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Dick's Adventures of
2021 - Part 1 |
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Adventures
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2021 Part 2 |
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Eastman
Lake |
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Eastman
Lake I
consider Eastman
Lake to be the sister to Hensley
Reservoir. Both were built in the 1970s in Madera County, both
on minor rivers. Hensley is formed by Hidden Dam on the Fresno
River, and Eastman by Buchanan Dam on the Chowchilla River. Both are
relatively small, Hensley with 90,000 acre feet, and Eastman
150,000. By comparison, Millerton Lake on the San Joaquin is over
500,000 and Pine Flat on the Kings stores over a million acre feet
of water. I
have camped and hiked at Hensley many
times, but only twice at Eastman, in 2016
and 2017.
When my daughter Teri and I planned a hike for January 7, I
suggested Eastman. It would be her
first visit to the location. We've
had some foggy mornings, and this one was no exception. We discussed
whether we should go to a higher elevation where we could get above
the fog, but decided to stick with our original plans. Our route
took us north on Highway 41, west a few miles on Highway 145, then
on a series of county roads to our destination. Along the way we
drove right past the dam at Hensley, and then through the small historic
village of Raymond. The trailhead starts just
before the road crosses the river and is known as the Lakeview
Trail. By
the time we got to our destination, at the very upper end of the
lake, the fog had lifted enough that we had good visibility,
although there was still no sunshine.
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Bridge
across the Chowchilla River at the upper end of Eastman Lake |
Leaves
are a beautiful shade of brown on this blue oak |
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The
trail goes over seven miles to the dam, but I no longer walk that
far. Our plan was as usual, to walk till we had gone half of far
enough. Viewing the lake would have required there to be water in
the lake all the way up to our location, but a dry year has left
small reservoirs very low, and we were limited to glimpses of short
stretches of river in the original channel. The
trail goes up and down on a regular basis, so the view of the lake
bed was often blocked by the land when the trail went up into the
low hills east of the lake. The area is typical low foothill
country, less than one thousand feet elevation, with lots of blue
oak, bull pines, and various shrubs. On my first visit with Wes we
enjoyed a profusion of wildflowers, but it will probably be another
month or so before we see them this year. However, the new green
grass was getting a good start all through the foothills. There are
plenty of granite rock formations, and the area is known for being
occupied by many rattlesnakes. Wes saw two
males fighting on one of our previous visits. We
probably hiked about a mile before finding some good rocks
to sit on while we had a snack, then stared back. By the time we
reached the car, we had mostly blue sky, and overall the hike was
scenic and enjoyable. |
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Massive
infestation of mistletoe looks cool, but is killing this tree |
After a
foggy morning, a few clouds drift over the hills west of the lake |
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A
final note: Although I have not visited this spot very many
times, the Chowchilla River has been a big part of my life. It
flowed south about a mile from my childhood home in Bootjack
(Mariposa County), and through nearby property owned by family
friends. We swam in the river, explored various sections of it, and
fished in one of the forks. There are three forks that flow across
Highway 49 between the Mariposa-Madera County line and Bootjack,
with the west fork being the largest. This stream gets its start as
Snow Creek, and crosses Triangle Road just west of the Darrah School
(AKA Mt. Buckingham). Somewhere between there and Highway 49 it is
joined by Jones Creek and becomes the Chowchilla. From
the house where we lived a dirt road went back from the main road
(now Highway 49) for a mile, where there was a "homemade"
bridge over the river. A few hundred yards downstream from this
location, I discovered a place where the water went down under some huge boulders, and almost became an underground, or at least under-rock stream. You could climb down into some parts of it, and there were some very deep holes. Like
many central California rives, water from the Chowchilla eventually
ends up in the San Joaquin. There is no natural outlet to the bigger
stream, but a canal carries excess water during flood years. --Dick
Estel, January 2021 More
Photos
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