Digging out at Bear Valley

Camp Connell, CA -- The big March storms have passed, and daffodils are actually appearing at the lower elevations.
The temperatures are up into the 50s and 60s, and the snow is melting fast -- except at the highest elevations.
Bear Valley is at 7,030 feet, and they have had a winter to remember. Longtime residents compare it to the big storm years of the early 1980s.
Our son Zack works at the ski resort, another thousand feet up the mountain, and he spent six days straight shoveling snow so the lifts could carry the skiers.
Today we went with friends Gary and Jeri to check out their cabin at the village at Bear Valley.
The pictures tell the story, even when I bounced the camera around a bit.

Spring is trying real hard....

Camp Connell, Ca -- That's a Black-capped Oregon Junco pecking away at out bird feeder outside the kitchen window,
The bird, and his flock of friends, have begun swarming around the house in the last week or so as the weather is trying to decide what season we are in. We are at 5,000 feet elevation so Winter is still toying with us.
We have had a wave of Spring storms, mostly cold and wet, move in from the North Pacific.
So we have rain, then it gets colder, and we get a new layer of snow, then the sun comes out and it starts melting. Then the cycle starts again.
The icicles on the bird feeder are a result of those cycles, but the birds don't seem to mind.
The Grey Squirrels are moving around a lot too, as are the Stellar's Jays. The deer have not yet returned, waiting on the ground-covering snow to melt any day now.

Just down the mountain, the grass is a brilliant green and other critters are on the move. This beautiful skunk was getting a drink of cool water from a ditch near the Ironstone Vineyard near Murphys. I kept a respectful distance and he waddled away, only slightly irritated. but not spinning around and aiming his artillery in my direction as he will do when really threatened.



At Murphys' elevation, somewhere around 2,000 feet, the oak trees are not yet ready but the grasses are.

When you hear about the beautiful rolling hills of California, this is the place. It is spectacular in Spring as the plants awaken and the animals return to warm-weather patterns. The grass looks like the scenes we saw in Ireland last Fall. Almost hurts your eyes.

Or makes you sing for joy.
The old hymn "How Great Thou Art"expresses it perfectly:

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

I did not try to sing to the birds and skunks and squirrels. Didn't want to scare them off.




Earlier in the week I was driving on the highway near Calaveras Big Trees State Park and a coyote started to cross the road in front of me. He saw me coming, stopped, and backed up to the edge of the road and sat down to wait for me to pass, completely adapted to passing cars even here on the edge of the wilderness. Smart critters. No wonder they are the source of many legends among native people.



I missed a lot of good animal pictures because I was too busy looking, my mouth hanging open.

As I was standing beside a dirt road admiring the green grasses, a Red-Tailed Hawk soared overhead, intently watching the grass for a sign of a careless mouse.

One of the Scottish folk songs I love has a line in it about a hawk. He captures and eats only what he needs, the songwriter says, "not one mouse more."

Would that we were that conscious of what we do to the earth.



Back at our house, the snow plow came this morning around 7 a.m., scraping and blowing away the snow and ice from the drive so we could get out to work in the park's warming hut.

By late afternoon the icicles were gone from the bird feeder. The forecast for the next few days is warmer and sunny.

But you never know.

Spring Skiing at Bear Valley

Camp Connell, CA -- The night before we had about 18 inches of new snow, and then the sun came out the next morning.
So I went skiing.
It was one of those stunning days in the Sierra Nevada you can remember for years. Snow-capped trees, brilliant blue skies, fresh snow sparkling in the cold air.
I talked Pat into driving with me the 20 miles uphill to Bear Valley Ski Resort. The drive alone was worth the icy roads.
Because it was a Thursday even though we arrived late we still got a good parking space, one of my measures of a good ski day. No crowds at all. No lift lines.
Son Zack works as a lead ski lift operator, and we surprised him and had lunch together when it came time for a break.
It was a great day to be with family, even though Zack had to work and Pat stayed in the lodge where she read, ate, and made new friends.
Because of an inconvenient surgery in January I missed two months of prime skiing, and I don't have THAT many years of skiing left in my aging knees, so I was eager to catch up. But not so eager as to kill myself. I am a cruiser.
My Gulf Coast friends know I got a late start, only started skiing in my 40s, so I am happiest (and most competent) when I cruise the intermediate runs. I don't do a lot of flips, races, or deep powder.
But I love it, and it was a really good day.
The video is less than four minutes long, very amateurish, and a bit wobbly in places. But it will give you an idea of what it is like to soar on top of the mountains in winter.
And then I went home and took a nap.

Fall Color in the Sierra Nevada

California's Highway 4 goes right by our house and east through the mountains almost to the Nevada border

Camp Connell, CA -- One of our favorite places on earth is the area near Ebbetts Pass, 8,730 feet high in the Sierra Nevada mountains and about 30 miles from our front door.
Today was the day we promised ourselves, time for a Fall hike before the pass is closed by snow and while the color is rippling through the canyons and along the roads. We've been coming up here for almost 30 years, and today had to be one of the best visits ever.
Just driving along the narrow mountain road is a joy, but the best part of the day was when we grabbed our packs and hiked north along the Pacific Crest Trail for a few miles. We got one more chance to see and smell and touch this spectacular place.
So here is a share of our wonderful day:Pat stopped here to admire a lake surrounded by conifers on one side and a snow-covered slope on the other.
Alongside the trail we found a warm rock in the sun where we had lunch and looked for animal tracks
You can't find too many beautiful lakes high in the mountainsAspen, deer brush and oaks were all showing off golden yellows in the high country
This grand old tree marks the start of one of our favorite hikes, a place paved with wildflowers in Spring. My mother loved this area, so we scattered her ashes on a nearby talus slope where wildflowers bloom

John Muir wrote books full of praise for these mountains. I can't top that, but we can witness that he was right.
This is a place to renew your spirit and lift your soul.
When you are ready for a visit, give us a call. We're always happy to go higher up and further in.

