Dick's Adventures of 2024 - Part 2

Adventures of 2021          Adventures of 2022          Adventures of 2023          2024 Part 1

Mile High A-Frame          Nelder Grove          Rancheria Falls          Birthdays at the A-Frame

For a number of years the Upshaw's - my older grandson Johnny, wife Brittany, and sons Colton and Jack, enjoyed many visits to a doublewide mobile home in Greeley Hill in Mariposa County. The winter storms of recent years brought a tree down on its roof, allowing a ton or two of snow to enter, effectively rendering it a complete loss. This motivated them to buy a cabin near Shaver Lake, a much shorter drive from their home in Clovis, and convenient to the winter snowboarding they enjoy.

It's also available as an Airbnb rental, so I arranged to spend three days and two nights there at the end of May. Being retired, I have a seven-day weekend every week, and did not think about the days I requested being the last two days of Memorial Day weekend. Although this probably meant a bit more traffic on the main roads, it did not cause any real problems for me.

The cabin is actually about ten miles from Shaver Lake, which is a small mountain town catering to tourists on Highway 168. The lake of the same name, formed in 1927 by the damming of Stevenson Creek, has a capacity of 130,000 acre feet and is part of the Southern California Edison Company's (SCE) Big Creek hydroelectric project. At the 5,500 foot elevation, it draws boaters, swimmers, and fishermen most of the year. Located on the route to the China Peak Ski Resort, it also does  a good business in winter serving skiers, snowboarders and snow play enthusiasts.

The cabin is located on Bald Mountain Road off Auberry Road, about three miles from where it connects with Highway 168 near the famous Cressman's General Store. The elevation is 4,300 feet, so it's surrounded by black oaks, pines, and cedars. Lots of cedars. Cedars ranging from a height of two inches to around 80 feet. Oh yes - also sequoia trees. These were planted and there are about a half dozen, the tallest of which is about 15 feet. The smallest is a thriving specimen that Jack was given when he joined a Ramblers hike last year.

I arrived at the cabin in the mid-morning of May 26 and got my stuff carried in. I was delighted to see that there are many wild iris in bloom around the cabin and all over the neighborhood. There was also a daisy-like flower with a dark center that grew in profusion in many places. These blossoms would close up or otherwise disappear when the sun got hot, then reappear in the early evening.

I also saw a lot of western wall flowers, some lupines, and limited numbers of other flowers, some appearing quite a bit later than they do at lower elevations. 

On the opposite side of Bald Mountain Road from the cabin, a loop goes east about 300 yards, then curves around and back out to the main road. Although it's a paved road, this is a great place to do a short hike. Upshaw's call it "The Horseshoe." This is where I saw most of the different wildflowers that enhanced my stay, but more importantly, it offers a view of the Ritter Range - Mt. Ritter at 13,000 feet, Banner peek, just 200 feet lower, and the Minarets. Although part of the range, the latter are not visible from this location. To make up for this, you can see Fuller Buttes, two classic domes topping out at just above 6,000, a mile lower than the range.

Another great feature of the place is the wood deck, about 15 by 30 feet, with comfortable chairs. You can sit out in the morning or evening (or any time you want) enjoying the oaks and evergreens, and in my case, sipping a Bloody Mary. I spent quite a bit of time out there, reading and resting. I went out during the night to look at the stars, and at 4 a.m., the moon. There are other houses all around, but they are well spaced and mostly without the ultra bright lights that so many people put up to eliminate the stars.

The next day was Monday, Memorial Day, the only full day of my stay. After a relaxing morning and breakfast, I set out for Huntington Lake, another SCE facility 20 miles and 2,000 feet in elevation above Shaver. This area does not have the tourist development of Shaver, but it is the site of China Peak, a major ski resort. The proximity of this snow play area has been one of the Upshaw's favorite things about their new vacation location, and Colton especially went snowboarding many times during our recent extra-snowy winter.

