Mid-summer in the Sierra

July has been a busy but awesome month. It is crazy to think that we are well into summer! Its been really hot here in El Portal – highs of over 100 every day – but luckily no humidity! We’ve been escaping into the mountains to cool down.

A couple weekends ago we took a short jaunt to the east side of the Sierra.  One highlight was Mono Lake, which is a very interesting place.  Because it has no natural outlet, the water evaporates, leaving the minerals behind, giving the water a very high salinity.  It is supposedly three times saltier than the ocean.  When the city of Los Angeles starting filching the water supply in the 1960’s, the water level dropped and it exposed towers of accumulated carbonate called tufa. 

Tufa towers at Mono Lake

Another awesome part of that weekend was an awesome dayhike through Lundy Canyon, which was full of beautiful wildflowers.  We climbed to the top of the canyon up to a basin with numerous small tarns (small lakes in the high country) were nestled in the mountains.  It was quite spectacular. 

Steelhead Lake

Falls at Lundy Canyon

 The next couple weekends we spent with David’s family in Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Yosemite.  We had an awesome time hanging out, eating good food and seeing the sights.  One highlight was seeing the giant sequoias, which was also a first for Emily.  David’s favorite part was an old timey store where we got ice cream.  It also had four hummingbird feeders in front, and we were able to see up to a dozen hummingbirds from several feet away.

King's Canyon National Park

This past weekend we were back at it burning up the trail.  We did a great dayhike starting from a high elevation lake(Tenaya Lake) in the north part of the park, hiking to one of the best 360 vantage points (Clouds Rest), and then going all the way back to the Valley.  It was a popular trail and had a lot of other hikers, but it was well worth the crowds for the amazing vistas.

View of Half Dome and Yosemite Valley from Cloud's Rest

David celebrated his 29^th anniversary of existence with the traditional butterfly census (and hoping no one notices its his birthday).  Meanwhile Emily celebrated his birthday by making her favorite food, macaroni and cheese, ostensibly for his sake. 

Ramblings in Yosemite

Last week we made a delicious dinner using some spices that Emily got from her Mom for Christmas.  It wasn’t quite as good as Mom cooking, but Chris refuses to move out here and live in our closet. 

The deliciously spiced Indian food. 

We’ve been on lots of great hikes the last few weekends.  One trip included a side route to Royal Arch Lake.   Once we got there David climbed hundreds of feet up a peak while Emily took a nap. 

Royal Arch Lake

Last weekend took us up the Lyell Fork Canyon, a very popular spot for all, especially fly fishermen.  We climbed out of the canyon to Ireland Lake, our campsite for the night.  Unfortunately we hadn’t really researched the location too well.  It turns out that it’s a very windswept place normally, and the unusually high winds that weekends combined with the generally harsh timberline setting led to quite a gusty night.  We survived however, and proceeded the next day to continue on adventuring in the  beautiful high sierra.

Lyell Fork Canyon

Ireland Lake

Evelyn Lake

High Sierra

This past weekend we took one of our most incredible backpacking trips ever!!!  We did the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.  The combination of towering granite cliffs, raging river torrents, tranquil aspen groves, an amazing diversity of plant life, and cascades that would make a water park envious all made for quite a fun weekend.  We started at the headwaters of the Tuolumne River and followed it 20 miles along as it dropped 5,000 feet over the next three days.  The hike out today up 3,000 feet of switchbacks was a bun-burner but well worth it.  

Tuolumne River in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

First night campsite

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

This spot was great for rock sliding and swimming

Almost the end of the  hike -- sad!

Family Fun

A couple weeks ago, we had a guest appearance from Mom, Dad and Jon. Apparently they heard via our blog that we were  in Yosemite and tracked us down. We saw the sights and I am happy to report we also ate ice cream every day. Mission accomplished.

Dad experiences a shower at Bridalveil Falls. 

Mom and Jon chilling in Yose Valley. 

El Portal

El Portal (where we live) is a small community located just west of one of the most popular entrances to Yosemite. It was founded by a railroad company that built a line to Yosemite from Merced. The rail ended in El Portal and tourists were transported the rest of the way to the valley by coach. 

