The Silence of Mt. Dana (Part 1)

(GPS: N°37 54. 010 W°119 13.280)

Here is one I have wanted to show for a while. I am going to take a few blogs for it. With all the hikes I consider "major" hikes I tend to take hundreds of pictures, but only show about 30 pictures at most in these blogs.

Mt. Dana is one my brother had wanted to do for a few years. I wanted to do it, but not as much as other mountain hikes. The time seemed right so we went off to do it. I should mention that I started to compose the "Why I Do I Climb?" blog in my head the few days before this hike and after it. Part of the problem is we had to wait around to do this one which created a bit of anxiety in me. I knew I would be alright once we got going, but waiting around and thinking about it was bothering me. I was not really enjoying being in the Eastern Sierra those few days before it. The day arrived and the next thing I knew we were at the trailhead. Okay, here we go, 3 miles and over 3,000 ft. in about 3 hours to get to the top.

You can see Mt. Dana from the trailhead that starts at the Eastern entrance to Yosemite. I do not know what that lower rocky peak is called to the left. I will show a picture of it looking back down in my next blog. Now keep in mind we actually started the hike early in the morning before the sun came up. My basic strategy is I rarely take pictures or video in the morning to save battery because I would rather have the sun out for lighting. So, most of what you are seeing is done in reverse order on the way down, but I do it this way so you get to see it in good daylight conditions.
You pass a lot of these little ponds on the way in the early part of the hike. The first 20-30 minutes is easy just walking through a forest with lots of trees.
I have read that earlier in the year after spring the flowers are really nice up there. Unfortunately, I was there at the end of summer. I still was looking for whatever nature pictures I could get. After meandering through the forest for the first 20 minutes we finally got a taste of what the hike was really going to be about.
This is probably the steepest hike I have ever done. I may have been in areas where short portions of a hike were steeper, but this is just straight up the rest of the way. Sometimes I can go up steep portions of a hike really quickly and then recover slowly on the rest of the hike. I tried going fast, but it just did not work that way here. I realized I was just going to have to put one foot above the other at a very slow pace. I felt like I had no choice.

Huell Howser's California's Gold: Glacier (Program)

For those that do not know who Huell Howser is he does a show on California PBS stations called "California's Gold." He goes to some unique town or area, interviews some guides there, and shows the importance of it from a historical, scientific, or just natural beauty perspective. He always has a cheerful personality no matter what the topic.

I do not watch everything Huell Howser does, but once in a while I will come across something that will keep my full attention on the whole episode. Monday's episode called "Glacier" was one of them. If you have read this blog then you will know this area, or the very nearby areas, comes up once in a while.

Usually, I do not talk about other people's adventures on here, but since Huell is an influence on how I do things, and this area is one that I love, I just wanted to talk about it. In the following screen capture Huell is on a boat crossing over Saddlebag Lake. This is one of those times that I wish my dad could have seen this episode since we took this type of boat across the lake to fish a few times. You could take the boat to the other side of the lake and then be picked up 12 hours later. They just did it to avoid hiking around the lake which I have done too.

This is Greenstone Lake. It has a green look to it and they explain why these lakes look green in the episode: the glacial tarn elements cause it. This is the lake my dad liked to fish at.
I am moving on to the end of the episode with Huell, and the crew he was with, got to this point to talk about the glacier. I think for most people this may not be that impressive to see. There is not that much glacier there because it is slowing receding. It does look more impressive with more snow earlier in the year. Two things here that were amazing to me to see on tv: Mt. Conness is the right hump which they did mention. The lake is one of Conness Lakes which has the turquoise color to it (the glacial tarn). For Huell to get here was more fun for me to see than the glacier. Here is the zoom in of the glacier.
Okay, my turn! I am going to add some pictures that I did not use from when I posted in November about my hike to Mt. Conness. Here is the glacier they are trying to show from above:
I posted a few pictures like this in November. This is slightly different. It shows the top parts of the glacier and the lakes around. Saddlebag Lake in the middle background which they crossed by boat, then Greenstone Lake mentioned above, and then they reached one of Conness Lakes on the left side.
I believe they got to the lake in the back. The lake in the foreground is much higher up with what looks like a wall from where they were at. I had intended to do something like what Huell did after my hike last summer. The last time I was there the weather was too stormy. I do intend to go back and take new pictures. I have been on the trail that loops around all the lakes in the distance. That was about 13 years ago if I remember correctly.

