it! We stopped in town to get more groceries and then were on the road headed towards Death Valley NP. We traveled NV Route 372 that turned into CA Route 172 through Shoshone CA into the south end of DVNP, across the Greenwater and Amargosa Range before turning north onto Badwater Road at the bottom of the valley. The elevation there was approximately 80 feet. The Panamint Range forms the other side of the valley and includes Telescope Peak at 11,049 feet as its high point. This peak still had remnants of snow, and the temperature in valley was 93 degrees. We pulled out our small hiking GPS and watched the elevation change as we drove north. The question in our mind in what would the GPS do when we went below sea level? It just put a minus sign in front of the elevation! The wind was blowing, and the colors of the mountains were bright and varied. The floor Death Valley receives about 2” of rain each year, but does get some runoff from the mountains. As we drove north, we noticed that the vegetation consisted mostly of creosote bushes, but even those disappeared as we went further north and the valley floor dropped. By the time we reached Badwater (the lowest point in the US at elevation of – 282 feet), there was no vegetation. We walked out on the mineral surface at the Badwater viewing facility and noticed some man-made holes with liquid about 6” below the surface. I am not going to describe it as water because a tourist tasted it and spit it out with an ugly epitaph. He had had his mouth washed out before he spoke. We noticed that there was a sign placed on the mountain behind the parking area stating ‘SEALEVEL”. It was a long way up! We continued north and traveled the one-way Artists Drive, so named for the marvelous colors in the rock. There is a vehicle length limitation of 25’, and we just made it. This is a ”must see”. We continued north to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center for more info and decided to head north to visit the Ubehebe Crater and Scottys Castle. The Ubehebe Crater was formed more than 300 years ago when the ground water seeped down into molten lava, causing a violent explosion. When the dust settled over 6 square miles, a hole 1/2 mile in diameter and 600 feet remained. You can walk down into or around this crater, but we decided to decline. The surface around the hole is covered with black gravel, about the size of a pea in diameter. We decided to visit Scottys Castle tomorrow morning and so headed to the Mesquite Springs camping area. It was nearly empty as the season for visiting DVNP is coming to a close (except for Daisy, Susie and I). Daisy has not been feeling well for the last few days with an upset tummy. Hopefully the medicine Susie has will fix the problem. The sky was clear and had it not been for the bright moon, we it would have been a great night for seeing the stars. Sometime during the night, Daisy heard or smelled some animal and woke us with loud barking. Probably a coyote.


Wednesday, May 14, 2008:
We started the day with a tour of Scottys Castle to finish off the north end of DVNP. Mr Johnson, who owned the place but seemed happy to have Scotty take credit, spent in excess od $2,000,000 in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. I wonder how much that would be in today’s dollars? It is a Spanish style house made to look old as if it were built and furnished with antiques. Susie and I will be scratching our heads to try to figure out why someone would spend so mush money in such as desolate area. Driving back from Scottys Castle to the bottom of Death Valley, the elevation fell from 3,300 feet to –70 feet, and I was able to coast most of the way. However, as we climbed out of DVNP on the west side through Stovepipe Wells, we went from –70 feet to 4,956 feet thus using all the gas we saved coasting earlier. We had to buy more gas while in Death Valley at $4.36/gallon, another new record for us, but probably not for the Californians. We drove south on RT 178, passing through the town of Troma whose only livelihood was harvesting the minerals from Searles Lake before turning west to Lake Isabella in the south end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was good to see real water again, and Daisy, whom is feeling much better, swam and swam and swam. The cool water felt good on our feet and help relieve the high 90’s we had today. The weather report for the next few days is for the same, so we’ll be getting underway earlier tomorrow to get us into the mountains above 6,000 feet.

Thursday, May 15, 2008:
We were up early and on the road by 7:00am to get to Sequoia NP, about 150 miles away. Driving west on CA 178, we followed the Kern River from Lake Isabella to the city of Bakersfield. It was a long but interesting trip. The road was about 50 above the river, but had no guardrails to prevent a swim. By the time we arrived at Bakersfield we had seen several places for white water rafters to put in, 2 hydroelectric dams, an aqueduct serving the city of Los Angeles and numerous irrigated orchards. The area around Bakersfield is a large petroleum producing field. We drove north and then east into Sequoia NP at the south end and drove north through a section where the National Park Service recommended that no vehicle over 22 feet long travel. Before we entered the park, we found a fresh fruit stand and bought cherries, navel oranges and strawberries. I can say without hesitation that I have never had better strawberries ever! We eventually reached the Giant Forest and spent 3.5 hours on an 8-mile walk through the giant trees and climbed to the top of Moro Rock. From the top of this rock, you have a 360-degree view, and it is wonderful. There was still snow on the tops of the mountains and in the valleys where the sun doesn’t reach. We then drove through the Sequoia National Forest to the Azalea Campground in Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon NP. The boundaries of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks touch each other and are administered as one. Snow was evident in many areas as we drove this 1.5-hour drive of 35 miles. We drove 205 miles today and have seen many wonderful sequoia trees and scenery and will move on to hike in areas along the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway tomorrow. By the way, the cherries are gone and we have made a big dent in the strawberries.

