Long Weekend in Death Valley

The baja at our camping spot near Inyo's Mine on Lee's Camp Rd.
Now that the baja's metal front end work is all done, we decided to take it on a real trip (after the Mendocino test trip). Originally we wanted to take it to Death Valley for it's test trip, but instead, we waited until we had more time (Thanksgiving weekend). Remarkably, we realized that every time we go to Death Valley, we never end up doing as much off-roading as we want to. This is usually because we drive there in the Daewoo. So this time we set a goal to drive on as little pavement as possible! Of course, we needed to get there first, and quickly, so we decided to do the southern route (as opposed to the Tahoe route). As we were driving down I-5, we got into the usual TG traffic. We also noticed the nasty whitish milky smog in the air. It was hard to see the mountains around Bakersfield until you were right in them, literally. As we got closer to Death Valley, the smog started to go away. It took us almost the entire day to get there, so we picked an easy location to camp. We had our site set on a place down Echo Canyon Rd. We were down that road only partially when we rented an SUV 3 years ago on our first visit to Death Valley. As we drove down the same road in the baja, it was almost nostalgic, but of course, way more awesome to be in the baja than an SUV!


The Hole in the Wall on Echo Canyon Rd.
Echo Canyon is a really cool road. At first you drive up a wash. This is really easy going, and a passenger car could do it as long as it didn't bottom out. At the end of the wide wash, there is a small winding entrance to a canyon. There are literally a bunch of S-curves once you enter the canyon, and it starts to get very narrow. Eventually, you get to a place called 'The Hole in the Wall,' which is a cool hole in the canyon wall. If you stand in the right place, you can see all the way into Death Valley Furnace Creek area through the hole! We weren't sure how much farther the road kept going into the canyon, but it sure did keep going. Eventually we saw a sign for Inyo's Mine, which indicated it was at the end of the road. So we kept going, since we still had some daylight left. But once we got there, the road didn't actually end! It kept going over the Funeral Mountains and into Amargosa Valley. We were here to go exploring off-road, so we thought, why not? Lets go over the mountains. . . .


The infamous dry falls on Lee's Camp Rd.
Well, we literally got 100 feet down the road when we saw an awesome camping spot. Since it was getting dark, we decided to stop. The sun dipped behind the mountains and suddenly it got cold. Really really cold! We built the tent as fast as we could, and then jumped back into the baja (which stays much warmer than a tent, just from body heat). As usual, the wind picked up a little, making it even nicer to be inside the baja. The Funeral Mountains are a bit strange after sunset. They are bare rock, but not like granite. They look almost crumbly and very very dry. They are called the Funeral Mountains, not because of people dying in them or anything, but instead because they have tops which are black in color. The black coloring reminded the first explorers of funeral clothing, so they called those mountains the Funeral Mountains. Who knows if that's true. A lot of things named in Death Valley have to do with death and dying because it was hard to live there (so hot and dry). You could really tell what must have been on those explorers' minds if the first thing they were reminded of when they saw black in the mountains was a funeral! But anyways, as I looked out of the baja window, the setting sun made the mountains glow an intense orangey-red. It looked almost like the rocks themselves that made up the mountains were red hot and luminesceing. At the same time the mountain tops began casting comparatively dark shadows. It was getting spooky!


The hidden Willow Spring in Gold Valley.
Eventually it got dark, so we turned on the little light so we could read the awesome Back Country Adventures, Southern California guide book to off road mini adventures in a car. We wanted to drive Amargosa Rd the whole way, so we checked the book about what that entailed. The guide book gave it a hard rating, because of one section (like a crux) in the middle called the waterfall. It said the waterfall was passable, but did not recommend doing it if you were alone. Well, we were still eager to go drive down the road a while, even if it meant just to the waterfall and back. And so that's what we did the next morning. We attempted it, but the nature of the waterfall's shape and step-like pass made us afraid we would bottom out and hit the trans or engine really hard. So after having a bit of fun trying to turn the baja around 180 degrees in a slot canyon just barely wide enough for two cars, we headed back towards civilization (Furnace Creek for coffee!!!). There Romy found a guy who was riding the same 80s motorcycle that he had in the basement all apart. You can probably now guess that we stayed at Furnace Creek for a little while longer. One hour later, we headed back into the lonely stretches of the park. The first place we hit was Greenwater Valley Rd. Up back in that valley, we found even more roads that went up into random canyons, and up to cold springs. One spring we found was called Willow Spring. It was so crazy bushy with willows that even the animal trails were being overgrown!


