Great Basin Alpine Traverse Aug 5

This was Heather's trip and though I don't usually think of Nevada as a "go to" destination, I was mildly curious to see Great Basin National Park and to experience it in the best way possible. Unfortunately Lehman Caves was closed to tours because of the pandemic. Most of the trails center around the Wheeler Peak (13063') area where there are glacial moraines, lakes, bristlecone pines, and the peak itself. Further south at the end of Snake Creek road was another trail that went to a pleasant looking lake, past a mine, then on up to the main alpine ridgeline. Curiously the alpine terrain extended for 3.5 miles between the Johnson Mine and Wheeler Peak without a trail or route marked- I think I found my adventure! It seemed rough and potentially slow going but certainly doable. Heather kindly let me do my own thing for half a day and would be able to pick me up at the end. It would be a 12.5 mile hike with a 4000ft elevation gain.

I woke up early, packed my ultralight daypack (4lbs with water?), and loitered a bit. Though the plan was to have Heather give me a ride up the road 1.5 miles to the road end I didn't have the heart to wake them from restful sleep and so started my hike from the campground (7500'). I got to the trailhead at about 7am and made good time hiking through the aspens and meadows with the light pack and cool morning. The hike was fairly unnotable until I reached 10000' where I encountered the millsite for the Johnson Mine and a few other buildings.

        Johnson Mine mill ruins

It took a little under 2 hours to reach Johnson Lake. In hindsight the prettiest lake I saw in Great Basin National Park, it was a classic glacial cirque lake with pleasant meadows on three sides. I had a snack, downed a bunch of water, and filtered about a liter to carry with me. I briefly chatted with a fellow hiker at the water's edge. Turns out he was also planning to get to Wheeler Peak basin but by a different route down into Baker Lake area. I was pretty sure he was going to be having a much longer day than me, and indeed I did not see him again. 

        Johnson Lake

        Johnson Lake from the saddle

I made great time past the remnants of the mine tramway and up the switchbacks to the saddle near the aptly named Pyramid Peak. From here I would have 3.5 miles of off-trail traversing to reach Wheeler Peak. Happily the granite made for flat ground and I zoomed along for a full half mile until I hit quartzite. Yikes! The next half-mile had a broken ridgeline with a precipitous north face, so I opted to traverse across a sloping ocean of scree to where I hoped the ridge would provide better travel. Angle of repose and clearly infrequently traveled, this slope of unstable 3ft+ boulders was formidable terrain. The views were good and I am certainly comfortable scrambling so I progressed slowly across, committed. This half-mile took me 45 minutes to traverse and gain the ridge.

        Ocean of scree

        Baker Lake(s) and Pyramid Peak

Once I gained the ridge I got my first of many evolving views of Baker Lake (actually lakes plural due to lower water level). Curiously I could see people boating around it in a heavy inflatable kayak. Hopefully it was for work because it seemed like pretty pointless recreation. This next mile of ridgeline to Baker Peak (12298') was very scenic and easy going. Precipitous gully cracks intermittently framed views of Baker Lake and peaks beyond. The slope up to Baker Peak provided fairly good travel though I was starting to get hungry and thirsty at this point. Down from Baker Peak I skirted around another precipitous ridge gap and then found a nice lunch rock near the saddle below. This view was probably my favorite of my hike (frontispiece) and I thought that overall Baker Peak made a more impressive mountain than Wheeler Peak. The view also highlighted the punishing final 1300' climb up to Wheeler Peak, and that my estimated arrival at the road end was also completely blown.

        Baker Peak

It took me about an hour to climb the final one mile 1300' scree slope to Wheeler Peak, certainly the hardest part of the hike due to increasing fatigue. I stood of Wheeler Peak for probably about 5 minutes enjoying the view. It wasn't much better than what I had been seeing the last several hours but it was neat to look back along the way I came.

        View from Wheeler Peak looking back along the route

Already later than I said I would be, I now made serious tracks down the trail. I kept a stout pace where I was half falling on my trekking poles and kicking up rocks like mad. Most hikers I past were polite about letting me rocket past. Past the saddle I made a couple cross country maneuvers to speed my way past lengthy switchbacks. From Wheeler Peak I made the three miles to the parking lot in under an hour! My party was waiting for me and so we set off. It was a nice hike. Mostly for the self-inflicted challenge but at times the scenery was nice too.