Just before the snow

Camp Connell, CA -- Friday, Dec. 12, 2008 -- We returned tonight from a quick trip across the Sierra Nevada mountains to take a look at the high country mountains before the first big series of winter storms brings snow.
We started east across California's Highway 4, aka Ebbetts Pass Highway, on Thursday on a bright and sunny morning, cold and clear and beautiful. Fall color is gone, and the trees at high elevation are bare, sparkling, and ready for winter. The brush is ripe with buds and the stems are a red color, indicating they are dormant and just waiting for the Spring to come.
The streams and lakes we passed along the route are all partially frozen, particularly in the shady spots. The route we followed is also known as the old Immigrant Trail, or the Big Trees-to-Carson Pass route once followed by beaver trappers, families moving West, and gold miners in search of fortunes.
Our route took us through Markleeville, seat of California's least populated county, and by a wonderful state park. Grover Hot Springs Park has just what the name implies, steaming hot springs where you can soak at any time of year for a mere $5 fee to the state.
As soon as we had a quick lunch (the cook was sick at the hotel, but they served great soups left over from the night before) we took the plunge.


The springs are at 5,600 feet, and hoar frost was snuggled into the weeds alongside the trail, and small patches of snow in the trees on the north-facing slopes, but the air was comfortable and the springs terrific.
We drove on into Nevada to visit the home of one of our favorite historical characters, Snowshoe Thompson, a mailman who carried mail and packages across these mountains between 1950s and 1870s, on skis in winter.
He is considered the father of skiing, and local resorts pay him homage. It took him three days to ski across a route that took us about four hours of tough mountain driving. Mostly we admire his skill and strength. You can find out more about him at this website:

http://snowshoethompson.org/story_of_Snowshoe_Thompson.html

Then we went on to Carson City, the capitol of Nevada, with a quick drive through Virginia City, the heart of the Comstock Lode silver strike in the late 1800s.
Here's a look.
Of the two, Virginia City is more interesting, though little was open and we opted to spend the night at a casino hotel in Carson City. The Gold Dust West Casino, Hotel, Bowling Alley and RV Park, looked good but the food was bad and the casino pretty sad. (I was too, as I dropped $40 in the Wheel of Fortune Slot machines.)

Friday we drove west toward home by way of Carson Pass, a beautiful two-lane route that goes near Lake Tahoe (though you can't see it from Carson Pass). It is named for Kit Carson, who came this way 150 years ago.
We went by Kirkwood Ski Resort, and then through the gold rush towns of Jackson, San Andreas and Angels Camp before arriving home just at dark.
The rain started about 9 p.m., turned to sleet by 10.

P.S. We woke up to a light covering of snow this morning.
Much more is expected Sunday.

Working in Yosemite

(Using the internet at the Latte Da Cafe in Le Vining, Ca., just outside the park...

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park -- Pat and I have completed our first week of working as volunteers for the Yosemite Association here, and I wanted to pass along an idea of what it is like living in a campground and working in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
So, the pictures will tell the story, and I'll follow with a description later.
Suffice it to say we live at 8,600 feet, take our days off doing hikes at 10,000, and are determined to lose weight!
In out first week I spent an afternoon with Michael Adams, who did a program on his father Ansel, and then the next day Pat helped a singer-songwriter do a workshop in the old Parsons Lodge. Then we were invited to a workers party at "road camp," where the enchiladas were cooked by the great-grandson of Galen Clark, for whom the Clark Range is named.
The people are like family, and make us feel most welcome.
More later.

Snow, snow, beautiful snow

Camp Connell, CA -- While it wasn't the storm of the century, it was a beautiful BIG dump of snow.
We had about four feet within three days, most of it yesterday (Saturday) after days of off-and-on snow and rain.

Here's what our closest paved road -- it leads to our dirt lane --look like after a big snow while the power company crews work to restore power:

Here's what Pat looks like when she is wearing snow shoes for the first time--she only fell down a couple of times -- and that's a pretty good view of the house behind her:

Here's what Sanders looks like when digging out the Subaru, or at least thinking about it:

And here's what our summer toy -- the canoe -- looks like, with our stalled garage construction project (foundation only) not quite obvious to the left, marked by the rope:


We holed up in the cabin for a couple of days, and there were minor inconveniences: the power was off 16 hours, and we got a chance to test our little camp/boat stove, and all our flashlights; the snowplow showed up about 5:30 a.m., which was a rude but welcomed awakening, and it took me several hours of shoveling to clean up walkways, decks and the edges of the driveway.

But all in all, a pretty interesting couple of days.

Tomorrow, I go skiing for the first time this year.

Then, weather permitting, we'll go sailing later this week. THAT's why people live in California.