Moments in Dirt and Ink

Mendocino National Forest Work DAY 1-2  |  Move/Rest/Play DAY 3  |  Work DAY 4-5  |  Work DAY 6-7 Yellow and brown for day 3: interactive map link Moving day! Also there is usually a do your own thing day on these week long trips and it was determined that if we were going to, this would be the day to do it. First up, moving ourselves and gear to Square Lake. Group gear had to be packed up in time for the packers to load it up as they liked. Packing our own gear was a little more relaxed. With bear canister and chair and hammock and tent and and and, it was a little heavy, but the hike isn't bad. Our new home for the rest of the week: Square Lake. The weekend campers had taken off mid-Sunday, so the lake was otherwise deserted when we arrived. Most the volunteers were gone again by the time the stock showed up. The packers were ready to drop everything in the same meadow the campers occupied until it was mentioned the crew all wanted the ge...

Klamath National Forest (purple lines, map link ) DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6-7 The trouble with staying at Long Gulch Lake is that it is open range for cattle. They've been known to decide to wander through camps knocking things over and generally trashing the area. And when they're done with that, they'll wander over and sit on tents. It's happened before. So as long as they were there (they were) we needed someone to make sure they didn't do all that to our camp. They actually stayed away for a bit longer than usual this day. I didn't even hear cow bells until around 10AM. A little mist rises from Long Gulch Lake in the morning. A single Canada goose on a log in the lake. Winged cattle according to some since they graze the grass too. The rest of the crew was returning to Fish Lake Creek Trail for tread work, which is hard work.

Six Rivers National Forest ( map link ) I headed up to the Lassics via the Senteney Rock Road (1S07), which is wide and smooth gravel all the way up to the county line where a small section marked as Jeep trail on USGS maps has a rather more dangerous feel when in a little car. I was looking for an old and rough road up to a "campground", or so the peakbaggers keep calling it. I didn't find it, but it is obvious when traveling north. There's no parking next to it and no driving it in a little car, so it didn't matter. I found a small turnout near the saddle between Black and Mount and decided upon a direct approach rather than looking for that road. Black Lassic from the turnout near the saddle. Black Lassic is the tallest of the Lassics and it sits in the footprint of the 2015 Lassics Fire. Besides the too many burned trees, I was struck by how absolutely dry it is up here. There's even a little patch marked "desert" just to the north of ...

Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest ( map link ) Parking at the trailhead for Ruth Lake requires a permit as part of the Mirror Lake Highway Recreation Corridor (UT-150). It even had a fee tube with a note that Saturday was a fee free day even if I ended up charged for it. (Grrr!) The trail rises its way from the highway to Ruth Lake in 1 mile, then continues upward to connect to Lofty Lake Loop on the ridge above. I had plans to visit Ruth and a few more lakes which have use trails visiting them. Where to start for Ruth Lake A little water makes a little waterfall There's a couple generic ecology signs along the way to make it an interpretive trail. Trees make oxygen, animals live here. If you take in such things often, you'll learn nothing new. Pooling water in a meadow along the way There's an old junction early on. I got to wondering where it might have gone once, but didn't get to exploring. There's plenty other space I was already planning ...

Ashley National Forest Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (blue line, map link ) DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 My sunny third morning started off clear enough. Once the sun started hitting the wet valley, the clouds billowed upward and filled it. The upper valley of Yellowstone Creek before the morning sun hit it. View down the glacial valley of Yellowstone Creek before the clouds took over. Kings Peak (high point of Utah) showing itself before the clouds fill in. I dallied a bit in starting in hope it would clear again. That didn't include drying the tent. Some things take far too long. I had to shake a thick layer of ice of the rain fly to pack it. Clouds filling in (and camera fogging up in solidarity) as the morning wears on. I found little streams higher up. They weren't any closer than what I'd collected the evening before, but would have been less climbing with the weight. They came off small waterfalls further up.