        Stella Lake and Wheeler Peak on the descent

The plan was to drive on to Gandy warm springs for a swim but this was not to be. We got a hissing flat about 15 miles shy of the spring and so retreated back to pavement. The improvised solution was to get a motel room for Heather and the kids at the stateline. I would carefully limp back to Snake Creek to collect our camping gear, then back to the motel for the night (3 hours round trip). So that was a frustrating end to an already long day. In the morning I would limp over an hour to Ely to be at the tire shop when they opened and hope that that would put us back on track. Thanks to Heather for letting me have a little half day trip and picking me up at the end.

Valley of Fire Aug 4

If you discount Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada is the ideal place to socially isolate. Miles and miles of empty roads and even emptier landscape between. With most national parks either closed or in an overwhelmed state, the idea was to use the opportunity to check out the infrequently visited Great Basin National Park (and also to escape the heat!). To do so Heather and I planned a road trip loop with a few stops to break up the driving. We left Riverside in late afternoon with the plan to camp at Valley of Fire east of Las Vegas. Despite driving through the area countless times on the way to or from the Colorado Plateau, I had yet to have a chance to explore this state park. We arrived around 9pm, with temperatures still in the mid 90s. After setting up camp we went for a quick night hike down a wash and between fins, checking out some neat erosional caves. Sleep in the heat was a struggle. I got some, but not a whole lot.

In the morning we checked out Atlatl Rock near our campsite, which had a steel staircase leading up to an impressive petroglyph panel. We then drove past the visitor center where a herd of bighorn sheep were loitering in the empty parking lot without care, and then drove up through the gap onto the main scenic drive.

The drive was pretty spectacular with classic undulating pavement meandering across rocks of nearly every imaginable color. Though the scenery was different the park loop reminded me a lot of the layout for Arches National Park. Here and now at least there were nearly zero people in the park. At a nondescript wash we pulled over and set out for a short hike down into Pink Canyon.

At the first turn past the road the wash narrowed to a shallow slot canyon with some excellent sculpting, colors, and textures. The pinks, reds, and oranges were particularly good. I'm certainly a sucker for the textures and took photos every few feet walked. The narrowest section had a sandy floor and flared walls that made for about a hundred feet of kid-friendly "floor is lava" stemming. The shade was greatly appreciated too, even at this early morning hour. We slowly walked only about a quarter mile down the canyon then crossed the slickrock into an ajoining canyon before looping to the road. It was a very short hike but gave a sense for some of the terrain and dense scenic beauty in Valley of Fire.

We drove on to the White Domes trailhead at the end of the road and had a snack in the shade before taking on some kid-friendly slab climbing. Some more nice colors, patterns and reflected canyon light were enjoyed.

On the way out we detoured to Silica Domes, watched the bighorns a bit more near the visitor center, and then went for a short walk to check out the petrified logs. Though still morning the heat of the day was already kicking in and so we continued on our drive to Great Basin. A couple hours later we stopped in the pinon pines at Oak Springs Summit for a lunch stop in some meager shade. On a whim we backtracked the couple miles to a turn-off that said "Oak Springs Summit Trilobite Area." It was a gamble but this ended up being a great little stop to break up the day. I was able to find a road that took us straight to the trilobite area, and happily found that the heads (cephalons) were quite easy to find. Everyone found some ranging in size from pinhead to silver dollar without even digging or splitting and it was a fun little scavenger hunt. 

Back on the road it was another 2 hours to the Great Basin visitor center (a free national park? wow this one really is out of the way!), and then nearly an hour further up Snake Creek. We found the last campsite (of four!) in Eagle Peak Campground and set in for the evening. It was a nice spot next to a creek in aspens at 7700 feet. Everyone slept very well that night in the cool temperatures.

Cherry Creek July 11

This was that tasty dose of adrenaline and commitment I have been craving the last several months. One description of the run states that "Cherry Creek is the yardstick that all Class V runs are measured against. A solid Class V, it's actually pretty amazing that such a steep run with so many boulders is so runnable. Cherry Creek is for experts only, but if you have the skills, knowledge, the right people, and the right equipment, you will walk away thrilled and amazed." Whoever wrote that was probably not thinking of me and my packraft...