Sunset at Ibex Springs, the site of an old talc mine.
Our ultimate goal was to get to Ibex Springs, which is in the southeastern section and only accessible by off-roading. Ibex Springs was close by to an abandoned talc mine, called Ibex.Somebody planted a lot of palm trees at the spring, and also protected them by building a roof over the source pool. We almost missed the turn off, but eventually made our way towards Ibex. The road had warnings that deep sand was ahead. It sure was! Then when the sand was done scaring the hell out of you, the road started to go up and down and up and down in a very sinusoidal way and got pretty rough and washed out. We were roaring about 45 degrees along an alluvial fan. The sinusoidal ups and downs were the natural separation distances between washes. That's kind of interesting. When we were getting close, we no longer had to look at a map to know where to go. We saw huge palm trees, so kept driving towards them. When we got there, the sun was setting. And it was completely abandoned, meaning we were the only ones there. So we explored the springs for a few minutes before it got dark, and then built our tent, and soon went to sleep.


The shed that protects the cold springs at Ibex.
When we woke up, the sun was so warm and strong. But getting out of the tent was hard because it was still kind of cold. The next stop in our plan was to see the Ibex Dunes. I think those were the last set of dunes that we hadn't yet seen in the park. These were about as tucked away as the Eureka Dunes or Saline Valley Dunes. From what it looked like on the map, we should've been able to drive right up to them. So that's what we set out to do. I love dunes, and especially going walking on them. Death Valley has some of the biggest and best dunes. Driving to them would take us about an hour, even though they weren't so far away. When we finally saw them, they looked like they were close. But we just kept driving and driving towards them, with the dunes not really getting any bigger. The scale of things in the desert is so huge but you don't really realize. Well, eventually we did get to them, but then the road started curving away. We were still pretty far (about two miles) away, but it was clear to us now that that was about as close as we would be able to get by the road. So we parked the carr off to the side, and started walking.


We took a drive to Ibex Dunes.
We saw a lot of other footprints actually in the sandy washes on our way to the foot of the dunes. I guess we weren't the only ones with that idea. As we looked closer, we could see other people further out in the dunes. But they were still really far away, all the way down the dune that they looked like ants, not like people And at last, after about a half hour walk, we made it to the foot of the dunes. We saw only one trail in the sand. The rest of the huge dunes we could see were completely untouched and fresh. We were gonna be the first tracks since the wind erased the others. The dunes were big and steep, and it was a real challenge to get up them very fast. But we made it to the top, where we had an excellent view. The wind patterns made some of the dune formations look really cool. There were peaks, saddles, and bowls. Straight lines, curves, and ripples.


The prefect sand dunes!
We could've spent all day walking around on those dunes, but we had to keep going on to our next destination, which was Saratoga Springs. The springs were actually not that far away (less than a 1/2 hour drive, I think). There was a small parking area at the trailhead to the springs. The trail was only about 1/2 mile long until the springs. The coolest thing about walking to see those springs was the sudden change in scenery. One minute you were driving next to a dry playa, kicking up loose dirt and dust with each step, and the next minute you hear crickets singing, frogs croaking, dragon flies buzzing, duck quacking, and birds chirping. The reeds and grass grew so high, they were way over your head. There was almost no way to navigate through it without getting wet. The trail ended there at the springs, although if you wanted to go further past the springs, you could keep going on what I think must have been an old mining road.


The Ibex Dunes are not well trodden.
After getting our fill of the springs, we headed back to the car and ate a small lunch. A few more people trickled in and out of the parking lot. I was surprised. When we were done eating, we drove out of there and to our final destination in our plan, which was the Owlhead Mountains. These are in the southern end of the park. I'm not sure why there is a road through them, but I think it has something to do with a communication tower. We started heading down that road, and it was pretty well graded, but also kind of boring. Romy had fun with the baja speeding along. The scenery was cool, but the road had high banks, so you felt weird, like in a channel or something. We stopped after about half an hour when we saw a palm tree. We had hit the Owl Head Springs. It was actually kind of trashed when we got closer. The palm tree was growing out of a weird ditch, there were animal fences all around, and junk or trash remnants strewn all over. What a weird place.


