A Former Luftwaffe Pilot (and Some Planes)

I was going to do this blog two weeks ago about the same time as the Dunkirk movie and the blog about that Spitfire, but decided to wait. Part of the reason was that movie really does not show any German humans in it. I think that is one of the movies strengths since you never see the face of the enemy in that movie. It turns it into a horror survival story against invisible enemies. On the other hand, a movie like the classic Battle of Britain (1969) gives a respectable look at the enemy side.

Some months back I was able to visit the Palm Springs Air Museum to hear the story of a former Luftwaffe pilot. Harald Bauer was a teenager when he flying for the Luftwaffe near the end of the war. He flew mostly Fw-190s and then He-162 jets. He was eventually shot down in a He-162 by a P-51 as the 8th Air Force was bombing the base he was at.

He survived the crash and was captured. Since his mother was living in Germany and was an American, he was classified as an American at the end of the world. Eventually he got involved in journalism and came to the U.S. Then during the Korean War he flew for the U.S., but not as a fighter pilot. He flew a Lockheed Constellation near Alaska (I think). He currently lives in Atascadero, CA.

The He-162 jet:

He explains further details of his life in the videos I'll link below. I was glad I got to see him in person and hear his story. As I've said before, we are nearing the end of the lives of those who participated in WW2 so if you have a chance to hear from one then do so. Where I am at WW2 pilots are rare, but even rarer are Luftwaffe pilots.

Another look at the He-162 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, CA.

Not really related to Bauer's story, but since I am showing some German Luftwaffe planes I should probably mention BF 109E #3523:

Built in 1939, this was flown in the Battle of France and Battle of Britain as an E-1. Then it was upgraded to E-7 and sent to the eastern front. Wulf-Dietrich Widowitz flew it and was shot down during an escort mission by a hurricane. He made a perfect wheels up landing on the ice of frozen lake. The plane sank and was recovered in 2003. They intend to restore it at a later date.


Click here for more pictures I have taken of some of these German Luftwaffe planes.

Other links:

To hear Harald Bauer's story go to this YouTube link: Heinkel He 162 Jet Fighter Test Pilot

The Flying Heritage site has a good interview of him as well: Commander Harald Bauer

An article on the Bf 109 #3523 and its recovery.

This will probably be the last of my blogs dealing with airplanes for while. There is something I probably do sometime next year, but it is time to get to nature in the next blog. Up next time will be the blog, video, and pictures that I have put off and off for the past year or so, but will finally get to. It is something that I have wanted to do, but how to present it is difficult. Well, let's see if I can do it.

High Sierra River Otters

So about four years ago I had an encounter with rivers otters in the High Sierra. I have not seen any since then until July 4, 2017 at 6:20 a.m. I was doing my morning walk and noticed down below some movement. Sure enough it was a mother and some babies:



What you see is all I got of them. Mother saw me and she and the rest took off. Due to the water level of the lake being much higher this year, it would have been really difficult to get down any closer to them from where I was. I tried to track them over the next ten minutes or so, but they are rather stealthy.

If you didn't see my previous video from four years ago then check it out since I got to spend more time with them in that video:

An Odder Thing

If you are more science inclined or curious as to why river otters are in the High Sierra then check out this science paper.

The "Star" of Dunkirk

Back on October 1, 2016 I was at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, CA. A certain aircraft had just been taken apart and shipped there from on location at the Dunkirk filming. I took a bunch of pictures and video that I had intended to upload two nights ago when the movie came out. I realized that I wanted to visit the museum today for a presentation they were having so I just decided to take some new pictures and do a new video. It is better this way since I got to see the movie and how important this plane was in it.

I'll probably re-edit this blog at some point in the future to get all the links and history right for these aircraft that I am uploading pictures of. They all have their real histories, and I want to get that correct.

I thought the movie Dunkirk was really well done. As I mentioned last week and in the past with westerns, I don't mind watching movies that aren't intended to be historical documentaries. This was more based in creating an experience based on history. It was really intense, suspenseful, and action packed. One thing in the director's favor is he kept it within the two hour range which to me is a bonus. Sometimes I think movies are stretched out a little too long and tend to overkill. As I say in the video, this is probably the closest experience I ever want to have with a German Stucka dive bombing on me.

