Summary of our slightly epic trip visiting California's beauties with Scots Folks - the green part

(with thanks to that amazing tour operator gone astray as a geologist!)

Saturday March 14: GOLD COUNTRY

Google map of day 1: http://tinyurl.com/da3dp2

Visited Knights Ferry with its covered bridge and had a nice walk. Golden flowers dotting the landscape. Passed by Jamestown and Sonora, briefly discussed the Toppled Table Talus or the how and why of an inverted river valley.

Spent a lot of time in Columbia State Park - a restored / ghost gold mining town. Because they had a special event, the town was populated with rangers dressed up in traditional costumes telling us about life during the Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century. We visited the forge, the old schoolhouse, the graveyard (many nationalities there!), a sweets shop, the fire house with two antique human powered fire engines, the gold panning facilities and then went for a walk at the outskirts of the town where we caught sight of a bandit about to rob the stagecoach!

After our visit we went on to our destination for the night, the cosy Hotel Charlotte in Groveland, where we had a delicious evening meal.

Sunday March 15: YOSEMITE - Day 1

Google map for Yosemite day 1 & 2: http://tinyurl.com/a3ufeq

Finally Yosemite ... I was really looking forward to visiting the park and it sure didn't let us down!

After we hit the Park via the Big Oak Flat entrance, we first saw the Bridal Veil Falls tempting us to have a closer look. But our first destination would be the visitors center where we inquired about suitable walks. They recommended the White Mist trail which led us to Vernal Falls and then on to the Nevada Falls. Due to the snowy and icy conditions on the trail we didn't make it to the latter falls though. We did witness some impressive ice fall!

Luckily, since our walk was cut short, we had some time to go and see (and feel the spray of) the Bridal Veil Fall in all its glory and then - driving out of the park to our Bed and Breakfast for the night - had an amazing picture-postcard view over the park from the Tunnel Overlook!

As Moffat custom (established since 2007!) demanded it, that night we had dinner in a great Mexican restaurant in Oakhurst. Something worth mentioning was the cat of the Narrow Gauge Inn (our B&B): it had 6 toes on each of its paws! Apparently it is a mix of a regular house cat with a bobcat.

Monday March 16: YOSEMITE - Day 2

The next morning, we drove back into the park ready for a day-hike along Tenaya Creek and up the mountain between North & Half Dome. We set out from Curry village, walked the northern part of the Mist Trail and then the southern part of the loop around Tenaya Creek.

What started as a chilly day with freezing temperatures in the morning, turned into a sunny spring day along the Creek. We had an amazing view of the mountains mirrored in Mirror Lake (yet another of those picture postcard moments) and started our walk up the mountain with temperatures rising. Luckily a little stream coming down the mountain regularly crossed our path and provided us with some - if only mental - cooling. We made it all the way up to where the trail levelled out again and snowshoes or skies were necessary to continue on the trail.

Some deep bass noises temporarily upset Rachel and Will thinking it was a bear about to come out of its den, but we found out later that it was the sound of a male grouse trying to attract a specimen of the opposite sex ... ;-)

We did see a bear though, and that at the bottom of the valley (from the car - as Rachel had wished for!), crossing a busy street, totally ignoring all the cars driving by and stopping to get a better look!

That evening we drove out of Yosemite by yet another route, passing meadows coloured yellow by an enormous amount of flowers, witnessed a sunset colouring the sky bright blue and orange and spent the night in a Motel 6 in Fresno where we had our first In&Out burger, a truly American (Californian?) experience.

Tuesday March 17: KINGS CANYON

California also happens to be home to some of the largest living trees in the world: the giant sequoias. One of the best places to go and see them is in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park.

We stretched our necks looking at the General Grant tree in Grant Grove and then went for a long walk and some play in the snow. Saw some Chickarees, cute funny rodents that looked remarkably like squirrels, but somewhat smaller and darker. (For a fascinating story involving the sequoia, the cone beetle and the chickaree, read more at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/science/hartesveldt/chap5.htm)

Driving through the park on Generals Highway, we then had a look at the General Sherman Tree, which is volume-wise the largest living tree in the world, unfortunately had to pass on climbing Moro Rock and then took the winding way down and out of the Park. We had a brief stop over in Mariposa, another town with a rich gold mining history and then went on to Bakersfield where we spent another night in a Motel 6 (not too bad!)

Winter caving in Lilburn

The plan

After the Lilburn trip got cancelled last weekend due to impending snow storms, Wilbur - who was leading the trip - decided he wanted to give it another try this weekend. Four of the original party of seven were still up for it: Wilbur, Marek, Will & me, the others having to cancel for several reasons.

Getting there

Friday, early afternoon, Will & I took the train to Palo Alto where Will & Marek picked us up and off we went on Highway 85 driving through remarkably green undulating landscapes and onto Highway 152 through the San Joaquin Valley, passing the San Luis Reservoir and having an early dinner in a great taqueria in Los Baños.