Friday, May 16, 2008:
Slow morning today, but the weather was beautiful. The weather report stated that in the San Joaquin Valley the temperatures were to top 100 degrees, but the mountains would be in the 80’s. Love this altitude! We left the campground around 9:45am, stopped at the Post Office then the Visitor Center where I bought a hiking and trail map for the Cedar Gove area of KCNP. We toured Grant Grove and saw the General Grant Tree, which President Coolidge proclaimed as the Nation’s Christmas Tree in 1926. President Eisenhower proclaimed this same tree as a National Shrine. In the past, the sequoia trees in this area were named after states, but due to a lack of documentation, the practice was stopped. However one of the trees still named, the California Tree has an interesting story. In 1906 it was hit by lightning and started to burn at the top. Firefighters climbed an adjacent very tall fir tree that was 50 feet away, swung over to the burning sequoia, hauled a fire hose to top and extinguished the fire. We left Grant Grove as 2 busloads of elementary school kids arrived. We headed down the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway (CA 180) to the point where the road stops at the end of the canyon, a distance of 35 miles. Depending where we were on the Byway, on one side of the road was a vertical rock cliff and on the other side was a falloff to the bottom of the canyon (600 feet in some places) where the South Fork of the Kings River flows. Susie drove the 35 miles, and it took 1.5 hours. Neither Susie nor I can remember seeing such wonderful and rugged terrain. I’ve probably said that several times before, but it never seems to stop getting better. We didn’t know much about the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but Susie and I feel they are more rugged than the Rockies. The Sierra Nevada Mountains are a roadblock when traveling across California, and if you look at a road map, there are roads that run around the south end (which we did), but you must drive 150 miles (as the crow flies) north before finding the road through Yosemite NP that crosses this mountain range. If it weren’t for the National Park, you would have to drive another 30 miles to go around the north end. The mountains are just a jumble of peaks, very steep slopes and bare rock surfaces. Kings Canyon is a glacier made feature. When we go back to Glacier NP in mid-June, we’ll really have something to compare. When we got to the Sheep Creek Campground, the only 1 of the 4 opened now, we had lunch and then took a short nap that turned out to be 1.5 hours long. When we awoke, we took a bike ride. As I said earlier, I bought a hiking/biking map for this area and found once again that the graphics of the brochure was great, but the information was not completely correct. Bah, humbug! Susie took Daisy for her second swim of the day while I reloaded the bikes. Daisy came back exhausted, but happy. In spite of the nap, it will probably be an early night. Since it is Friday night, the campground is filling up for the weekend. Next weekend being Memorial Day, all the campgrounds will be open and full until Labor Day. We went to sleep listening to the sounds of the flowing river.

Saturday, May 17, 2008:
Daisy started making noises at 5:45am, and I did my best to ignore her, thinking it was a wild animal nearby. By 6:00am she had convinced me to get up and take her for a walk. Good thing as we think her tummy had been upset by the heart/worm medicine taken the day before. More hikes today. The first one was about 4 miles long and passed through a variety of plants life including fens, pine trees, ponderosa pines, flowers, etc. The path, a section of the Paradise Valley Trail, was on the north side of the South Fork, and we followed it upstream, crossing a bridge and expecting to follow a section of the Kanawyer Loop Trail downstream. Bubbs Creek, a very active tributary of the South Fork at this time of the year, had overflowed its banks and made Kanayer impassable. We returned the way we came and talked to numerous people on the way back. There were about 10 people who had full camping gear and were backpacking into the mountains, a vertical rise of 5,000 feet or more. Other people were going to see a waterfall, but we were not prepared for that journey. There was a report of a rattlesnake on the trail, but we never saw it. Back to the RV for lunch, and then a hike around Zumwalt Meadow. We didn’t see any large wildlife inn the meadow. As we traveled around the Meadow, we had the South Fork on one side and on the other the path lead us through a granite rock field. This rock field is the result of the actions of the glacier that formed Kings Canyon. The last hike of the day was to the Roaring River Falls. The Roaring River is another tributary to the South Fork. We can now understand why the first time we saw the South Fork it was so large. Tomorrow we leave this wonderful place that some US Park Ranger told us was like Yosemite NP without the crowds. We’ll find out on Monday.