Saratoga Springs was a wildlife haven and unexpected.
When we got our fill of the palm tree and looking at interesting garbage, we headed back to the baja. There was a branching road that started at the springs and went up and back into the mountains. According to the Back Country Adventures guide book, the mine at the end of the road had great views. So we decided to go. It was kind of a rough road, and got very narrow in some parts. It was in general not very interesting, except when three wild burros ran right along side us. Then they got scared, and started running away towards the top of a hill. They stopped all at the same time, and from the top of the hill, just watched us drive past them. We nick named them "The Three Amigos." Soon after the bend in the road where we saw the burros, the road got really narrow, rocky, and dusty. It continued up a steep and washed out incline, which we didn't feel like doing since we were basically at the top. So instead we got out to walk the last few remaining feet to a great view of the surrounding basin and range. It would be a good spot to camp at in the future as it was open and flat with some great views. And I guess that would be the furthest point in our adventure. After that, we drove back down the road, passing our "Three Amigos" who now stared at us driving by again, and kept going until we were almost back at Owl Head Springs. We took a small detour to check out an old abandoned 50s car, but then kept rolling right out of there, and hit the main highway up Death Valley. I think that section (going north on the Henry Wade Rd) was the very best scenery in terms of Death Valley. Entering the Valley from the south was really cool!


The view from Black Magic Mine.
That night, we drove far past when it got dark, trying to get as far out of the park as we could get. The next day, our goal was to try and get back home by nighttime. Still, we only made it slightly past Stovepipe Wells to a nice camp site past the airport landing strip. That campsite reminds me that there is a rode that goes up and across the alluvial fan just to the south west. I think it starts with an L. We'll save that for next time I guess!

The Baja Goes For a Spin in Mendocino

Romy has been working on making a metal front end for the baja for a long long time now. Its been slow going because of all the things in school this semester, like his qualifying exam, a conference, and other stuff. But he finally got it finished, and we painted it and got the baja ready to get off-roading again!

The baja in the Mendocino National Forest.
We decided to go somewhere close (originally we wanted to go all the way to Death Valley) in case something happened. Tools, our across the street neighbor suggested we go to Mendocino National Forest. We kind of forgot about this place, but it was actually the best place to go, since its just about the closest national forest, and we already knew a little about what to expect. We didn't get out of Oakland until about noon, so it was getting dark just as we pulled out of Upper Lake (on the north end of Clear Lake), where the road enters the National Forest land.

Night was fast approaching, and we tried to climb the first mountain as fast as possible. But dark came upon us and we had to find the closest camping spot we could. Luckily, as if by magic, an off-shoot road appeared and we followed it about a 1/4 mile to a nice opening. We could see all of the thin wispy clouds in the sky glowing bright pink and orange with the sunset as we built our tent.

There is a lot of moss or something hanging off the big oak trees.
The next morning, we woke up pretty early, and packed up. We had in plan to explore as many of the M roads as we had time for that day, before having to head home. We started out on M1, and then took the turn to go on M10. This part of the trip was kind of uneventful (except for some fun stream crossings), as the road was nicely graded. We passed by a bunch of rolling hills, climbing one of them steadily. Dense oak tree forests gave way to large open meadows.


A video of the baja doing its first stream crossing!
We made it all the way to Bear Creek Campground, and decided to look at the map, because we already took the route out of Bear Creek CG before, and knew of another road we hadn't gone on yet. Romy, with his eagle eyes, spotted the road on the map, and then spotted something even more interesting: a hot spring! It was marked on the map with the usual symbol, and there was a road that went right to it. So, we made it our goal for the day to reach the hot springs and check them out!

Stopping the fix something!
The road to the hot springs looked like the "main" road on our map (FR17N16), but it sure was not in very good condition as we started driving along. First of all, to get on the road, you had to cross a wide but shallow stream. Then, you had to navigate your way around sections of the road that were washed out, with ditches at least a foot or more deep! It was like this almost the entire way to the turn-off towards the springs. The road followed the ridge of the mountain we were on.