With a full stomach we went on to Fresno, where we had a brief stop over at Howard's house to pick up the keys to the cave and to the cabin in Kings Canyon National Park. Howard is one of the old timers of the San Joaquin Valley Grotto. Since he couldn't make it on the trip this weekend, he graciously offered to act as our Fresno HQ, monitoring our activities via radio updates.

Around 21.00 h that evening we arrived at the jeep's destination. What should have been an easy 8 km approach from the Redwood Saddle Trailhead (see map), had turned into a much longer trip (16.8 km to be precise) since some of the roads were still closed after the storms last week.

An epic journey

We parked at the Big Stump parking lot on Highway 180, hiked on the sometimes dangerously icy Highway 180 and Generals Highway for about 6 km, put our newly bought snowshoes on at the "Overlook" and cut down a fairly steep slope to catch up with the secondary Redwood Saddle Road below and finally reached the regular trailhead around 23.40 h.

Even with snowshoes on, our feet would often sink about 30 cm, sometimes even deeper, in the soft and deep snow. This made our progression much more difficult, especially for the person paving the way in the front, constantly scooping up snow. Every hour Marek would establish radio contact with Howard to keep HQ up to date on our progress. The to-be-remembered one-liner that came up in one of those conversations and described our trip very well was "We're not as near Chinquapin as we thought ... This is going to be an all-night epic!". And right he was ...

Although progress was slow and difficult and we didn't have the time to enjoy it properly at the time, we walked through an amazingly beautiful landscape: a forest with giant Redwood trees, virgin snow glistening in the lights of our caving helmets, the occasional animals footprints and no sounds whatsoever, not even of the bears who were probably sleeping it up in their dens thickly covered with snow.

Finally!

At 4.00 h on Saturday morning we arrived in the cabin and - luckily for us - we didn't have to dig out the entrance! Wilbur started the old-fashioned cast iron stove, while Marek got a fire going. Warmed and revived a little, we fetched water, installed the emergency exit ladders, Wilbur dug out the bear (-proof) box, we ate something, had a hot chocolate (thanks for that Wilbur!) and went to bed around 6.00 h.

The next morning (hmm, or rather the same noon) - all being somewhat stiff and tired due to our "epic" walk (and despite the vitamin I for some), we decided to take it easy on the caving and do a course-familiarizing through trip for us newcomers, to be followed by some surveying and checking out leads near the exit. Wilbur spent 45 minutes digging out Meyer entrance, while Will and Marek went to check out the historic Lilburn entrance.

The cave

With more than 27 km in passages, Lilburn is the longest cave in California. It is a complex three-dimensional system dissolved within beautifully banded black and white marble (yes, the cave is formed in marble and not in limestone!) and has several large streams. The cave is managed as a research area and most work in it is conducted and organised by the Cave Research Foundation.

We made it into the cave around 16.00 h and it definitely fulfilled every expectation that might have been raised by all the stories we've heard so far. It is beautiful - especially in the lower stream washed passages near the Meyer entrance where the marble is not covered with mud. And it is a lot of fun, my favourite type of cave, the scrambling up and down one!

After descending the 12 m deep entrance pit with a cable ladder, the cold draft coming from outside fell away and we could start to enjoy a relaxed trip. Marek & Wilbur first made a slight detour passing Telephone Pit to show us a dazzling white flowstone and rimstone formation called the Glacier.

The way on was through a series of narrow canyon passages formed along nearly vertical joints intermixed with the tubular passages of the East Stream. The marble looked magnificent here! We saw beautiful examples of anastomoses (intertwining networks of veins in the marble) and pendants (shape-wise looking a lot like stalactites, but instead of being deposited by water, they have been carved out of the bedrock by water) hanging down from the mother rock.

On our way to the Hex(adendron) Room (originally named for the six passages meeting there until more exploring found that there are actually nine!) we saw the Big Yellow Hungus Thing flowstone-drapery-stalactite decoration and some very nice, bright yellow rimstone cascades and bath-tub-sized pools. From the Hex room, we made a detour to go and see the Enchanted River’s resurgence, the White Rapids, passing one of John Tinsley's sediment collector sites. Then we passed “That Room” with its mountain leather hanging from the ceiling like dead leaves and continued our way down Curl Passage to the emerald pool in the Lake Room.

Climbing up nearly 30 m up to the Upper Old Cave area, we admired the 6 m tall Great White Pillar and, passing a very unpleasant and nearly 40 m deep drop called the Crevice, went on to the 2 By 2 Complex with its twisting, branching passages sparsely decorated with white, orange and red flowstone and cave pearls.

Then it was on to the Bacon Rind Room where we went poking around for leads. The map didn't seem to make too much sense for that area so we concluded that the entire area would have to be resurveyed some other time and proceeded towards the historical entrance passing some nicely-named climbs up like the Ice Cream Cone.

We made it out of the cave by 21.00 h (the hardest part of it all being the walk back to the cabin through the deep and soft snow without snowshoes), had delicious food (fresh veggies, beans, Weiner sausages, mashed potatoes & Ramen noodles accompanied by hot chocolate), Wilbur & Marek did some maintenance in the cabin and went to bed at a decent hour.