El Portal is in a beautiful area right along the Merced River canyon. The are no restaurants or bars, but there is a library, a pool, tennis courts, and lots of fun people. And, of course, having Yosemite as a neighbor is pretty great.

At the top of Smith Peak, overlooking Hetch Hetchy. Molly, my former roommate and a fellow Midwesterner  joined us for the hike. 

The view from Smith Peak

David has been working a lot in a place called Poopenaut Valley. I joined him for a couple days last week.

Morning view into Yosemite Valley from the west.  

A baby California newt.

Wildflowers in El Portal.

On the top of El Cap, looking at Half Dome. 

Vegas

Last weekend found David and I in a location that may surprise our legions of blog followers (hi moms!) – Las Vegas. I was able to get most of the traditional Vegas tourist activities checked off – drinking oversized alcoholic beverages, gambling ($3 down the hole at slot machines!), and seeing a mock battle between sexy pirates at Treasure Island. I even was able to accomplish an activity I hadn't even known to dream about – eating a deep-fried reeses peanut butter cup. 

Vegas Strip on Saturday night.

Eating my delicious fried candy bar

Bellagio Fountain

Sadly, my fantasy weekend was cut short when David not only refused to buy me a plastic guitar filled with 100 ounces of daiquiri but also dragged me off The Strip to Red Rock Canyon for a hike. Actually, once I got used to the fact that time that could have been spent at a Carrot Top performance was going to be willed away in the great outdoors, the hike was pretty awesome. We went up to the top of Turtlehead Peak, which had great views of the Vegas Basin.

Always on the lookout for birds. 

Another highlight of the weekend was scrumptious meals – one at an Ethiopian place and another at a all veg Chinese restaurant. Monday morning I met my friend Kelly and his girlfriend at a great brunch place with lots of items named after places in Indiana. I saw something on the menu called the South Bend scramble and ordered it as a matter of principal. It was delicious – eggs, hunks of bree cheese, charred tomatoes, green beans, and breakfast potatoes with a huge biscuit. Not sure about the connection to South Bend though. Anyway, that’s all that’s fit to print about our Vegas vacation ;). 

life in the desert

So I've been back from New Zealand for 3 weeks now. It was a pretty fast transition to the desert tortoise job in the Mojave. Las Vegas is just as washed out and crazy as I was expecting, however I haven't really spent any time in the city itself. I've mostly been out in the desert during the week and taking off on the weekends. We've had a lot of training for the job, mostly because the tortoises are a federally protected species and so we have to know how to properly handle them. Apparently, in the past biologists have contributed to the spread of diseases between tortoises, oops. We also got wilderness first aid training, which was really nice. It was stuff that I really should know, being in the backcountry so much.
Not having spend a lot of time in this part of the country, I wasn't sure what to expect. When most people think of the desert they think of a barren wasteland. I'd spent a lot of time in the Sonoran desert in Arizona, but I'd never been to the Mojave, which is a lot hotter and drier than the Sonoran. Luckily this time of year is much cooler than it gets in the summer. There is actually an incredible amount of cool places to go hiking, birding, and other outdoorsy things in the area. One big advantage the Southwest has to the Pacific Northwest is the amazing diversity of reptiles It's been really fun to learn new species that I haven't seen before. Some really cool new species of birds as well. Red Rocks is an amazing recreation area only a 10 minute drive from my front door. It's one of the best climbing areas in the country. There is more to Vegas than casinos!!!
Last weekend I went to Death Valley to explore. My co-worker Andrew and I barely scratched the surface of stuff to see in a short weekend but I was pretty blown away by the amount of slot canyons to explore, dry washes to hike up, and all the colored rock formations present. Death Valley used to be the bottom of an enormous lake, and eventually all of the various earth layers got all mixed up and pushed around and the result is really cool rock.
I only have 3 and a half more weeks until I head to my summer job in Yosemite and I'd really like to explore this area as much as I can while I'm here. I plan on using every second of my weekend time seeing cool outdoor stuff. Except for when Emily comes to visit in a couple weeks and we do tons of kitschy Vegas stuff like mini-golf and Guinness World Records museums, etc.