Sunday, May 18, 2008:
Short day today. We left Cedar Grove at the bottom of Kings Canyon at 8:15am to get up the hills before the heat became too bad. We started at elevation 4,678 feet, followed the North Fork down until we reached Boyden Cave at 3,063 feet where we left the river and starting climbing out of Kings Canyon. By the time we reached the top, we were at 6,800 feet. What amazed us was the number of bicyclists following the same route as us with a full load of equipment. The last one we saw had just crested the high point and was peddling downhill. We stopped at the Grant Cove Visitor Center to get the answers to still lingering questions such as “How fast does the North Fork flow?”, answer “Don’t know” and “What are those large evergreen cones we saw on the ground?”, answer ‘Sugar Pine Cones”. Interestingly one of the smallest pinecones came from the sequoia trees. We left the Visitor Center (elevation 6,589 feet) and headed west on CA 180 to the city of Fresno CA dropping into the San Joaquin Valley at an elevation of 305 feet. Once again irrigation is king, and the fields are filled with fruit trees that need irrigation and wheat that doesn’t need as much. Wheat was the original crop in this valley. We found another fruit stand, and Susie bought white peaches, avocado and cherries. After we reached Fresno and replaced some basic foods, we turned north and headed back into the foothills before stopping at a KOA in Coarsegold CA, about 20 miles south of the South Entrance to Yosemite NP. The elevation here is 2,400 feet and the temperature is in the high 90’s (by the way, the normal high for this time of the year is 73 and in June 82 degrees. Terrible record-breaking temperatures here. We are plugged into the electric and hoping that CA has enough power to keep us cool. We are using the time to catch up on our administrative duties plus plan for Yosemite. Yosemite has severe restrictions on pets and advanced reservations for camping in the valley. We’ll probably have to stay outside the valley and in the mountains.

Monday, May 19, 2008:
A few days ago, I said that we were told that Kings Canyon NP was Yosemite NP without the people. Wrong! There are numerous people here, and the campgrounds we were planning to use a as a base are not yet open because they are at a high elevation and still full of snow. The Visitor Center personnel were helpful and provided us with some options which we’ll work on. We entered at the South Entrance and visited the Mariposa Grove that has sequoia trees and other very large pines. We could tell that many more people visit this park than do Sequoia NP by the packed earth, more restrictive fencing and propane-powered courtesy buses. This Grove was crammed with people, a lot of them speaking different languages. We then drove north and took the Glacier Point Road which is on the south side of Yosemite Valley but some 3,500 feet higher in elevation. The drive was lined with tall evergreen trees. The first surprise was the amount of snow in the forest, not enough to ski on, but too much for camping. The first overlook is named Washburn Point, and we were awestruck at what we saw. With the help of several people who had been there before, we identified Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall, Illioutte Fall, the rock formation known as Half Dome (peak elevation 8,836 feet), plus several others with peaks in excess of 10,000 feet and all snow covered. Several people gave us hints as to which hikes we should do. We then moved on to Glacier Point where we saw more of the same, but from a different angle plus Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. As we were looking at Half Dome, a whisper spread that there were climbers on the south elevation (not the shear cliff face with gives Half Dome its name). Eventually, 4 climbers were spotted near the top, and we watched them climb to the peak. Everyone seemed to be talking about the climbers and the risks, etc, but then a young man who worked as an equipment carrier for the climbers told us how great the thrill it is to climb a surface with ropes. His girlfriend stood in the background, shaking her head. I don’t think she agreed with him. We moved on to the trailhead for Sentinel Dome. This dome has a 360-degree view and a top elevation of 8,122 feet. We were able to see El Capitan with a top elevation of 7,569 feet, plus a great view to the west that we were unable to see from Glacier Point. We climbed back down through the snow, returned to the RV and then to the RV Trailerpark outside Yosemite. The roads around the entrance to Yosemite NP are a bit convoluted due to the limited space at the valley entrance. We traveled into the bottom of the valley for a bit and the views were great. We are looking forward to tomorrow when we spend the day in the valley and take some hikes. We are again sleeping next to a roaring river. This time it is the Merced River, and it is the one that drains Yosemite Valley.

We climbed back down through the snow, returned to the RV and then to the RV Trailerpark outside Yosemite. The roads around the entrance to Yosemite NP are a bit convoluted due to the limited space at the valley entrance. We traveled into the bottom of the valley for a bit and the views were great. We are looking forward to tomorrow when we spend the day in the valley and take some hikes. We are again sleeping next to a roaring river. This time it is the Merced River, and it is the one that drains Yosemite Valley.