Return

On Sunday morning everyone felt refreshed by a good night's sleep, we had breakfast, cleaned up the cabin and started heading back to the car around 11.00 h under a drizzling sky, again keeping regular contact with Howard at HQ. Although we had much more uphill stretches than on the way to the cabin, for some reason the walk seemed to go a bit smoother ... probably because we could walk back in our own footsteps (discovering en passant that we sometimes did ridiculous detours - a testimony to how snow and night time can change your perception of a landscape!) and maybe also because Howard and Janet had invited us for dinner and a hot shower in Fresno that evening and we were all looking forward to that.

Around 16.00 h we were all glad to be back on the Generals Highway, happy to take our snowshoes off and relieved that it had only started to rain more heavily for the very last part of our journey. After another 3.5 km, Marek got a lift from a friendly Hungarian family who dropped him off at Big Stump so that he could come and get us by car.

The worst part of our journey eventually turned out to be the end of it ... having to rearrange bags and be out in the cold rain after we had been in the warm car for a couple of minutes. Luckily the Visitor Center at Grant Grove had a covered porch where we could change clothes and even found heated bathrooms that were still open!

The perfect ending

At 17.45 h we were well on our way to Howard's where we were treated to a delicious chicken & cornbread meal with loads of side dishes. Janet even made us pumpkin pie, the perfect treat after an intense weekend!


Many thanks to:

• Howard for the sleepless hours and all the logistic support
• Janet for putting up with Howard on Friday night and making us a delicious meal
• Wilbur for organising the trip and making me toast on Monday morning
• Marek & Wilbur for driving us safely
• Will for being my perfect stove
• All the guys for not making me pave the snowshoe trail (:-s) (not that I wouldn't have done it ...)

It was a great type 2-kind-of-fun weekend, I think I might come again next time ... ;-)

Pictures

Participants:

• Will Heltsley alias Wilbur (trip leader)
• Marek Cichanski (Lilburn veteran)
• Will Moffat (Lilburn newbie)
• Joke Vansweevelt (Lilburn newbie)

Back to Nature!

Jeej, a new year ... and a new agenda! After years of fiddling with them whenever I saw them in one or the other bookshop, I finally got myself one of those cute Moleskine agendas ... ;-)

After two - sort of - lazy weeks in Philly it was time to get back into action: Will back to work and me back to the museum. And after so much city life both Will and I were very keen to get out into nature again!


The San Francisco Sea Caves

I had my first shot at nature on Friday the 9th. Bruce and Pat wanted to give Brigadoon cave (the one they discovered under the Cliff House on their trip in November and which we tried to map on our unofficial December Sea Caves trip) another try ...

Since it was only going to be low tide around 16.00 h, Bruce and Pat took Beej and me for some touristing in the afternoon. We visited Fort Winfield Scott, Fort Point and had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the surrounding landscape, all of this spiced up by Bruce's stories (that guy is a walking history book / geological treatise!).

No go for Brigadoon cave though ... Winter storms haven't come around yet, so instead of sand being taken away from the beach, it is deposited there and the cave has been filled up by more than 1 m of sand since November. So *sigh* we played around a bit in the sand, admired all the little critters stuck to the rocks, discovered a big fat stranded yellyfish, had a tour of the Sutro Baths and the little caves in that area and I got to play around with Bruce's camera at sunset. Some pics of the day ...

That evening Will and I went for dinner with Shadia (Will's colleague) and Dan in a German restaurant that served delicious food and had a really good time. Long live the nerdy geeks (or geeky nerds) (or forget about the nerdy part, they're not nerdy at all, it just sounds good ...)!


Whale watching at Point Reyes

To satisfy our craving for nature, Will and I had decided to go to Point Reyes National Seashore, a National Park at only about an hour and a half driving from San Francisco. We were invited to stay at Iris' - one of the cavers we had met at the Lava Beds trip who lives close to the Park and also volunteers there - and her daughter Lauren's place. They have a really nice house in Woodacre, a small town surrounded by thickly forested undulating hills, and the cutest dog you ever seen - Maggy (my apologies to all those dog owners whom I might be stepping on their toes right now).

We cycled to the bus station, put our bikes on one of the Golden Gate Transit buses, got off in San Rafael and then took a nice cycle route to Woodacre. Upon arrival, Iris and Lauren filed us in their car and took us to the park where we visited the antique lighthouse, watched whales in the distance and saw elephant seals with their newly delivered young on one of the beaches.

On Sunday, Frank - another caver - and Kris joined us for a trip on the "Elk trail" parallel to Tomales Bay. Frank has been a volunteer for the Park for more than ten years now; he knows an awful lot (a bit like Bruce, a walking encyclopedia) and entertained us the entire day with stories about animals and other ... We visited Pierce Ranch (now out of use), saw some big herds of Elk (Wapiti dear) and enjoyed the sun and the beautiful landscapes and sights. A great weekend!

Check here for some pictures of the weekend.