hike in Death Valley

cottontop cactus

a dry waterfall


looks like a headcoming back down a dry streambed in the canyon


colorful hills

more hills
desert tortoise

NZ recap

Well, that moment has finally come. Two months have totally flown by and tomorrow I fly back to the states. I've been spending the end of my time here pretty much like the beginning of my trip, strolling around Christchurch's stellar Botanic Gardens and the enormous Hagley Park, enjoying the grounds and having lots of picnic lunches. There are a couple good free museums in town, but it's too hard to spend time inside, so I haven't made it yet. The main downtown of the city is still completely devastated and it's quite a spectacle to see all the crumbling buildings in various states of disrepair and all the enormous cranes looming in the city's skyline.

So I guess I last posted about a month ago. Since then I've been doing as much backpacking as I could, except for a bit of city time in a place called Dunedin. I've been mainly in two national parks called Mt. Aspiring and Fiordland. Describing all of the hikes, while I think would be fascinating, would probably bore the standard person to death so I won't pore over the details. I'll just paraphrase: 1) New Zealand has incredible wilderness and national parks 2)I'm doing some of the best hiking I've ever done, in January and February to boot 3)Life is good.

I took a break from the trail at one point to spend some time in a really cool city called Dunedin. It's a college town filled with tons of beautiful old buildings,really good food, the best nightlife on the South Island, cool free museums, and it's on the Otago Peninsula, which is one of the best spots on the island to view wildlife. It turned out that I had an old Earlham friend living there who I stayed with and she just happened to be getting her masters on yellow-eyed penguins, one of the world's rarest penguins. She took me around and gave me the first-hand expert tour of the penguins, which was really cool.

After I left Dunedin I stopped for a couple days in a cute little town called Oamaru. I did a lot of leisurely strolling around the old buildings and gardens as usual, but the definite highlight was lawn bowling. I've spied lawn bowling greens around New Zealand since I first came and have really been wanting to see it in action. There was the equivalent of a VA-type place in Oamaru where I actually got to try it out myself. I joined June and David, a really cute old couple, on the green for a really nice morning of bowling and chatting. Lawn bowling is kind of like bocce ball except one big difference is that the balls you throw towards the jack are much heavier on one side than the other. The ball will roll fairly straight for a while and curve strongly after about 20 meters, the length of the green. You have to plan for this curve when you release the ball, it's quite a game of finesse.

Leaving Oamaru, I lucked out and got a hitch all the way up to Christchurch with a guy driving a huge truck transporting medical wastes. It wasn't an 18-wheeler, more the size of a large garbage truck, and it was an interesting view to take it all in from up high. The driver was a really interesting guy, he had just taught English in Thailand for three years, and had traveled around se asia and australia for the better part of 20 years. When I got dropped off in Christchurch, lo and behold there was an enormous beer festival going on. Apparently they had sold out 10,000 tickets (didn't seem quite that big though), but I managed to sneak my way in and enjoy the live music and even a bit of the overpriced but delicious beer. That night I camped at the Occupy site, which was interesting to see how things were at an Occupy so far away from New York.

In the past week I've been backpacking at a national park called Arthur's Pass. Most tracks consist of unmarked trails, and you mostly just follow certain river drainages. I didn't see a single person on the trail for four days in a row. It was certainly some of the most wild and remote wilderness I've been in. I did a bit of shorter hikes and one big burly backpack which had hot springs near one of the huts. They naturally bubble up at a spot directly on the river,so you can divert water from the river until the temperature is perfect for soaking your body battered from the intense hiking and bushwacking.

So tomorrow I fly to Las Vegas where I'll start my desert tortoise job. The big news of the moment is that I just took a job in Yosemite for the summer. I'll be working mainly with birds, but also doing some bat and alpine mammal surveys. One big difference between this summer and the last few is that I'll actually be working directly for the national park instead of a non-profit. The other BIG difference is that Emily is at Yosemite and for the first time in five years we'll be able to spend the summer together!!! We are both really excited about this and look forward to a really awesome summer.