Category: Hiking

Ranger Creek – Wednesday July 8, 2015

Ranger Creek Air Strip

Some of the things I like about camping and hiking in the hills ( in my motorhome ).
My comfortable bed and it is not on the ground.  Getting out of bed by placing your feet down onto carpet is no comparison to having to get up off the ground.  Crawling around on your knees to get dressed and out of the tent.  Always a joy to put your shoes on while sticking your feet out the tent door so dirt does not get into the tent.
Not having to hike a half mile just to dig a hole in bunch of rocks to deposit what is left of the previous day’s breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Things I don’t miss:
Cooking on a fire
Cooking on the ground, when using a stove
Walking a quarter to half a mile for a drink of cold water
Washing dishes standing on your head
Washing up in a bowl that is 6 inch across and 2 inches depth

I do miss multiple night hikes. We used to do 8 night hikes once a year. In my young years we would go 50+ miles.  Later we would cover 30 to 35 miles.  This would mean shorter distance each day carrying a pack and more afternoon and evening exploration hikes.  Dinner at five, with dishes done by6:00 and we would have until 9:00 or 9:30 to explore.

I do miss hiking one direction ( not having to walk back however far I hike from the motorhome. )

Today was not much of a hiking day.  Hank and I got an early start however it did not last very long.  Hank was tired, he was walking along side me or mostly trailing behind. After about half a mile we turned around and called it a day.  We are both getting older.

Today’s helicopter:
iPad note writer

Ranger Creek – Tuesday July 7, 2015

Got the satellite TV dish set up this morning.  Last week I had changed our physical location to Crystal Mountain which is only a few miles away and in the same zip code as we are now.  Matter of fact when Google maps originally setting up zip codes 98022 (Enumclaw) was attached to the physical location of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort.  A lot of databases are still this way.  Most medical search databases when you search for doctors within 5 miles of 98022 the results are NONE.  When you change the search to 30 miles all the doctors in Enumclaw show up including the hospital.  Once a mistake is made it is very difficult to get it changed.  Anyway we have local Seattle-Tacoma TV stations coming down from the satellite.

Hank and I got out for a hike this afternoon.  Walked the trail along the river ( White River ) for 4 miles and then came back.  We were in heavy forest the whole time so it was really nice and shady with a dirt trail the whole way.  We saw two other groups out hiking in the nice weather.  I took my InReach GPS however being down inside a large stand of trees it only was able to transmit our location once during the three hours we were on the trail.  When we got back to camp I set the GPS out in the open so it could transmit it’s data, it will be interesting to see where it thinks we were. I also set a waypoint ( #10 ) for a point of reference.  This waypoint is after we had turned left away from the river for 0.6 miles and also our turn around point.
Another beautiful with a high of 85.
Hank was tired when we got home.

We are the only people here tonight, nice and quiet.

Army helicopter came into the landing strip this evening.  He came from the north, landed south to north, set for several minutes, took off north, came around and left going to the south.

iPad note writer

Crystal Mt. Sunday June 28, 2015

Hank and I got out this morning for a hike up the right side of the valley.  My Fitbit says we went 7.35 miles, 15792 steps, the gps on my InReach says we got to 5608 feet up the mountain. We turned back because I cannot tell how tired Hank is when we are hiking.  He goes as fast as he can until he has nothing left.  We were at about 4 miles and my guess was another 1 to 2 miles to the top.  That would add 2 to 4 miles to our outing and I decided 7 to 8 miles on our first day out was enough.  I also have to watch out for his feet. The trails up the right side of the valley are all  roads and I’m always concerned about  the amount of time he has to walk on small crushed rock and larger rocks.
I marked a waypoint where we turned around.

We did the right thing turning around, Hank has been sleeping since we got back.  He’ll lift his head when I go outside to make sure I don’t leave without him.

Bandelier Natl Park Valley – Saturday June 13, 2015

Pictures from my morning hike into Bandelier Natl Park. 
I got up early one morning and hiked to 1.5 miles down into the valley and then did some more exploring of the valley floor.
Looking across the mesa at the  volcano which created this rock.
The higher area is the caldera which created this area.
Frey trail down to the valley floor.
The information I read at the visitor’s center says this is a parrot.
Couple of years ago a flash flood created quite a mess, here are some of the thousands of trees backed up on other trees.
Trail up to the Alcove Area of the park.
It was a nice morning, I was back to the visitor’s center by 9:30 a.m. to catch the first bus back to the campground.  I did have a jog down the trail a ways to catch the bus.

