Category: Campgrounds

Vacation – Friday September 17, 2010

It’s Friday and vacation is a great thing. We should do this more often.

It is warm as in the lower 90’s and Hank is uncomfortable. He’s not grouchy as he was the first couple of years he’s just can not get comfortable. He’ll lay in one place for about 10 minutes and then he has to move.

It’s the couch

chair

floor

under the table

different spot on the floor

chair

couch

he’s a warm puppy

In as much as Hank is a warm puppy Jean is ecstatic. She loves the heat and it’s actually quite nice this sunny and warm in September.

On a non vacation topic since I got this new laptop I’ve been working with OpenOffice for word processing and spreadsheets. MsOffice is just to expensive for a non work related activities. I think I’ll continue use OpenOffice for a while. One of the driving forces is my version of Office is Office 97 and it will not work with 64 bit Windows 7, at least I don’t know how to make it work.

OpenOffice wants to save text as ODF whatever that is however I’ve been saving text documents as rtf’s. Not really sure how odf’s will paste into wordpress blogs so I’ll stay with rft’s for now, may try odf’s later.

Got to go get a picture or two for today.
Our campsite for the week.

View of the west rim valley about half way up to the rim.

Silver Springs – Saturday August 28, 2010

At Silver Springs again this weekend, it was 53 inside the motorhome when I got up.
The sun is out and Hank is going to take me for a hike.

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Saturday August 28 Hank and I want on a hike up the original road into the Crystal Mountain ski area.  This was originally called the Old Mine road and was the one I first went up in 1958 with my dad and Jim Hoggin to fish the Henskin Lakes.   I think Road #7176 is the Old Mine road because I remember it going up the east side of the valley and this very old road still has the power lines into Crystal Mountain on it.
This is the sign at Half Camp which is 1/4 mile before the Old Mine road reaches the new(er) road into Crystal Mountain.  This is 3.5 miles from the Silver Springs campground.
This is looking up the valley where the old road reaches the new road.

This is looking down the valley from the same place.   This would be coming into the valley.

Hank is in the lower right hand corner, just a shot of the old road.

View a little farther down the road.

It’s a great trail but not much of a road.  Jeep or small pick-up would do just fine, larger vehicle would get the paint scratched pretty good.  It’s still in good condition and 2-wheel drive is all you’d really need to get up this road.

Here is the ever willing to go for a hike Hank.

This is a happy hiking dog (Hank).

The white line going from the middle towards the bottom of the picture follows this week’s hike.  The line going towards the top of the picture is the first part of last week’s hike.

Silver Springs – Sunday August 22, 2010

Hank and l hiked down to Ranger Creek air field. It’s just over 3 miles from here. Nice day for a walk in the trees, only about 25 feet is out in the sun.  
On the way back Hank decided he’d gone far enough.  He started to slow down and as soon as I stopped he laid down in the trail. We set there for 15 minutes and he was ready to go again.  He didn’t stop again until we got back to camp, a tired puppy.

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Here are some maps and pictures from our hike.

Green Trails map I made to carry in my pocket.

We are camped at Silver Springs Campground.  This week we hiked to Ranger Creek air field trail 1199 and last week we took 1199 and 1196 to Noble Knob.  Last week we got within 1/2 to 3/4’s of a mile from the top, elevation 5340 which is off this map.

The following two maps I made with Google Earth.
Ranger Creek and the sign.

Ranger Creek sign.

Noble Knob trail fork.

The bridge just before the trial heads up hill towards Noble Knob.  It’s at Deep Creek

This is the trail head on the first turn of the Coral Pass Road.

Right above Ranger Creek air strip / Buck Creek.

 

Silver Springs Camping – Saturday August 14, 2010

Great day 80+ degrees
Hank and I headed out towards Noble Knob, left at 10:00 get back at 4:00. Almost made it to the top.  We had stopped at our turn around point to let the GPS get the coordinates and elevation along with a good drink of water when two guys on bikes came by.  They said we were about a half mile from the top.
Starting at 10:00 we reached our high point from two weeks ago at 12:00 noon.  We stopped for a drink and Hank decided we should continue on until 1:00.  At our 1:00 turn around point we were having a drink, bone and candy bar when Tanya called to say they were back in San Diego.
Hank decided we should continue until the trees opened up enough to get a GPS location.  At 1:30 we reached an opening large enough to pick up 4 satellites, 5340 location 47 01 47N and 121 29 99W.  When we get home I’ll see about marking a map.  Home: We started at the tent in the lower left hand corner and turned around at the yellow pin.

When we got back to camp I had a shower and one of me favorite dinners, T-bone steak (1 lbs on SALE at QFC ), rice, soy sauce and a nice glass ( OK, several glasses ) of wine.

Penrose – Satuday July 17, 2010

New spot for us, at least new for the summer.  Going to Penrose State park this weekend.  We go to Penrose quite often during the winter.

I’ve decided the placement of pictures and text is to much of a hassle with this phone editor.  I am just going to post them and not worry about placement, when I get home and have a better editor l’ll go back and move things around.