Desert Adventures

Emily and I had a super fun trip to Death Valley recently.  It was a trip that we had looking forward to for a while.  We were intending on going two weeks earlier, but with torrential rain imminent in the forecast, backpacking up slot canyons created by flash floods seemed like not the best idea.  After I completed my 10 day work week, we had four days off to play. 

We adhered to a strict regimen of as much hiking in canyons as possible interspersed with copious ice cream and treats from the general store. 
 

The view from above looking down at the valley floor.

 

The highlight of the trip was an overnight in Fall Canyon, famous for its smooth-sided narrows.  During the entire hike we were dwarfed by walls rising thousands of feet on all sides.  After a few miles we hiked up the walls of the canyon to bypass a dry fall.  After that we didn't see anyone else the rest of the trip.  

Emily and our friend Molly in the narrows of Fall Canyon.

Molly is the tiny ant in the bottom of the picture.

This is where we had to turn around.

This is a short class 4 climb to bypass a 18-foot dry fall with perfectly smooth sides.

Our other backpack was to a place called Echo Canyon.  Most people drive the 4x4 road that runs through almost the entire canyon.  Most people with a truck that is.  We tortured the Honda Civic to the first couple miles and then hoofed it on foot, carrying massive amounts of water for that day and the next (only 20lbs that trip, 25 the other).  We had good weather and relatively cool temperatures, although as we were leaving on Sunday the thermostat had made it up to 95.  It was great to get some quality desert time in before we head back to the midwest (aka flatlands) for the unforeseeable future.  

Eye of the Needle lit up with the last suns rays.

This guy was in some rocks that I was sitting on.  Luckily I didn't suffer his wrath.  Emily wished we would have brought a tent that night!

We hiked to an old abandoned mining camp with tons of old junk lying around.

Old and Older in the Bodie Hills

Although the mountains of the Sierra to the west here in Bridgeport are beautiful, David and I have both really come to appreciate the small canyons, streams and peaks of the Bodie Hills, which are directly out our back door to the east. Their rolling hills, scale, solitude and beauty is a perfect storm for exploring. Oh, and it doesn't hurt they they contain some of the best archaeology in the region. All the cool old stuff back there is the result of two different times and cultures, although a similar reason.

Bodie Hills with the Sierra in the background

Sunset over Bodie Hills

First, the Bodie Hills are jam packed with natural obsidian deposits. Obsidian, or dragonglass for you Game of Thrones nerds, is the best stone to make tools out of on earth (and probably in the solar system). It is super sharp, and in fact is still used for surgeries. So for the last 10,000+ years, people have been coming to the Bodie Hills from what is now California and Nevada to quarry obsidian. Not only are the natural obsidian deposits fun the look around for and very interesting, but there is just gobs of obsidian flakes and artifacts that people have been leaving here for millennia.

One of the Bodie Hills obsidian sources

Second, the Bodie Hills were extensively mined for gold and other minerals from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. In fact, at the height of the gold boom, there were about ten times more people living in this area than there are now! In the 1860s book Roughing It, Mark Twain wrote about the mining towns in this area. These people left behind standing structures in cities, the largest of which was Bodie, which had a population of about 10,000 at its peak, and more brothels and saloons than you could shake a stick at. Bodie is now preserved as a state historic park, but there other ghost mines and town sprinkled throughout the hills. There are also smaller settlements of just a few houses to stumble upon.

One of the stone structures in the Bodie Hills

One of these little spots is in a little side canyon not too far from our house. I checked it out the other day, and found some really interesting artifacts. The historical sites I am used to are mainly campsites from dudes who were ranching or cutting down trees in the 1920s and 1930s. They usually leave behind things like milk cans, tobacco tins, beer bottles and coffee cans. The little area in this canyon didn't have any of those things, but had really thick bottles, lots of cans with interesting modifications, and some pieces of kinda fancy ceramics that made me think of some pictures of Chinese artifacts I've seen. I looked up information about this stuff back at the house, and it turns out the bottles are from the 1880s, and the ceramics were part of a porcelain rice bowl. My previous conception was that the Chinese-Americans living in this area were usually low-wage workers under close surveillance by their employers. So it is neat to think that some Chinese people could have been making a go of it in a relatively remote canyon.