My series on Mt. Conness is in the following entries:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Conness Survey Crew of 1890

Huell went to another area nearby that I intended to show later this year at some point. Maybe I will show it next month.

Waterhole #3 (The Red Rock Canyon Series)

(GPS: N35° 21.850 W117° 58.390)

This location is important in the movie because it is the final waterhole James Coburn must go to in order to get the army cache of gold. Here he is below searching in Waterhole #3:
The concrete foundations of the waterhole are still there:
This is in the Red Cliffs side of Red Rock Canyon which is east of the 14 HWY. You can see the rock formations in the background and compare to the above. Carroll O'Connor looks like he is about to get suckered here, but maybe not:
Here is the waterhole looking to the south:

A couple of things about this area. One, as I mentioned at the end of the video, There is a map called the Red Cliffs Nature Trail at the trailhead. It gives you the natural history of the area and shows you the short nature trail around this area. Even though I had a map it still was a bit hard to follow. You do have to go off the trail to find it, and one could go right past it because it is not totally obvious from the trail. BUT, of course, naturally, to everyone's delight, how could I make it more easy, blah, blah, blah...I list the gps coordinates at the top. Use 'em! ;)

I may do something more with the Red Cliffs area you see in the background in the future. It has been used a lot in movies. I remember back in the 1980's the heavy metal band W.A.S.P. used it for one of their music videos (song: Wild Child). You park pretty close to where they shot that video.

Finally, one unfortunate location that I really wanted to get a while back is at the very beginning of the movie. James Coburn gets into a gunfight there. It is just outside Lone Pine near the town of Dolemite. Unfortunately, it is now privately owned by a mining company, and they will keep you off of the area if you go there. I have seen the few remaining buildings as I have driven by. I know during the festival they went there, but I will probably not ever go there. Oh well, there are many other areas.

Rebirth

I have been on an astronomy kick lately. It is not an area I am really that knowledgeable about, but it is something I come back to once in a while. I downloaded the planetarium program called Stellarium from Stellarium.com. It is a really cool program and not too hard to figure out. Last week I went outside and encountered Venus right next to the Moon. It was really cool. Here is a bit of a zoom in:

I watched the Kepler Telescope launch last night online. The mission is to find out if there are earth-sized planets out there. It will be fun to find out what the telescope shows us in the next six months. I remember when I was kid in school and with friends there was this idea that since our sun is just another star there should be all sorts of "earth" planets out there. This has really changed over the years with the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Now scientists and other thinkers are not totally convinced we will find any other earth planets.

The following is taken from NASA TELESCOPE WILL HUNT FOR EARTH LIKE PLANETS:

"It very possibly could tell us that Earths are very, very common, that we have lots of neighbors out there, or it could tell us that Earths are really, really, really rare," Weiler said at a press conference.

"Perhaps we're the only Earth. I think that would be a very bad answer because I, for one, don't want to live in an empty universe where we're the best there is. That's a scary thought to many of us."

Kepler will be scouting for Earth-size planets circling stars in the so-called habitable or Goldilocks zone. That's where planets are neither too close nor too far from their star, and where conditions could be ripe for liquid water on the surface. "Planets that are not too hot, not too cold, but just right," according to Boruki.