The day before Eric mentioned he was "really curious to see how I would do in Cherry Creek;" that combined with the hint of nervousness I could detect Eric himself had at the run (despite doing it before) helped to elevate the anticipation. We arrived to the put-in below Holm Powerhouse a little after the 1100cfs release started. The first touch of the water revealed it was 48 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough to further color my anticipation at the run. There would be a solid 8 miles of difficult whitewater to get us to Meral's Pool, including at least ten Class V rapids and countless other Class IV sections. Though this is known as the Cherry Creek run this is somewhat of a misnomer as only the first half mile of the run is on Cherry Creek with the rest technically being the Tuolumne River. To give myself a fighting chance at not being a total ragdoll I added about 20lbs of water ballast inside my tubes to improve my center of gravity and give me a little more mass to throw at waves.

We set off and I immediately felt gripped by the whitewater. This was the real deal! The first half mile was more or less one incredibly fast and steep rapid in which I was constantly having to make fast moves around rocks and holes, using spare split seconds to wipe the near-freezing water from my eyes. In an adrenaline fueled blur I could only react to the next feature, and then the next, and so on, forever. Towards the end of this section I drifted off the others line and found myself committing to punching through three enormous holes one right after the other. Miraculously I managed to stay upright in each one and adjust just enough to slam into the next one. Pumping with adrenaline and heart racing I slid into the pool at the Tuolumne confluence. In what at first seemed like a joke someone asked me what I thought of that Class III warm-up rapid. I soon realized the rating scale might be a little skewed for Cherry Creek, that being one of the more monstrous supposed Class III rapids I had ever run. So much for the Main T doing anything to prepare me this run. Some more Class III and IV led to our first Class V rapids, ones that actually had names. We scouted a few of these to avoid mishaps: Guillotine, Corkscrew, and Jawbone. As I made it through each of these rapids without flipping I undulated between high confidence (at not flipping) and low confidence (realizing how many close calls I had).

        Corkscrew (V)

        Jawbone (V)

Mushroom is clearly the standout rapid that is regularly run (and not portaged). We spent a good long while scouting this rapid and I made sure to walk the whole length in my assessment. There would be plenty of opportunities for me to screw it up; a flip at the top would mean a long 400ft ride as helpless flotsam through solidly aerated whitewater. At best I gave myself a 50-50 chance of punching through the final deep whole with impenetrable lateral waves. I was pretty convinced I was going to portage it as I walked back to my boat, not wanting to have a terrible swim only 3/8ths of the way into this committing run. However, in what in hindsight seemed like witchcraft, Rocky managed to calmly talk me into running it! I quickly shifted my mental plans as Rocky sped off and I quickly followed to try to keep to his line. He dropped steeply out of sight down a chute between two boulders. I followed. Whitewater everywhere, I reacted, paddled, braced. Four hundred feet went on forever. For the most part I managed to stick to Rocky's line including traversing hard from right to left across the rapid to line up above the last monster hole. I gave a few last paddle strokes as I slid down the ramp into the deep curling maul of the hole. Predictably the left lateral effortless pounced on my boat and I flipped. The hole spat me right out and I was able to quickly self-rescue. Well that was exciting!

        Mushroom (V) above and end below (more formidable than it looks!)

A short pool led right into Toadstool, another boulder rapid requiring fast maneuvering. Looking back upstream from the pool beyond many of these rapids was an incredible sight; you could really get the sense of how steep this run was and get struck by the fact that you just came down that raging mess.

        Toadstool (V)

We stopped to scout Unknown Soldier. Eric unfortunately had a miffed boof off the main drop, flipped and was unable to recover. Though only a few seconds until he was flushed from the rapid separate from the boat, it was a good reminder that things could get serious fast in here. Fortunately he was completely fine and Keith was able to chase him down. I went next, followed by Rocky.

        Scouting Unknown Soldier (V), see also frontispiece

        In the Miracle Mile

Next up was the Miracle Mile in which many rapids blur together as the river drops 200 feet overall. Blind Faith was first up. I think this is the one I managed to have a really unpleasant swim in. I had a pretty frail little flip at the top of the rapid, managed to hop back in but not to reposition myself in time for the next small hole, flipped, and then spent a scary ten seconds spinning around in a much larger hole until I managed to push off a rock and weakly ragdoll my way down the rest of the rapid. This was not a self rescue and I was appreciative for the boys attentively collecting my gear and myself. Once reunited with my boat, I requested a brief eddy break for me to regain my breath. That was the worst swim I've ever had; I've sure it could have been worse. Onward.