Piece of the Chinese bowl

Midwest and the Mountains

This fall and early winter was jam packed with gallivanting around the Sierra and the midwest. Our first trip to the midwest was for Eve and Jim's wedding, where a great time was had by all. Jon, Leah and Ira were also able to make the trip!

The beautiful bride and your nuptial correspondent dancing. 

Back in California, my work was disrupted by the government shutdown. For the National Parks, it really was a huge waste of money and time. As was living at the busiest entrance to Yosemite, I saw firsthand the tourists that had come from around the world to see the Park and were unable to enter. Furthermore, the shutdown was bad news for lots of local businesses, and many workers at hotels lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, on the East Side, David was hard at work tracking down fox poop. He was finally able to move out of the trailer he loved so much (sarcasm alert) and into a more spacious and warm bunkhouse. We continued hiking and exploring hot springs on the East Side, although we stopped backpacking as much as the weather got colder. David also came to visit me a couple times in  El Portal, and we did a few hikes around Yosemite Valley and made lots of delicious dinners.

David's potato harvest from the Bridgeport community garden.

Halloween: Weird dancing dude and a panda.

We headed back to the Midwest right before Thanksgiving, as my job ended and David got five weeks off for the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving with David's family and Salty(Devin), who made the trip from Chicago. South Bend got a foot of snow as we all worked together to prepare and eat a delicious meal. We also got to hang out with some of David's cousins, aunts and uncles and sample some delicious family recipes.

Back in Chicago, we met up with lots of friends. One highlight was having dinner at Breanne's. Whenever we manage to get ourselves invited to her awesome house, we know we are in for a treat.

Breanne is a genius at preserving food. 

David and I parted ways in early December. Sara and David took a road trip out East to Pittsburgh and Maryland to visit family. David reports that highlights of the trip were "quality brother and sister time hanging out in the car, a nice dinner with a lot of awesome family in Pittsburgh, seeing Connor's basketball game, decorating Lara and Eric's house for Christmas together, doing a bunch of fun yard work, and going to an awesome science museum".

Meanwhile, I traveled back to Portland to defend my thesis. I was really nervous for the talking portion, so I was pretty excited to have that behind me. Leah and Jon came out for the presentation, it was really nice to have them there. I stayed in Portland another week after the defense. Although I was pretty busy with finishing touches, I was able to hang out with Leah, Jon, Ira, Chris and my other Portland friends a fair amount. It is always fun to check in on my old haunts when I'm back in Portland, which inevitably involves sampling a lot beer and good food.

Title page of thesis. Five years in the making.

We were both in Minnesota for Christmas. It was super fun to take Ira and Everett(Eve's son) sledding. We got to babysit Everett for a night, with Brenda coming in as reinforcement. We also were part of a tamale making party, making over 100 for Christmas Eve dinner. Our trip to the midwest wrapped up in Chicago, five days later than originally anticipated due to crazy weather and airline incompetence. We experienced record low temperatures in Chicago, but made the best of the situation by preforming a set of groundbreaking scientific experiments guided by our fearless leader Ellen, including blowing bubble and throwing pots of boiling water in the cold. 

Although our midwestern adventures were wonderful, we were both very happy to finally arrive at out new home in Bridgeport, California. We are renting a room in a beautiful strawbale house at the foot of the mountains. The house has a great kitchen and a woodburning stove for heat. David met the owners of the house volunteering at the community garden, as they are both super nice. We're both very excited about the cozy house and hiking and snowshoeing in the gorgeous surrounding mountains and forests.

The living room windows look straight out to the Sawtooth Range.

Nice big dining room table for all out delicious dinners. Wood burning stove is behind the table.  

Great view when washing dishes.

Sunset over the Sawtoothes from the backyard.