On another note one of my local hikes I do is in Chino Hills State Park. I usually do this hour up and hour back hike to the top of San Juan Hill. Honestly, this hike and a few other hikes I do locally are not that impressive compared to others I do so I really don't post them. I thought I would show a few pictures of this hike this time since it just opened up recently after the big fire that torched the park in November. 95% of the park was torched. With the recent rains the area looks very impressive.

Very green! Usually when I go through here it is very brown and not fun to look at. You can see some brown in this picture. There were some areas that still had the burned over look. The high point in the distance below is San Juan Hill. The only interesting thing at the top is a pylon marker that says it was made in 1896.This shows how quickly nature can recover. This area had looked very bad for about 2 months from down below looking up at it. A few rains and things started to change fast.

A Johnny Mack Brown Kern River Cliffhanger Location

(GPS: N35° 37.935 W118° 29.430)

This is located in Keysville on the Kern River. It is one I found about a year ago. The funny thing about this one is I found the location right away after dropping down the little hill behind me. It was sort of a fluke for me to find it so quickly. I took some pictures and a little video, but was convinced that what I was really after was up the river at a higher pointed cliff. I took pics and videos of other areas along the Kern River looking for other areas. I then came home and realized that I had found what I was after right away, but would need to go back to get better videos of this area. It would be a few months before I went back, but that was not really an issue since my grandmother lives nearby.

In The Oregon Trail serial which stars Johnny Mack Brown, he ends up on this rocky cliff over the Kern River. As they are shot at they (stunt doubles) fall down into the Kern River below.
The problem here is that that green brushy tree was in the way. I could not really get down and try to get an identical picture. I have should have taken a chainsaw with me.

Good enough for our purposes.
This is looking back at it.
From this side it took a little work to get to this area. To get to the coordinates you have to carefully down-climb a bit. If you trip you could roll down and eventually hit the water. The other side is pretty easy to get to, but I did not bother trying.

If the Alabama Hills and Red Rock are gold for movie location finding, then I would consider Kernville and this area Silver. You can find some locations from all the movies they made, but it is not as much fun. You have to really look, and I do not consider it as enjoyable or beautiful in these areas.

Part of the reason for this, and keep this in mind if you go here to Keysville, is that there is a lot of drug use and homeless nearby. As I was driving by I had the radio on as they were mentioning all the people that had been arrested and their violations. As I was walking around the first time I had police and rangers watching me at times as I took pictures. It was nothing to be concerned about, I probably looked out of place, but becareful as you walk around here.

A Kern River Cliffhanger (Youtube Version)

Ken Maynard Gets Shot At There Too! (Red Rock Canyon Series)

I totally forgot about this until I was e-mailing someone this week about this location. I was going to put up a video from this movie, but I think it is best just to show pictures on this one. This will give me a chance to explain one of my techniques I use in trying to find these types of locations. Someone may have wondered how in the world I knew where this area was from the last blog. This movie ended up being the key and not the last one.

This is from the movie called Tombstone Canyon (1932) with Ken Maynard. It is a really cheesy b-western, but it does do some good location work here. Our mysterious black clothed figure is getting ready for revenge over the cliff below.
Meanwhile Ken Maynard's character (this is probably his stunt double) is climbing up from below.

With the editing in the movie they switch to having them much higher up over another ledge. You see it from the distance. However, they switch to this area for close ups. You can tell they are just using the rock formation to the far right.

This is where Ken Maynard is shot at by the mysterious dark clothed figure. Below is one of the pictures from the last blog. To get a identical shot I would have to move over to my left a few feet. If you want you can compare with the other picture in that blog too, but this one should do the job.
I have driven by this area tons of times before, but I never had stopped here and walked around until about a year ago. When I come to a new area for the first time I usually walk around and take a bunch of pictures of the area. I try not to look for too many specifics. I just try to get the general feel for the area. When I come home I usually start doing the heavy work of comparing my pictures to movies.

This movie does a good job of showing you this area. It ended up being the key to finding the site and then I knew for sure where to go for the last blog. So, this ended up being a case of where seeing another movie ended up helping me find the location of another one. Then about six months later I ended up getting Schmidt's book which was further confirmation that I had the right area. I went back in October and filmed the area.