More rapids blurred together. We scouted Sky King and I asked Eric to be nearby with a throw rope just in case. I took the same line as the kayakers down the main drop and unsurprisingly lost my momentum when I hit the large hole at the base which stalled me out. I simultaneously did my best to brace to stay upright and take hard paddle strokes to escape. For a long 20 second rodeo ride I fought the hole as it did its best to flip me and suck me back in. Eric was at the ready but I didn't get up and to my surprise I managed to break free. In the video below you can see where, recognizing my exhaustion, Eric suggests I pull into the eddy behind the first rock. Though exhausted I was also pumped and wanted to immediately take on the rest of the rapid. That was the longest unintentional hole ride I have ever had- I don't think I could do it again if I was trying! 

        Sky King (V) main drop above and end of rapid below

        Looking down the end of the Miracle Mile

Towards the end of the Miracle Mile I managed to have one more lame flip at the final hole of some unknown rapid. I suppose better to have an occasional lame flip than an epic one. 

We scouted Lewis' Leap. Although admittedly I didn't quite see the line the others were envisioning, I nevertheless was feeling slightly worked by my flips and did not want to add one more. It seemed like the sort of rapid a little less forgiving to packrafts. So I opted to portage Lewis' Leap. In hindsight maybe I should have rallied myself to run it. On the plus side I was able to get good photos and videos of the others. 

        Lewis' Leap (V)

Another half mile below Lewis' Leap is the junky Flat Rock Falls (V) and the terrifying jumble of Lumsden Falls. We all did the traditional thing and portaged on the left, dodging poison oak, and putting in just upstream of the prominent Lumsden Bridge. One mile to go and no more Class V! For only an 8 mile run I was feeling considerably more exhausted than the previous day's 18 mile run with more headwind paddling.

        Lumsden Falls (V+) in background (portaged)

Below Lumsden Falls the river shifted to more of a pool-drop style characteristic of the Main T downstream and I could feel the weight on my shoulders lighten. The last mile was still fun with some decent rapids. I blindly followed the others into a narrow chute between rocks at Horseshoe Falls not knowing what to expect. I didn't stick the landing, my fourth and final flip of the run. We zoomed past the campground and pulled into the Meral's Pool takeout. I colored a few beer-drinking kayakers impressed when I walked past with packraft and they just realized I had run Cherry Creek. It really was a beautiful and impressive stretch of river. I can confidently say that I was "thrilled and amazed" and would love to do it again.

Big thanks to Keith, Eric, and Rocky for letting me join them on this run. It was extremely memorable.

Main Tuolumne River July 10

Keith, Eric, and Rocky were initially planning to head north for some hard kayaking mid-week, which unfortunately didn't mesh with my teaching schedule. As plans evolved the trip moved to the end of the week and I shuffled a few things around to try and go. I was desperate for some excitement and challenge and realized this might be my last opportunity for some difficult packrafting for a while. I was in! I packed packraft and camping gear, largely blind to what I was getting myself into. I had heard of the "Main T" run and nearby "Cherry Creek" but did no research ahead of the trip.

The drive to the Tuolumne was long and uncomfortable, certainly the longest I have had to continuously wear a mask. A 4:30pm departure from Redlands got us late into Casa Loma where we crashed in the woods at about 11am. Thankfully I slept pretty well and in the morning we drove to meet Rocky and to set the lengthy car shuttle. This time of year the Tuolumne is a dam release run. As we drove down to the put-in we could see the frail and unrunnable 300 cfs river; within minutes of us arriving at the put-in the 1100cfs release pulse arrived and the river noisily swelled. 

The Main T is an 18 mile run from Meral's Pool to Ward's Ferry, variably rated III/IV/IV+. It is a classic pool-drop stretch of river, though my memory is that it was primarily pool paddling. The river had some nice long rapids requiring careful maneuvering around boulders, but I found the gradient to be such that I had plenty of time to read the river and respond. Overall it felt like Class III, though I did manage to find two places to flip (easy self-rescues). Clavey Falls (frontispiece and below) was the standout rapid on the run and the only one we scouted. Wanting to minimize mayhem I opted for a sneak route instead of running the main drop at the top; this I almost managed to screw up by beaching myself on a rock but it worked out in the end.