Bridger-Teton National Forest ( map link ) I stopped by the Pinedale Ranger Station where I bought a Bridger-Teton National Forest visitor map, Beartooth's map covering all of the Wind River Range, and picked up a free rental Garcia bear can. My bear can's lid is just not fitting all the way on anymore, even when it's warm out, so I couldn't pass up a free rental. Then I headed out to see what something called "Skyline Road" has to offer and have a little hike at the end of it. I was told I wouldn't find parking at the top with Labor Day weekend getting started, but it was still Friday morning and I can read a map. As I went by, I craned my neck at the Pole Creek parking area and saw that it was quite full but the people who went in to park weren't coming back out. It still had spaces. I continued on through the campground to the parking for Pine Creek Canyon, which I incorrectly thought was the closer one for me anyway. I'd not quite figured...

Gunnison National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6 (blue line, map link ) It was a cold night out there on the knobby-but-overall-flat rock. It stands to reason that the storm passing through included some cold air since the hail took so long to melt. I even pulled on my puffy pants overnight. It wasn't too hard to get up, but I still didn't make it out all that early. I had filtered enough water to camp, but decided to hike with what was left of my 3L from the day before. Sun about to crest the mountains to the east. Here comes the sun. Mill Creek has excellent flow up here, at least while the snows last. I debated trying to follow the trail past where I hadn't seen it before or just following sort of a shelf of land around to meet the trail higher up. Reporting on how, or if, it was signed at the north end wasn't important enough. I headed around, tending to go higher than where I was ...

Uncompahgre National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2 (map link) I had a plan for a more elaborate Blue Lakes trip than the typical, and extremely popular, up to the first lake, the second and third lake, the pass, or the peak trips. I was going to start off with a little adventure! Well, exploration. Well, I'd already poked around on the sunny morning of a day that was supposed to rain all the way through and found the old road where segmented, blobby white lines on the map happen to be. I'd been up about half a mile, so that was known to be solid road with a well used path. The rest, though, exploring! The road went up the mountain quite a ways and there were more segments suggesting a connection to the Blue Lakes Trail. I figured I might go up to where there is a reliable creek shown and, after getting to the end of the road, might camp by the creek. I expected it was a mining road once and had visions of ore carts and other oddities strewn about once I got to wherever was t...

San Juan National Forest Uncompahgre National Forest (map link) I had thought a bit about hiking up Sheep Mountain, checking it out as I hiked across Black Face and along the bottom of Lizard Head. With the sniff of signal at the top, I'd downloaded what Peakbagger could tell me about it. One person stated that they had found an old trail through the forest, but it wasn't going to where I wanted to approach the top, so I decided not to follow that track. I might have had a hiking partner for this, but when many days of rain were promised by the weather machine, we both ran for somewhere that wouldn't get quite so muddy and slick. He had scouted a route through the forest and reported that there was a lot of downed trees. That's not surprising considering how many standing dead trees you can see in this forest. With things dryer (but not dry), I decided to return and get something out of the effort of thought already expended. I headed out from the corral from muc...

Death Valley National Park (map link) (Not all of Death Valley National Park requires a fee, but this is within the old monument area where a fee is required.) There is no official trail up Corkscrew Peak, but it is sufficiently striking looking that someone decided it needed a roadside sign. I parked beside the sign where I found one of the many thin trails that converge onto a well worn use trail that climbs to the top. It's almost as good as an official trail. I was being promised morning weather including a chance of snow. I could believe it the day before as I explored Rhyolite under thick clouds, but I did the morning trail finding under an arc of solid blue. A very visible use trail going off to Corkscrew Peak in the distance. A couple puffs of cloud appearing over the top of Telescope Peak, far across the huge valley. The route drops into a wide wash where I could see remnants of trails from previous years. They all go the same place, into a short canyon with ...

Table Bluff County Park South Spit Wildlife Area (CDFW) Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge (Map link.) I headed out to the Ocean Ranch Unit of the Eel River Wildlife Area to hike the little bit of old road and levee, making various stops by the waters and looping back along the beach to see what the storms have washed up. That was all very well and good, but as I got there, I saw three diggers hanging out by the ranch and a great big closed sign. It is "closed due to a restoration project until rain and weather shut down operations." I was left with my "rest of the day" plan, which was find things to do on the South Spit. The Ocean Ranch has very little trail, but the spit has even less. My first stop became the parking lot that is the entirety of the Table Bluff County Park that the public may visit. From there, I could check out what was up, at least. The road behind the dunes is blocked for the restoration work. I crossed over to the access road...