That is my typical strategy in that I take a bunch of "general" pictures, figure them out, and then come back at a later time. I can not do that all the time and I have other techniques I use if I know I will not be back, but this is one of them.

You are most likely to see Tombstone Canyon in a dvd set called Creepy Cowboys: Four Weird Westerns. They make it seem like it is some sort of horror western movie set with the packaging, but it is not. Believe me, you will end up laughing more at these movies than anything. The four movies are really cheap with this movie being the "best" of the bunch which is not saying much. Really, the menu on each dvd is the only thing cool about them. I really would suggest you rent this off of netflix if you really want to see it because it really is not worth your money.

If you want to go the free route then check these links out:

Internet Archives Version

or

The Youtube Version

Finally, this is another b-western that uses the typical George Lucas Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker type of confrontation. I have mentioned this before, but there are so many b-westerns that have used this formula. In fact, at the end there are some words that are almost the same as what is said at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Where Reagan Was Shot (Youtube Version)

Ronald Reagan Gets Shot Location (Red Rock Canyon Series)

(N35°21.755 W117°59.210)

I was going to put up a picture where Reagan leaves the two horses. Then I thought I might as well just put the dvd menu up because it basically shows the same area.

The area we are going to end up at is just to the left of his hat.
This is really close to where Reagan leaves his horse next to the other horse. The rock formation next to his hat in the menu feature and in the distance that you can not really see distinctly because it blends in is where we are going to end up at.
That thing right there. I do not think Reagan climbed up the left side of this picture. With the editing that was done I think it was a few hundred feet to the east (right of picture) where we started out. I could probably figure it out pretty easily on another trip, but when I came on this day I was pressed for time and wanted to be sure I got to the top of this rock formation since I knew that was where Reagan was shot in the movie.
Here is where he falls in the movie. Jimmy Johnson (played by Russell Johnson) regrets he shot his brother and runs over to him.
This is it. What I am noticing about Red Rock Canyon rock formations is the sandstone seems to show some changes over the years. I can tell I am in the right areas, but things just do not seem exactly the same. This is a different experience compared to what you see in the Alabama Hills. Everything looks the same there after the decades. Here the elements have changed some over the decades.
I took this picture off of the entry for Law and Order on IMDB. This is not in the movie. I like this one since you can see the Acropolis in the background which shows up a lot in Red Rock Canyon movies like The Mummy and Hell's Heroes.
The movie camera was pretty close to this. I have a bunch of other Red Rock locations, but I will wait until later dates to put them out.

Where Reagan Was Shot (Youtube Version)

A Whole New World

When I wrote my last entry on Jan. 31, 2008 I really had no clue I was about to encounter some of the worst days I have ever experienced in my life. My father "graduated" from this life and went to be with the Lord a few days into this new year. Although I knew the day would eventually come, and everyone faces the passing of relatives at some point, I was not expecting this to happen for at least another five years or so.

At first, I was very close to pulling the plug on this hobby project. Although my father had little to do with it, he was a very big inspiration to it since he introduced me to so many of these areas I have gone to and talked about on here. It was always fun to show him areas we used to fish or drive by when I was kid from the perspective of the top of a mountain peak. The other part of this is he was the photographer in that he would spend hours and hours working on his pictures. When things became digital he became very good at using photoshop.

I am pretty much a point and click guy when it comes to pictures. My approach is really different due to the amount of time I have on my hikes and locations. There are certain things I look for and am usually not out for the "perfect picture." My father still tried to give me advice on things he wanted me to do while taking pictures.

I always hate it on the internet when someone says, "This is my last message." Then they end up coming back a few days later as if nothing ever happened. I suspect that is a plea for sympathy, but for me if I were ever to do that I would mean it, and it would be over with no turning back. There have been things in the past that I did just that. I decided to let some time go by and see how I felt.