Our first afternoon at Bandelier Natl Park.

Here are a few of the pictures I took during our first day in Bandelier Valley.
A flower that was all over the valley.
An open Kivia.
This shows here some of the houses were built extending from the wall.
Looking up the valley at where the homes are placed.
Showing the homes in the holes in the rock wall.
In the middle you can see the railings and steps up into the homes.
More of the railings between houses.
This rock is just full of holes and is relative soft.
This cool flower again.
You can see people in the middle of this picture.
Here is a herd of Rangers.
The homes on the valley floor.
More of the railings and people looking at homes.

The logs go all the way back into the rock wall to form a roof for the lower unit and floor for the upper home.  Later I’ll have pictures of the log holes in the rock wall.
The holes in this rock is just strange.
See the railings and people.
Couldn’t get enough  of these holes.
Homes down in the valley floor.
Shows homes under an over hang.
Long row of homes.
The small round holes is where the roof and floor supports went into the wall, the homes were three stories.
Roof and floor support holes.
 Abert’s squirrel, look at the ears.
This is from inside the museum, shows how they constructed the homes.
This is from the road leaving the valley.   It was a nice morning.

Crystal Mt. – Monday July 28, 2014

Another write offline to be published later.

Monday Hank and I hiked up to Bullion Basin.  It was a beautiful day, we had a good time and were TIRED when we got back.  Left about 10:30 back at 3:00.

 

Here is topo InReach view of the hike.
This is the satellite view.
Picture of Bullion Basin, and yes the basin is named for gold bullion.  This whole valley was a gold mining area in 1890’s.
Hank asking do we have to stop NOW, I still want to smell thinks.  When he’s hiking up the trail he pants to stay cool and drags his tongue in the dirt and dust someday I’ll remember to take a picture of his dirt tongue (happy Hank).

Picture of Mt. Rainier from just before the trail reaches Bullion Basin.

 

I have more Mt. Rainier pictures, here is three more 13, 14 & 15.

Have a great day.

Fort Flagler – Saturday June 7, 2014

Hank and I are spending the weekend at Flagler.  Nine months ago I made reservations for all the weekends in June.  I’ve had to cancel the next two weekends and Jean has to work tonight so Hank and I came out to enjoy the great weather.

Hank rode shotgun for a while:

Retirement count:  25 calendar days 18 work days, Jean had 12 work days.

One of my retirement goals to do a lot of hiking.  GPS technology has advanced to the point where I could buy a unit which will transmit my location to a satellite every 10 minutes and post the position on a website anyone can access.  This is posted in real time.

Some of the cool things: as I said transmits location every 10 minutes, stores location inside the unit every 15 seconds (this is uploaded over web later), will sent and receive 160 character texts, can create stock text for quit transmit, confirms a text was received by satellite, has SOS button, operates for 100 hours, can set the location transmit at up to 4 hours, the unit can be pinged to give it’s location, pairs with smart phone for topo maps, and other cool things.

This is a screen print I took from Ipad.  The drive over here on Friday, the way points are every 10 minutes so this will also show where the traffic was the heaviest.
Couple of walks around the park.

The long line going to the bottom of the picture is from the drive in Friday.  It looks like it will be a cool tool we can use to show where we are whether we have internet or not.  This just needs a clear look at the sky.  Oh, by the way it is Delorme inReach Explorer.

It is also summer time.

Strawberry daiquiri time, had two.  I bought some frozen strawberries and put them into serving size zip lock sandwich bags, had three in the freezer (thinks for the GREAT idea, Jean).  Hank and I are both tired, we were up and at it early this morning, did a walk around the park before PBS’s Car Guys and Wait Wait.  Tanya gave me a FitBit at Christmas and today was the first day over 20,000 steps, 21,356 right now.

That’s it for today, no more motor home trip before retirement.

 

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.