After about 2 miles on FR17N16, we found the turn off for Deer Valley Rd, which immediately started going down, down, down the other side of the mountain. The road was also washed out, and some parts had very loose dirt/gravel, making it kind of difficult. We basically knew about half-way down the mountain that we were committed to going out of the forest on his route because there was NO TURNING BACK! The road was so steep and loose, all you could do was hope for a nice controlled descent. So we were crossing out fingers. . . .


We saw bubbling waters at Crabtree Hot Springs.
Soon we saw a private property sign, and this bummed us out. We were really hoping that this hot spring wasn't another one of the privately owned springs which forbid public access. Then we saw a really weird collection of junk, and a trailer shack thing, and school bus near the bottom. It looked like somebody was living there (more like squatting or something). WTF!? Whoever it was, they didn't look like they were cool hippy types. The set up looked plain old nasty weirdo type people lived there. But shortly after passing that, the land went back to being national forest, so our hopes went back up that the people who "owned" the shacks didn't also own the springs. We hoped anyways.

When we got down to the creek at the bottom of the mountain, we parked the baja. Nobody was there and it was totally silent. We saw on the map that the springs were slightly downstream, so we found a trail and started walking. Only about 5 minutes later did we start to smell sulfur very strongly, and BAM! Bumped right into a no trespassing sign saying the springs were closed. We looked around, but didn't go any further, fearing that one of the freaks who lived in the shacks would come running at us with a shot gun or something! I normally don't get scared of hicks, but this was kind of weird!


More bubbling waters at Crabtree Hot Springs.
We turned around and walked back to the baja. We were hoping that the road out of the forest was passable, since we had no other options. But it turned out to be an okay road, without much events. I was just thinking about the hot springs, wondering about them along the whole way back. It was late afternoon by the time we got out of the forest, so we got back on the highway after taking a small detour to see the Indian Valley Reservoir. What a weird place, too! The reservoir must be kind of new, because the tops of old tall trees are sticking out, or the water level must be really low (although it didn't look like low water). Whatever the case, we want to go kayaking on it and paddle up to the freaky trees!!!!!


Indian Valley Reservoir, with freaky trees sticking out.
When we got back home, I Googled "crabtree hot springs" and was sooooooo surprised to see what turned out. Check out this link! It seems as if we had kept walking past the no trespassing sign, we would've got to some big HOT pools! However, the hot springs are kind of shrouded in some drama right now. Apparently the owners (who many think are squatters) have closed off public access to the springs, after first buying the property with the intention of "saving the springs" and having them be open to the public. Reading some info on the hot springs forums online, they seem to only allow people to come in if they bring a bottle of alcohol with them for the owners, or they are friends of the owners, etc. Also, it seems as if the owners are generally unpleasant people, and have basically ruined the soaking experience of many people who used to go there for years before. The most recent thing I read (as of July 2011) said that the woman owner became ill, and has left the property. The boyfriend of the owner has left as well. The springs are now free of their presence, and the shacks we drove by are supposedly unoccupied. The whole thing seems fishy to me. Hopefully the drama will end soon and the next time we return, we can actually soak without worry of crazy people!

The Dingo Races at Prairie City

This past weekend was the last race of the season for VORRA. The Dingo has been in first place for the entire season, mainly because we've been consistant in showing up to all of the races and we always finish (which is actually a big deal)! We finished the season with first place in Class 11. Yay!


Romy is ready to get in the car for the first moto of the day as co-driver.


These are the pits where everybody lives for the weekend. Lots of VWs in our pit!


Romy is getting strapped in the car before one of the races.

The race this weekend was a double header. Two full days of racing plus three fun races at the end. We came in the bus so that the camping would be more comfy. Since the race was a short track, we were able to sit in bleacher style seats and watch the cars race around the whole track. In the desert races, the tracks are many many miles long and go off in the mountains. You basically never get to see the cars except when they pull into the pits. It was fun to watch all the big trucks. We were the only Class 11 to race this weekend, so when we were "racing" they put us with other classes. Mainly other classes with VW air-cooled engines and funny looking Suzuki things. Romy got to be the driver for two of the 6 motos. He was co-driver for two others. I got to be co-driver for the 4th moto with Bob as the driver, and it was so much fun! It really feels like you're going super fast, but really you're not! Its just because you're going off road, ripping through all the bumps, skidding around in the muddy sections, and going over jumps. Nothing too bad happened to the baja except a weird persistent oil leak from one or sometimes both valve covers. Towards the end of the races, one of the drivers, Dave, overheated the engine by driving the car after the alternator belt popped off. The engine didn't sound very good after that, but it was the last race. Lots of work ahead in getting ready for the next season!