When certain types of tragedies take place in life when tries to regroup and think of what is ultimately important. I had to ask myself whether what I do here is really important to me or not. I know with certainty my father wanted me to continue to do what I was doing. I am still thinking all of this through because there are other important things in life I still want to accomplish. There is only so much time in this world.

One thing I was going to say, regardless of everything I have just written, is that I do believe at least one thing I have done will probably come to an end eventually. This has to do with the way I use youtube. I have always been somewhat skeptical of youtube. It went through its anarchy phase where almost anything went. Now, due to lawsuits over copyrights, a lot more restrictions have taken place. No doubt this will continue in the future in such a way that may stop what I do on there.

A lot of this, for right now, has to do with the music industry which does not affect me too much. I know this is not going to fly with people in the business, but I have always seen youtube as more like commercials for music or movies if content is being used. I have always tried to "plug" the dvd's, if they are available, for the content I have used. In fact, I do know that I have helped out the music, movie, and town industries economically speaking because I have a bunch of you that have told me so because you saw something I did on here you liked and went out and used your money! This is one area that I am not sure some of the big companies may understand. They may end up shooting themselves in the foot if they become hostile to fan creations. I have not really had any major issues here regarding this, but I know of one situation where a distributor tried to pull a "stunt" which may have damaged their sales. All I know is they will not be promoted here at all, and I know many fans and friends will not purchase their products because of this.

So, keep in mind I see things like this blog and youtube as fun things I do with no intention of money making. Although if someone really wanted to make it worth my while I would listen, but I doubt seriously I could make the money back I have put into the time and trips I have taken. For the time being I will continue what I have been doing in the past, but there maybe times where nothing takes place for weeks or months. We will see.

Finally, in the U.S. we have a new President. Congrats to President Obama. I wish him well for the sake of the country even when the media decides the parade is over. ;) For me, I just hope some changes are not too radical right now. I have encountered a little too much change this month. Peace!

Reflections on 2008 and Where Do We Go From Here?

As I write this entry it will be my 80th blog this year. A few minutes ago I did a quick check of what I was writing about in each month this year. What is funny to me is some of those things I did earlier this year seem like 2-3 years ago now to me. Part of that is the constant blogging and videos I have put up that make some of the older stuff this year seem so long ago.

I was going to write a bunch of stuff about the economy and how I could tell things were not looking so good earlier this year when I traveled. Gas was an issue, but the overall economy is what everyone is concerned about now. To make this short, in what I experienced this year, lots of things that used to be free are no longer free, and small fees have turned into bigger fees. After I came home earlier this year from a trip I got a call from an opinion poll asking me what I thought about state parks. In California funding has been cut, and the opinion poll guy wanted to know what I thought of the three possibilities for raising revenue for state parks. Keep in mind that I just encountered all sorts of new fees on a trip and back. Each of the three possibilities were areas that had recently been given tax hikes and now they were thinking of raising them even more. It was not the right time for him to be calling me on that. I ended up thinking that if this was the best they could come up with there are some serious problems coming.

Originally, I had about 3-4 long paragraphs written about the above issue, but I did not want to make this blog entry too long. These type of economic issues do affect this blog some since I can not just take off to anywhere I want all the time. I did a bunch of stuff in 2008, but I do not have any far away (longer than an hour drive) stuff I plan to do for a while. This is not an issue of having material to post pictures or videos of since I still have tons of stuff I can show.

I was going to say some stuff about youtube and how I regard my use of it in the future, but I think I will wait a few weeks before I do that. As of right now I am taking the next few weeks off and then I will get back to posting new pictures and videos. It was a busy year for this blog, but I do not have the intention of trying to outdo the amount of entries I did this year for 2009.

So, thanks for all the e-mails, the comments, and the views. Believe me, I have a lot I still need to get out over the next few months just based on what I did this last year.