        Towards the end of Clavey Falls Rapid

Along the way there was interesting historical hints of past gold rush ventures, including most notably a stone and mortar powerhouse supplying power to a mine. Despite this it was a remote feeling run. The rocks along the way were interesting; essentially no granite as I was expecting. There were some beautiful snowy chunks of marble in some places. We got out to check out some [dry] waterfalls in a couple side creeks on river left, which was a nice break from paddling. 

It was hot and we had a lot of paddling across the pools to try to keep time to a minimum. Towards the end the hot headwind was particularly cruel to my high profile packraft and I often slipped behind the others.

The last mile we paddled out the reservior to the bridge. The reservior water was incredibly warm and I could not resist a jump off the old bridge abutment at the end of the run. I thought the run was nice enough. Maybe I'm spoiled or it is different at high water but it did not really have the classic appeal that was advertised. It was enjoyable and great to experience but I do not feel a particular need to ever run it again. And, as I soon found out, it really was not much of a warm-up to tomorrow's Cherry Creek run. Walking to the mailbox doesn't really prepare you for running a marathon.

Thanks to Keith, Eric, and Rocky.

Lower Kern (Jungle Run) July 5

Trying to fight the covid indecision blues and find something to do that largely avoids the masses on a holiday weekend, Heather and I made the drive up to the Kern for a 1050 cfs Jungle Run. I had done this run once before with Keith and did not have too much memory of it other than having a pleasantly scenic gorge section. I locked my bike to a tree at the water's edge at Miracle Hot Springs for the shuttle and then we drove on to Slippery Rock just below the Lake Isabella dam. Unfortunately the launch area was completely closed off to regulate covid interactions and pullouts at the start of the road were also somewhat maliciously blocked off. After a little effort we managed to find what appeared to be legal roadside parking on the other side of the river, leaving us with a short walk to the river. We found a slickrock slab to get ready on only about 600ft downstream of Slippery Rock. We both were glad we chose this option as the run would have been too short and skipped the most scenic section if we started 2.5 miles downstream at Granite Stairs.

The water temperature was pleasant; I was pleased with my decision to wear a wetsuit instead of a drysuit. The first couple miles had a remote wilderness feel to them with granite cliffs plunging into the river on both sides. The narrowness of the gorge and turns often gave a sense of something big right around the corner, but of course every rapid was read-and-run once you approached it. As we cruised down I kept an eye out for pictographs that I knew were somewhere in this section but that we managed to miss last time through.

Eventually I found the pictographs high on canyon right. They were better than I thought they would be- abundant, well preserved and creative. We exited the gorge section and then had three highway bridges to weave under for the rest of the run. The rapids still continued. We saw plenty of people on the shore but only one commercial raft group joining on the river. For its "Jungle Run" name there really is only very minimal foliage overhanging the river anymore. It is a pleasant, cruisy, low stress run. 

After a clean drama-free run Heather managed to swim on the very last drop on the very last rapid before our takeout in front of a large group of worried picnickers. I changed, grabbed my bike, and set off as soon as I could to close the shuttle. The 8 mile bike ride was actually a lot more pleasant than I thought and I made good time on the mostly untrafficked old highway despite the heat. The downhill into Bodfish was exceptionally satisfying. All in all a nice day out despite the driving to pull it all off.

Box Springs Paragliding July 1

Check out the video above for a quick 7 minute flight filmed with GoPro Max 360 degree video. If you open it in the YouTube app on a tablet or smartphone it should default to a VR interface where you should be able to change the view by moving the phone. When I play with it I find that it is really similar to the view and sensation I get when flying: look up and see the wing, look down and see the world beneath my dangling feet.

It is not a particularly notable flight other than the epic struggle not shown. I got onto launch at about 7pm but it was very windy and so I waited a while. In a lull I set up. I had four aborted launches including two that gave me very nasty lineover tangles that took a while to clear, especially in the continuing wind. I was feeling particularly defeated, especially since a few days prior the conditions were also windy, did not improve, and I opted to hiked back down the hill for the second time ever. I was really close to packing up but decided to rally for one more attempt. At sunset 7:58pm the wind finally cooperated, I had my moment, and I was off for a smooth dusk light flight. The landing was smooth. I really like this launch but its position high on a ridge makes for challenging wind conditions. I've since started scouting and flying other launches but am sure I will be back to this one before long.