I look so funny in the racing suit and helmet. I look like a little kid!


Packing up the Dingo to take it back home (which is the Santa Cruz Mountains, south of the Bay Area).

Lynda brought her hula hoops which she made out of irrigation tubing. She taught me how to hula hoop and it was so much fun and totally addicting. Especially when the super decked out team next to us in the pits started blasting music. They were all drunk watching us hula hoop. We had a mini audience. Lynda gave me a hula hoop to take home. I got Romy addicted to it too! Watch out Burning Man 2012! Saturday night was a lot of fun because Bob brought an old drum out of a washing machine and it became our fire pit. The tiny holes punched in the drum looked so cool as the flames made them glow all crazy. Best fire pit ever. We told a scary story around the campfire, since it was right before Halloween. It was the kind of story where one person adds a sentence, and then passes it on to the next person. The story turned out really funny. One guy kept changing the weather every time it was his turn!


A video of Romy getting strapped in the Dingo for the 5th moto.

The Desert Dingo Races in Fallon

The Desert Dingo and Skittles take off, into a cloud of dust.
Over Labor Day Weekend, VORRA held a 24-hour endurance race. It was split over two days, Saturday and Sunday. Each day you had 12 hours (from 8am to 8pm) to get as many laps that you could on the 40-ish mile track. It went winding along the basin and range Nevadan desert, over playas and winding up canyons over the ranges. It was dusty as hell, but surprisingly not that hot!


The start of race day #2 on the playa outside of Fallon, NV.
It only got up to 90F, but you know, "Its a dry heat." So it was very manageable as long as you were in the shade. Romy got to the race early on Thursday night to help put the baja through tech inspection. The rest of the team arrived Friday night or Saturday morning. A lot of the people on the team were actually at Burning Man, so there were a few people helping out this race who normally aren't on the team.


The Desert Dingo pulls into the pits.
Romy had a lot of fun driving the car during both days of the race. I had my first dust experience (which I had avoided until this weekend), and realized that the dust isn't that bad. Its so fine that you don't even notice it, except when it combines with the grease in your hair and forms a sticky form of natural 'hair product.' It gets all over, and can't be avoided, so you just have to accept it.


Another shot of the Dingo in the pits, and Crusty's cool old truck.
Three Class 11 cars started the race, and we were the only to finish! One of the Class 11's broke down on the first lap on the first day due to a busted transmission. They put in a stock transmission another team gave them, and managed 1-3/4ths of a lap before that one broke as well. Then they just started partying. The other class 11 (Skittles) made it through most of the race but were taking it slow. They seemed to stop a few hours before the race ended, but I'm not sure why. We were able to finish 12 laps over the 24 hours! (7 on the first day, 5 on the second) Thats pretty damn good! Actually, it pretty amazing that we FINISHED the race without breaking down like the poor other bajas! This means that the Desert Dingo is still in first place in our class. Yay! First place! But, we did break both shock towers off the front, punch a huge hole in the drivers side fender, and totally screw up the front suspension. Fun!

Next are some pictures I took as the sun was setting at the end of race day #2. The Dingo was on its last lap, but most cars were already done, so the air was quiet, calm, and clear. These next pictures are why I like the desert. Especially at sunset!


Nicole and my shadow.



Beautiful blue sky and poofy clouds.



The sun burst through some clouds to give this shot a glowing effect. I did not photoshop this at all!



I saved my favorite for last. Typical basin and range landscape under a sky speckled with nice clouds.