State Highway 168 ends at this point, but a paved road goes up and over 9,000 foot Kaiser Pass and into several other popular recreation spots, including Edison and Florence Lakes, as well as Mono Hot Springs. I did not intend to go even as far as the pass, my destination being a vista point just a few miles up the road where there is an excellent view of Rancheria Falls, where I have hiked a number of times with family and with the Ramblers.

It's probably a good mile across the canyon from the road to the falls, but I had brought my tripod and a telephoto lens, and was able to get some good still photos and videos. The location also provided a good view of Huntington Lake. The elevation here was 7,900 the highest point I reached on this adventure.

From the vista point I drove back down to the lake and walked in on the trail that starts at the ski lodge and goes up Big Creek to Indian Pools. It was already time for me to be sitting on the deck, so I kept this hike very short, just going far enough to get a good look at the creek.

I did not have a formal check-out time, so on Tuesday, my last day, I took my time getting ready to go, just as I would if I were camping. I enjoyed some final "deck time," had bacon and toast for breakfast, and got everything cleaned up and put away. I took a final walk around the "Horseshoe," where I photographed a vista that is somewhat less than delightful. Much of this area was affected by the Creek Fire of 2020. It did not touch what is now the Upshaw property, but its scars are visible just over a hill back of the cabin, and especially down in a basin overlooked by the east end of the loop. What was once a thick forest is a land of blackened sticks and the brushy plants that are first to come back after a fire.

When I left for home I did not drive back out to Highway 168, but instead turned left on Auberry Road and went through the village of Auberry, then out to 168 below where it starts its climb up the 4-lane section. This offered some different scenery and avoided the three twisty, roller coaster miles between Bald Mountain Road and the highway.

I was well satisfied with my short vacation, and a looking forward to another three-day stay scheduled for July.

A few final notes:

In addition to the flowers mentioned above, I saw farewell-to-spring, buckeye, chaparral, Sierra star, dove lupine, baby blue eyes, filaree, harvest brodiaea, blue dicks, tall lupine, penstemon, dogwood, and yellow violets.

Driving up to Huntington, between Cressman's and the Shaver Lake Marina, I met over 50 trailers and motor homes heading home on Monday. This didn't leave the mountains unpopulated. When I returned to the cabin, where the highway runs close to Shaver Lake, there were cars parked on both sides of the road for a half mile, and many people in the water swimming and boating.

I saw two gray squirrels and quite a few birds. No other wildlife. Shortly after I arrived I walked out from the cabin as far as I could go before encountering a fence. On my way back, I saw through the trees a patch of red flowers near the cabin. Up close they looked like this.

There were patches of snow all along the Kaiser Pass Road, and large mound of very dirty snow near the ski lodge.

I drove a total of 145 miles, and got 40.2 MPG in my hybrid. Take that, big oil!

--Dick Estel, June 2024

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I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to be writing about Nelder Grove. It's been one of my favorite spots since my first visit in 1969, but it has been closed for the last three years, due to so many trees having been killed by drought and fire (even including sequoias). It's not exactly wide open even now - the gate on the road to the campground is locked, requiring a hike of a quarter mile or so to where our outings normally start. So of course the campground is closed, and the current opening is very brief - it will close June 30 so that rehab work can continue.

The Ramblers have hiked here a number of times, so we made plans to go on June 5. My friends from Mariposa, Susan and Andy Crandall, would join us. Then the wheels came off, the bottom fell out, and locusts took over the land. OK, it was not that drastic, but every Rambler ended up canceling. Andy and his friend David went, and enjoyed a four mile hike, and contributed some of the photos in this report.

Fortunately, I had also scheduled a hike with family members for June 8, and this worked out perfectly. Our group was myself, daughters Teri and Jennifer, their mom Jackie, and great grandson Jack. We invited Susan and Andy to join us. They wanted to get an earlier start and said they would leave Mariposa at 8 a.m., an hour before our planned departure time from Fresno, and hoped we would meet up on the trail.

