In the epic episode, John (Trail name Pokey or Sloth , Paige(trail name Badass) and myself (Trail name Sparkles) head up to the Cottonwood lakes area of the Southern Sierra. We got more of an adventure than we bargained for!
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Last year, Alex and I took a flight over Table mountain. It was pretty cool, but you must see this place on foot! The window of opportunity is very short to see the super bloom of wildflowers in full display! Lets take a WALK shall we?!
This year, during one of our (every few years )trips to the National Finals Rodeo week in Las Vegas, we decide to get a car and take a drive out to the fantastic Valley of Fire State Park! A trip to Mars!
As I was training for a big Pacific Crest Trail section hike, I decided to see how many mountains I could get to the top of! The section hike was cancelled because of forest fires, so I continued to climb peaks. I hope to climb even more peaks next year! I have new goals!
This week we take a hike up to Martis Peak Lookout Tower that looks out over the Tahoe and Truckee Basin. We encounter some very large bear and mountain lion tracks and get to play in the first snow fall of the year!
It’s November 1, and the snow still hasn’t arrived in the Sierra. Join the Foothill Hilers as we take a nice 8.5 mile hike on the series of trails owned by the Tahoe Donner Land Trust. These trails are spectacular and have just enough ups and downs to give you a good workout. The views are incredible! Don’t miss the swing at Point Mariah!
It’s thrilling to soar over the Royal Gorge on a little board tied to a pine tree!
Tahoe Donner Land Trust Site and maps: http://tdlandtrust.org/royal-gorge The track of our hike: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails…
We spot a fire, see some weird structure remains at the top, and get some awesome views!
This summer I probably did about 20 Sierra hikes with eight separate peaks hikes thrown in. I hiked some of those eight peaks multiple times with a total of 12 peak hikes! At over 11K feet, Mt. Rose was the hardest for me.. but being stubborn, I did that one twice!
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Named after local Gold Rush celebrity, Lola Montez, the peak formed by ancient volcanic mud flows 4 to 12 million years ago was used as a platform to survey the west by triangulation in 1878. The first time this was done in the world!
Using telescopes and mirrors aligned from the top of Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lola and Mt. Helena the Coast and Geodetic Survey observed the longest triangulation line ever used on Aug. 1, 1878.
Rock structures and brick pillars remain at the top from that summer long ago when George Davidson stationed atop it sending a flash of light to the station on the top of Mt. Shasta.
More on Lola Montez here
More on the the survey here
Thank you for watching my videos.. my labors of love!
During all of my hikes over the Sierra the past few years, I’ve had soooo many questions about how and why things are the way there are, geologically speaking. I’d see a huge lava outcropping and I’d wonder when that got there and how? Was it blown to it’s current resting place from a distant volcano? Did it pop out of the ground from an ancient fissure? Just how old are the Sierra anyway?
I’m finally taking some time to seriously study Geology. I have some answers and my hikes are that much more interesting! This Earth has been evolving for 4.6 billion years and we’ve only been here 200,000 years of it. Heating up, cooling down, over and over again with many variations of life forms that have come and gone over the millions of years. Continents moving around, and still on the move. The Hawaiian Islands are moving in a Northwest direction about 4 inches a year! Eventually, they will join up with Japan! Australia is moving Northward about 2.7 inches a year. All the plates are moving, some faster than others. Don’t believe me? Study Geology! I would love to drive to Australia.. Mountains pushing up and STILL getting higher. Think Everest is high now? Just you wait! What will be here a million years from now? Us? Something else? Nothing? Hmmm….. things I think about when I hike! Geology is COOL!
Today, we take a short hike up to an ancient lava flow plateau that was formed during the creation of the Sierra Nevada when the entire range was bubbling with volcanoes and molten lava being pushed up everywhere!! Here is some interesting reading about the Sierra.
With winter around the corner, the trees are singing their songs and a warning that a big change is soon to come.
Many moon ago, I had the opportunity to be a fire lookout in Northern California. You can read all about it in my book Fire Girl. It was awesome to wake up to a 360 degree view from the top of a mountain. Back in the day, it was a lonely man or woman with a pair of binoculars perched high on a mountain top that spotted forest fires. There aren’t many working fire lookout towers any longer because of modern technology in spotting fires. The Service has made many lookout towers available to rent for a weekend, which I think is pretty cool. Unfortunately a lot of the towers are crumbling or have been completely torn down.
The design of this tower is pretty cool. I hadn’t seen one quite like this.
So let’s take a 4 wheelin’ and hiking trip to Pilot Peak in Plumas County in Northern California!
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