Backpacking the Hoover Wilderness

Kerrick Meadows inside Yosemite National Park.
I never knew about the Hoover Wilderness until Romy found a random topo map a few days ago at REI and decided we had to plan a backpacking trip to check it out. Its funny that we never thought of it before, since we've been around the area so many times (its just west of Bridgeport and the Buckeye Hot Springs). Well, we finally made a trip. Romy was kind of in charge of planning it, and he had a good idea about trying to do a thru-hike instead of a loop. It turns out that Marcel & Nicole were also planning a hiking trip for the coming weekend, and they wanted to go to Yosemite, so we asked them if they wanted to hike in the Hoover Wilderness instead (close enough). We would start at one end of the trail, and leave our car there. Nicole & Marcel would start at the opposite end, leaving their car there, and we would pass by each other somewhere in the middle. That way we had a car at each end and didn't have to loop back. We could just do one long thru-hike, never having to repeat the same scenery or terrain.


The view as we hiked up-valley along Buckeye Creek.
We started out Saturday morning after getting our hiking/camping permit from the ranger station in Bridgeport off of Hwy 395. You need one to camp in the Hoover Wilderness. We had to tell them where we were planning on hiking, and give them a quick itinerary. We planned on starting at the Buckeye Campground Trailhead, hike up the valley following Buckeye Creek, and then go south through part of Yosemite towards Peeler Lake. Then we would hike out via the Robinson Creek Trail, past Barney Lake, and out at Mono Village. The whole hike was about 25 miles long, and split up between two days was not bad.


Hiking past gigantic mountains on either side of the Buckeye Creek, nearing Buckeye Forks.
We started out strong at the Buckeye Trailhead. It was hot and dry and sage brush was growing all around us, giving the air a nice smell to it. But it wasn't long before it turned into a muddy, marshy cow pasture! We quickly lost the trail, but we were confined to a pretty narrow valley, and we knew according to the topo map that we were to stay hiking up the valley. The cows were very curious, and some even ran towards us to get a better look. This part of the Hoover Wilderness is the least hiked, and it was pretty obvious because the trail was not maintained at all. At first we tried avoiding getting out feet muddy, but after a while we couldn't do it any longer. Romy almost lost his shoe in some ankle deep mud! But luckily, he pulled it out after a hard fight, complete with the funniest suction sound as his foot came out of the mud, happily with his shoe still on! We joked that we had "feet of mud." Every stream we had to cross we made sure to wash our sandals and legs clean. There were a lot of "dissolved" cow pies in the mud.


Cool clouds in the sky above huge granite peaks.
Eventually we got out of the mud and back on solid ground. Soon we actually entered the Hoover Wilderness, and the cows were no more. We started climbing a little more steeply, and began getting deeper into the mountains. The granite peaks rose high above up on both sides. The sage brush began to disappear, and we hiked through stunted aspen trees, and large pines. Soon we got right up next to Buckeye Creek, which was so crystal clear! We stopped to have a lunch break by the creek around 2pm after hiking about 8 miles. Our goal was to do at least 11 miles that day. After lunch we kept hiking, and soon we got to Buckeye Forks, where the trail splits in two. There was a small cabin, or shelter thing that was in disrepair, but okay I guess if you were stuck in a storm or something. Also, there were soooo many mosquitoes all of a sudden. I kind of was not expecting them so high up in the mountains.


We reached the Yosemite Park boundary and that means we're up and over Buckeye Pass!
We took the left fork that went south, towards Buckeye Pass, which was 9,000+ feet. We had plans on camping somewhere just before the pass. I was starting to get pretty tired as we hiked towards the pass, but after the trail forked, we only had one or two miles left before we decided it would be okay to stop for the day. But Romy had this crazy amount of energy, which he thinks is due to recently starting the gluten-free diet, and he wanted to hike all the way to Peeler Lake, which was still 4 more miles! I wasn't sure, since my feet were getting pretty tired, but after a few breaks, I was feeling okay to keep going.


A panoramic picture of Peeler Lake, where we camped Saturday night.
The trail towards Buckeye Pass was very flat, and was filled with nice meadows and sparse pine forests that had a lot of stunted trees, from the altitude. It made me feel like I was walking around through a different land, where everything was miniature or something (except the huge mountains surrounding us). It didn't really look like we were hiking towards a mountain pass at all. We were walking through meadows of wildflowers and a meandering creek. Before we knew it, we had reached the summit, which also meant we were entering Yosemite National Park, which the trail crossed through for about a mile or so, before heading back into the Hoover Wilderness. We couldn't camp in Yosemite because we didn't have a bear canister for our food, so we were forced to move on to Peeler Lake. The Yosemite part of the trail was really beautiful, especially Kerrick Meadow. We stopped there for a break before finding a camping spot next to Peeler Lake.