I took my pickup, because the last few miles are a dirt road which can range from pretty good to pretty bad. However, the road was newly graded and in better condition than it's ever been. This includes the section beyond the gate, which in the past has never been been better than pretty  bad. The weather was nice, warm but not too much so. There is a very steep section at the start, but then the road levels out and goes through the interpretive center, the campground, and on to the jewel of Nelder Grove, the Bull Buck Tree.

This would not be a Dick Estel report without mention of wildflowers, and we saw lots of wild iris, western wall flowers, and many unknowns, including a tiny flower no bigger than a ladybug.

Great grandson Jack likes to take photos, so as we walked in I gave him my camera, knowing from experience that he will have a different point of view and will capture some images that would not occur to me. 

We were on the last section of the road to the campground when Teri spotted Susan and Andy coming toward us, and capturing a nice photo. We chatted for a few minutes, then went our separate ways. But there were still more people to meet. Brenda Negley, whose grandparents were campground hosts for 20 years, and who spent summers as a child and young adult in the grove, was guiding a group on a hike. She is in touch with the Forest Service and aware of their plans. She said there is still a great deal of work to be done to make the area safe and fully accessible. She said that the expectation is to have it open next year, meaning when the snow melts near the end of the winter of 2024-25. But we celebrated the fact that it is open at all.

From the campground it is just a quarter mile to the Bull Buck via the old road. There is a half-mile trail through the woods, but it is blocked in many places by fallen trees. The Bull Buck is one of the more perfectly shaped giant sequoias in the entire Sierra, tall and straight, with hardly any of the typical dead branches near the top. It stands in a row with the stumps of two other trees that were cut down in the 1890s, and we could only imagine what a wonderful sight it was to see them still intact. A sign erected in 1975 gives the tree's statistics, including the height of 247.31 feet. We speculated on how much taller it might be 50 years later.

When we first came to this area in 1969 there was no place you could stand to see the Bull Buck from top to bottom. Eventually the Forest Service cleared a stretch of land out from the tree and provided a bench where visitors can wonder at the full towering height of this giant.

As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of dead trees that need to be removed. Anywhere that tree removal goes on, you will see burn piles, limbs and brush in classic campfire teepee form. Usually the ones we've seen have been about the height of a man. Right now in Nelder there are hundreds of such piles, most of them 15 to 20 feet tall, with "sticks" as much as three feet in diameter. The normal plan is to start burning after the first snow.

When we finished marveling at the Bull Buck, we hiked back to our cars. Jennifer had a lunch date with husband Rod; the rest of us went to our favorite Oakhurst restaurant, El Cid, and enjoyed excellent Mexican food.

With the grove closing on June 30, we probably won't be able to do our usual fall hike there. Meanwhile you can enjoy some of the fall colors that we captured when the Ramblers last went to Nelder in October of 2019.

--Dick Estel, June 2024

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My plan is to make this short and sweet, since I've been to this location a number of times - in 2016, later in 2016, in 2017, in 2018, in 2019, again that year with great grandson Colton, in 2020 with Colton and his brother Jack, in 2021, and again last year. You can read these, especially the earlier reports, for details on location and how to get there, so I'll just focus on what was new this year.

The hikers this time were my former work colleague, Ardyss, great grandson Jack, and me. My former wife Jackie planned to go, but bad air caused her allergies to flare up, and she had to pass.

The dirt road into the trailhead is a rough mile, with lots of bumps and dips, so we were glad to have Ardyss' all-wheel drive Subaru. There were two cars at the lot when we arrived, but three more drove in before we got on the trail.

It was a very pleasant walk, with lots of flowers along the way, and of course many firs and pines. The trail goes up to 7,500 feet, where red firs are the dominant tree. The most common flowers were lupines, creating large patches of blue above and below the trail. 