Here is the mock-up plane seen in the movie as it is right now. Notice the "R9612". That is not its real number of the plane it is based on, but was added for the movie from what I have read.


From what I understand, the president of Planes of Fame, Steve Hinton, flew the main scenes you see Tom Hardy's character fly. Yes, another movie with Tom Hardy wanting to destroy planes with no survivors...bad humor...Bane as pilot....lol...;)

In time they will fix that plane up, but in the meantime here is another Spitfire. A Supermarine Spitfire L.F. Mk.IXe


A few links to look at:

The "Star" of Dunkirk (YouTube)

Warbirds

The music taken from Incompetech.com for the video is called Procession of the King.

My Buddy Johari (War for the Planet of the Apes)

Now for something different...

During the first week of November, 2014 I was at the L.A. Zoo observing the newborn baby hippopotamus called Rosie. She was born on October 31st of that year and was a surprise to everyone including the zookeepers since no one knew her mother was pregnant. That same day I visited, I also came across a newborn chimpanzee and his mother in the penthouse behind where the chimpanzees normally hang out during the day. It was Zoe and her baby Johari (born on Oct. 27). Over the past few years I have gotten to know Johari and the rest of the troop at the L.A. Zoo pretty well. I like the older ones, but I tend to focus on the youngest animals since I like to observe how they are learning things. For the chimps, I focus on the two youngest males Johari and Oliver (born in Aug. 2014) as well as the youngest females Uki, Kima, and Zuri who are a few years older. Johari will always have a special place with me since I have almost seen him regularly since the time he was born. I have had some fun moments interacting with him, like this from a few weeks ago:

Through the rest of the blog I'll show pictures I have taken of Johari as I talk about this new Planet of the Apes movie. If you want to see videos I have taken of Johari and rest of the L.A. Zoo chimps then check out my Law of the Claw Youtube channel. That is sort of a side hobby I have for various reasons I can only hint at here for the sake of brevity.

Time to talk about the new War for the Planet of the Apes movie. I like the old Planet of the Apes movies, tv series, and cartoon to some degree. The original is my favorite, but the rest have some good moments in them. That's the way I think about the recent reboot of this series. I like how they have created an alternative universe where the natural history of the planet has gone in a different direction than our own.

The first movie, Rise, was good, but just the beginning. I thought Dawn was rather predictable and have to admit it was a bit of let down for me. I just saw War, and while somewhat predictable, it was a far better movie and much more emotionally satisfying. It is probably true to say that if you took the apes out and replaced them with some other persecuted human group, then you have probably already seen this type of movie before.

Some mild spoilers here, but one of the oddest points of the movie for me was when Woody Harrelson's character is talking about his son and the camera shows a picture of his son. I was looking at that then I noticed something that said, "Whitney Portal" right next to the picture. What's that got to do with this movie? I did get the impression by the end of the movie that the fictional setting might have been the High Sierra, with the Trona Pinnacles, and any desert region in California/Nevada being the ending. Not the real places, but CGI look-alikes. There were some nice scenic shots in the movie, but for some reason in these movies I always get that we are just dealing with a small region and not the whole planet.

As is typical in these type of movies the humans end of being the bad guys which sets you cheering for the anthropomorphic apes in the movie. Human notions of justice, revenge, and mercy play out in the main character, Caesar, in the movie. It was well done, and I hope to see more of these movies as we got to see Caeser's son, Cornelius (who looks a little like Johari, but is in fear most of the times you see him). I would assume that the Cornelius story can be told in future movies with the hope that the apes and future humans can find a way to live in harmony now that the war is over.

With that said....

The downside to movies like this is how literal one takes the moral themes in them. I mentioned this before with westerns. Westerns are not really how the west was. Western movies have selectively taken a few events or ideas that may or may not have happened in the old west and created a myth out if it. As I have said many times before, if you really thought what happens in those movies was true then you would think all anyone wanted to do was have gunfights with each other.

The same with these types of science fiction movies. One of the promos for this movie was done with primate specialist Jane Goodall. I'll link it at the bottom, but in it she mentions that humans do not own the planet, we are just one of the animal species of the world, we're not separate from other animals, that we have a responsibility to preserve harmony in the natural world, we are to be compassionate to all, many creatures have feelings/emotions, suffer pain, etc. She concludes we must understand these things in order to save the world.