Romy standing at Peeler Lake in the morning.
We didn't see any other human beings the entire 15 mile hike from Buckeye to Peeler Lake, but as we got to Peeler Lake, we saw about 5 people! I guess its a popular spot! Some people were illegally camped too close to the water (you need to stay 100 feet away at least) which was kind of annoying. They have that rule on purpose, so that when you look at the lake, you don't also have to look at tents and stuff. We found a nice spot on the granite outcrops surrounding the lake, south of the trail. Unfortunately there were mosquitoes here too, so we quickly built the tent and got inside, away from the bugs. We didn't put the rain fly up, just the mesh part, so that we could see through the mesh and look at the sunset cast different colors on the mountains and clouds. Then at night, we were able to see the sky really clearly, and we saw the milky way.


We spent an hour or so at Barney Lake, where we met Nicole and Marcel.
The next morning we woke up when the sun hit us and it started getting hot. It was about 7:30am. We only had 8 easy miles to go to Mono Village. After breakfast, we packed everything up and hit the trail. It was all downhill from here. As I started hiking, I noticed that both my achilles tendons were hurting when I hiked. I figured out a way to walk so that they didn't hurt. I basically had to limp so that my feet would stay flat. I had to take lots of breaks, and it made the last 8 miles seem really long! But at least they were downhill, and most of the route was shaded out of the sun.


Sage, pine trees, wildflowers, and granite peaks filled our weekend.
When we finally got to Barney Lake, we were expecting to meet Nicole and Marcel, who started their hike that morning in the opposite direction. We got there around 11am, but they weren't there. So we decided to wait for them since it was such a nice spot to sit and relax. After 40 minutes, they came trudging by, and we were so happy to see each other. That meant our plan B, plan C, and plan D (reporting each other missing to the ranger station) didn't have to happen. We almost went swimming in the Lake, since it was so warm, but then the wind kicked up. . . .


We finally made it to the end of the trail at Mono Village! We are triumphant!
I wish we could've stayed there forever, but we had to start hiking the last leg of the journey. We made it to Mono Village in less than two hours, and i was sooooo happy to see the car because of my feet. But we were also warm and all sweaty since it was getting really hot outside. So we decided to go swimming in the Twin Lakes by Mono Village, but couldn't figure out why there wasn't a beach. So we just pulled off the side of the road and took a plunge. IT WAS SOOOOO COLD! I almost had a heart attack when my body met the cold water and I was out just as soon as I jumped in. Thats why there is no beach! Needless to say, we cooled off very nicely, and felt refreshed for our long, long, long drive home. We really like the part of the hike that went through Yosemite, so I think we will be returning shortly, as soon as my tendons heel up. Get it!? LOL!

Another Earthquake!

A map of shaking intensity from the USGS 'Did You Feel It?' website.


The beach-ball diagram for the earthquake.
There was another earthquake that we felt this morning, just a few minutes before 10am. It was only slightly weaker, a magnitude 3.5, and the epicenter was almost in the exact same place as the magnitude 3.6 last night, on the Hayward Fault near Lake Chabot! For somebody who has never felt an earthquake before, all of a sudden we have two now! This is so exciting! This time, I felt that the shaking was a little bit different. I was opening the dresser drawer in the bedroom ("getting changed" LOL) and I felt a strange strong pressure pulse in my ears. It was completely silent, but it felt like the pressure pulse you feel if you're parked on the side of the road and a big ass truck passes you by fast. My first thought was that it was actually a big truck going down the street, but that would be a crazy big truck for me to feel a pressure pulse so far away and inside the apartment! I'm not a seismologist, but maybe I felt the P wave passing by. This wave is usually not felt by humans, but it makes animals go crazy, because they are sensitive to it. Anyways, right after the pressure pulse, the shaking started but it was very short. I would estimate at most 2 seconds, and it rattled some stuff in the bathroom and on top of the dresser. Here is a link to the USGS report.