Hell's Heroes (Merry Christmas from Bodie Church)

At the beginning of the movie when the outlaws escape from town along main street, the pastor of the church comes out in front of the church and fires his gun at one of the outlaws. We see it again at the end of the movie.

This was picture was shot at an angle, but shows how it looks now.

Here is the inside of the church in the movie.
You can tell there are some things the same, but the pews were changed in the movie so they could have the outlaw with the baby walk right up the isle.
There was once a ten commandments sign posted up in front of the church above the pulpit. Someone stole it! It reminds me of the story of someone stealing the Encyclopedia of Ethics from the USC library, or the story I heard of aa guy stealing the criminology book from the school store for the class he was taking. Did they get something out of it?

This has been a long series, and to be honest, I am kind of glad it is over since it took up a lot of time this month. Merry Christmas, and please enjoy the holidays!

(EDIT: I have added new blog entries on Bodie for December, 2010. The relevant one is HERE. Also, you may want to watch my new video for this:

Bodie's Heroes (Youtube Version)

Hell's Heroes (The Chase Location)

Most of the town buildings were wiped out due to the fire. Although I knew they used the main street of the town I had hoped to find a few clues of where they were at.

There is not much to go on here. The first thing I always look for is the features of the background. Those pretty much stay constant. In the following pictures the foothills in the background are the same as the above picture although the dark one on the left looks a lot closer to the town than my picture does. Someone once told me that hills and mountains all look the same. Nothing can be further from the truth. At first glance they might, but you have to develop an eye for them. There are little things you look for that make them distinct.
The other factor is the firehouse. You can see it a few times in the movie. The bell is the giveaway. You can barely see it in my picture above, but is clearly seen in the movie. It is sad, but that is all we have left there compare with.
I looked at the buildings they pass by several times, but those are hard to identify. With further work I might be able to do it, but it is probably safe to assume most of what you see was destroyed in the fire. Also, note that grass has overgrown a good portion of the main street compared to what once was. Finally, did you see this undertaker carriage?

It is fun seeing that in the movie. It is in the museum they have in the town.


Bodie's Baddies (Youtube Version)

Hell's Heroes (Bodie Bank Location)

I do not have any gps coordinates for this area, but if you are ever there it is easy to find since it is to the easternmost part of the ghost town. I have not tried, but if I really had to I could probably get approximate coords just looking at some online maps.

The thing to remember is that the fire destroyed a lot of the buildings you will see in the movie. It also destroyed the bank they robbed. Although this area is clearly listed as the "bank" on the pamphlet they give you when you pay your fee to get in, there was a time where I was not certain they used the real bank.

Below I have a picture looking more to the west or southwest where most of the main town structures are. In the movie you can clearly see stuff like the big U.S. Hotel which would have been to the left of this picture. It burned down. If you look closely you maybe able to see the firehouse in middle of the picture. You do see it in the movie a few times.

Here is our bank movie picture. It is the real bank the town had.
Originally, I was not sure about this. I had been to this bank site lots of times. After I saw the movie it still did not click with me. I thought they may have used another building in town because, after all, even back in 1930 a bank would want to reveal too much about itself to would be bank robbers. Since the bank burned down what was it that convinced me this is the right area? It is the Moyle Warehouse foundations to the right side of the picture. Refer to the above picture and compare. Without those it would be a lot harder to show the connection.
There is a chimney type of structure to compare, but even that did not look right. So, the warehouse foundations are the main thing I considered to show it is the same place because all that is left is the vault location. I do not believe they shot the interiors of the real bank in Hell's Heroes. The vault area does not look the same. (UPDATE: I have changed my mind on the interiors...sort of...refer to my blog entry coming in Dec. 2010)
So, I headed to the gated door and looked inside. These are just to show you what the safe looks like inside of the vault.


(EDIT: I have added a new blog entry on Bodie Bank HERE for my December, 2010 Bodie series. Also, I had added a new video:

Bodie's Baddies (Youtube Version)