Jack likes to take over the camera, and can be counted on to photograph something that would not catch my eye. Of course, I delete about half of all photos, mine or Jack's. This is the wonder of digital photography - you can "waste" 100 shots to get a few good ones. In the days of film, I would maybe take two 36-exposure rolls on a major trip, and half a roll on a hike like this - then pay around $13 total, purchasing and developing, for each roll

The falls were delightful as always. They were not as full as we've seen them in the past, but were still flowing powerfully. From the first time i saw these falls, I declared them to be one of the best waterfalls I had seen outside of a national park. Jack's parents hiked in through the snow in April, including the two miles from the highway to the trailhead, since the access gate was locked. I limit myself to enjoying things like that through photos only.

Counting people we met on the trail in both directions and at the falls, there were at least 50, maybe 100 adventurers enjoying the area. We "took turns" getting out on the last few feet of the trial where the best view is seen. We lingered long enough to take photos and soak in the view, then made our way back to the trailhead. Grandson Johnny had recommended the Hungry Hut in Shaver Lake, so we stopped there for what proved to be an excellent lunch. Jack already had his sights on a milkshake, and Ardyss was inspired to try the boysenberry shake. She enjoyed it so much she plans to go back.

At the end of the day, we all agreed that you can't go back to Rancheria too many times.

--Dick Estel, July 2024

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Daughter Teri and I were discussing where and how to celebrate our family's three August birthdays. We considered June Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra, but decided instead to do it at her son's mountain cabin on Auberry Road, three miles off Highway 168. This made it possible for people to attend who could not take the time or make the long drive over the Sierra. In the end those present were Teri and I, her son Johnny and family (Brittany, Colton and Jack), her son Mikie and girlfriend Hayley, her half-brother Mike and his family (Emily, Olivia and Lila), her sister (my daughter) Jennifer, and their mother Jackie. The birthdays, all earlier in the month, were Jackie, Johnny and I.

Teri and I had arranged to go up on Thursday, August 22. The Upshaw's would arrive Friday evening after work and school, and everyone else would come Saturday, just for the day. Teri had to work part of the day Thursday, but I arrived shortly before noon, with plans to do a few quick chores, then relax on the deck with my book and Bloody Mary. This did not work out as planned.

Surrounded by pines, cedars and black oaks, the property, including the deck, is covered with leaves, acorns, and dead cedar needles. I got the battery powered leaf blower from the downstairs garage and went to work. After a few minutes the machine quit on me. After texting Johnny, I found the extra battery in the detached garage, 50 yards from the house. Leaving and entering the house involves stairs, which now pose a challenge, so any movement to another level is necessarily slow.

I retrieved and installed the extra battery, and finished the job of blowing oft thousands of tiny, very dry cedar needles and dozens of clumps of oak leaves, many of which became stuck in the cracks between boards. I also placed a number of acorns along the top of the railing around the deck, something I do with buckeyes at my younger daughter's place on Oakhurst. Don't ask why. It's an artistic expression.

Next I tried to connect my phone and iPad to the wifi and check my email. I'll spare you the details of how this became a frustrating 30-minute project and just say it ended with me changing my password before I could connect. Ultimately I had been at the cabin nearly three hours before I could sit down, and by this time Teri had arrived, having got off work earlier than expected.

By the time she had brought in her stuff, I had relaxed, it being impossible to stay unhappy in a beautiful setting like this. The location is Bald Mountain Road, a side road off Auberry Road, with a few lesser roads leading to the east. There are quite a few houses, but none are obtrusively close. The community name is Mile High, which seems to be aspirational rather than descriptive. The cabin sits at 4,700 feet. The road goes up hill beyond it, so maybe it reaches a mile; I have not gone that far, but the terrain dictates that road must end fairly soon.

Teri and I walked the Horseshoe, Jack's name for a road opposite the cabin that goes about 300 yards, then loops around and back out a city block beyond the start. Along the way we enjoyed some yellow daisy-like flowers that had been thick when I was there in May, and which are still hanging on in lesser numbers. On a clear day at the far end of the loop there is a nice view of Mt. Ritter, Banner Peak, and the Fuller Buttes, but it was too hazy to see any of that during our walk.

The next day, with Upshaw's not due till that evening, we made my third and Teri's first visit to Balsam Forebay, where I had hiked twice with The Ramblers. Teri enjoyed it, and we walked in on the trail and back out via the road, the recommended route, for my first time. Just as on my previous visits, the water was visibly rising. We spotted a softball size rock on the bank just at the water's edge; by the time we left ten minutes later, it was completely under water. 

The road we walked on is gated, and gave us some different scenery from the trail. It sort of goes up on top of a ridge, instead of along the side of the mountain like the trail, and is two tenths of a mile longer. There are some flowers along both routes, but the road had something unexpected - white thorn in bloom, several months after its normal time.

We returned to the cabin, a round trip of 30 miles, and spent the afternoon relaxing and reading. Teri had fixed an amazing pulled pork dinner, enough for everyone, but since we did not know the Upshaw's exact arrival time, we ate when we were ready, suspecting that they probably would have eaten on the way. Nine and eleven year old boys have to be fed when they are hungry. When they arrived, Colton and Jack released some of their excess energy by throwing all the acorns I had lined up at nearby trees.

Just in time for this trip, the weather in central California had cooled off significantly. After days of triple digits in Fresno and Clovis, including some over 110, the highs were to be in the low 90s for this weekend. At 4,700 feet this translated to 70s in the daytime, and very cool nights. It had been cool enough the first night that I asked Johnny to bring me an extra jacket, and Friday night was even cooler.

They have a nice portable fire pit, but it has to be used down in the dirt, which means moving chairs from the decks. They had recently purchased a new fire pit with an insulated bottom that could be used on the wood deck, and Johnny soon had it put together and a nice fire going. We enjoyed being cold enough to need the fire. As usual, people started drifting off to bed, with Johnny and I the last holdouts. We gave it up and went in about 10 p.m. As often happens after I've been hiking, I slept better than usual.

The next morning, Saturday, brought some unexpected excitement. Some time during the night Jack told his parents that something was in the chimney. Brittany told him it was probably outside, and just sounded like it was inside. After they got up, the presence of bird poop in the fireplace, on the floor, and I believe eventually on Colton ’s shoulder made it clear that an unexpected guest had indeed entered via the chimney. It was a small owl, which was now perched high up near the very top of the A Frame, on the natural rough rock that forms the chimney..

The next scene, if carried out as planned, could have been something from a whacky movie. Johnny got the longest extension ladder, and climbed up with a mop. The front door and the door that leads downstairs to the open garage door were opened, and the rest of us stood holding up blankets at each of two staircases, the hallway, and the kitchen entrance, the plan being to prevent the bird from going anywhere but out.

A few pokes with the mop made no impression on Mr. Owl, so Johnny went to Plan B. He got a blanket, climbed up, and captured the bird by hand, quickly wrapping him up. We then placed him on top of the wood pile in the shed outside. He stayed a short time, then flew off. The joys of country living!

The rest of the day went as planned, with no real drama. The rest of the gang arrived; heard the owl story, and enjoyed visiting and eating. It was the first time Jennifer and the Mike Taggart's had seen the cabin, and they were duly impressed. They missed seeing the place before Johnny and Brittany put many hours of work and many dollars into cleaning, fixing, re-modeling and painting, but the finished product met with everyone's approval (it's available for rent as an Air BNB).

Eventually all but the Upshaw’s and I departed, and I enjoyed a final night in the mountains. At some point Colton, Johnny and I were discussing the fact that California was getting snow in August for the first time in 20 years, and Johnny explained where it was happening. Colton has become a fanatic snowboarder, and launched into a discussion of his hopes and plans for the coming winter. His desire is that China Peak Resort will start making snow about the first of November, and that there will be good natural powder by Thanksgiving. The snowy and boarding season will then last until April or the month after. You've been warned.

I left in mid-morning so that the family could have some private time in their special home away from home, planning to leave around 4 p.m. , with work or school on the calendar for everyone the next day.

--Dick Estel, August 2024

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Mile High A-Frame          Nelder Grove         Rancheria Falls          Birthdays at the A-Frame

Mile High A-Frame