First, a standard disclaimer, that none of what I am about to say is to cheap shot Jane Goodall who has done a lot of good work in bringing knowledge about primates to the rest of the world. It has been some years, but I have read one of her earlier books on the chimpanzees she was studying. Ms. Goodall is great if you want to learn about primates because of her expertise in that area.

In the promo she voiced over that I highlighted some of the ideas above, most of the ideas at first glance seem to be reasonable. In the big picture of things I would agree with what she is saying. However, if we take what she said too literally then I would have problems with that. As I like to say, the assumptions are always the killers, meaning that the statements above are assuming things that once you really find out what is really meant you will see some pretty crazy things are being said. As they say, the devil is the details, or the distinctions that are so important in these types of discussions are not being made.

This blog would go on way too long if I try to tackle everything that she said, but let me say something about the idea we must preserve harmony in the world. I'm not sure the world prior to humans had anything like what is meant by "harmony in nature". From the beginning there has been a struggle for existence. This has been a major theme in biology for the past 150+ years or more with the writings of Charles Darwin being the most influential on this issue. The notion that we can somehow not only change human behavior in this regard, but animal behavior too is just weird. Now if we are talking more about creating some balance in the world that would make more sense to me. That way you are sustaining and preserving animals, ecosystems, etc., but I would hardly call that harmony since death and suffering will still happen.

The second idea I wanted to say something about is the notion that humans are no different than any other species. Yet, for some reason, we are responsible in some way for the rest of the world that other species are not. There is a major hang up here that I see all over the internet when I see articles about an animal killing a human and someone says, "we cannot blame the animal." Of course, you can't blame an animal because an animal is not a MORAL AGENT! An animal is not capable of right or wrong it is just doing what it naturally does. Yet, when a human kills another human we assign him or her moral blame because he or she is a moral agent who has done wrong by committing intentional murder or unintentional manslaughter.

To be a moral agent there are three things that work synergistically (together at once). One, you have to be able to posses some level of freewill. That you have the ability to make choices and not something (beyond you) causing you to make choices. Two, the ability to reason in a propositional way. Meaning, you have the ability to justify your beliefs, not just problem solving. Three, you have a moral sense of right or wrong. Moral intuitions, conscience, etc. guide a person. All three (free will, rationality, and morality) work together in person making him/her a moral agent. Animals typically follow their desires and not reflect on moral issues like this. I've read books by those in the biological sciences (ex. Frans de Waal, Marc Bekoff) that try to give an account of animal morality. What typically happens is the concepts I have just mentioned are usually redefined in way that ends up being not the same thing. Although, in fairness to the two authors mentioned, it is typically in the last chapter of their books where they will say that human moral agency is different than the what they have discovered in animals.

The reason I bring this up, the foundation of how we treat other animals from an animal welfare perspective is how we treat other humans. Our obligations to other humans is key. It is first and foremost. A good person will be good to animals because he/she is good to other humans. However, a person that is good to animals does not necessary mean that person is good to humans. There is a value distinction between humans and non-human animals. Humans have infinite value as moral agents. Animals have value too, but not the same level because they are not moral agents. I'm going to link a Dennis Prager video below that argues slightly differently, but mirrors what I am saying.

So, I love Johari with every ounce of my blood along with a lot of other animals I have encountered. Insult my buddy Johari and I might go Clint Eastwood on you! ;) In seriousness, you can love your pets in this subjective way, but objectively you do have moral obligations and are responsible for other humans even if you do not love them in the same way.

Jane Goodall "Compassion" for War of the Planet of the Apes

Dennis Prager, "Are Humans More Valuable than Animals?"

A few of my Johari and other chimps vids:

Johari Ninja Warrior

Thanksgiving with Oliver with Johari Cameo

Chimpanzee Mixed Martial Arts

Roughhousing

Little Oliver and Johari

Two old blogs for the original Planet of the Apes Locations:

"On Earth All Along"

Planet of the Apes Village

Winter, Spring, or Summer?

(GPS: N37°55.760 W119°15.200)

So last week Tioga Pass finally opened up, and I decided to visit. The High Sierra had an overwhelming snowpack over the winter and spring that had not been seen in quite some time. It was very strange seeing Tioga Lake like this. It had me wondering what season I was in.

I had never seen Tioga Lake with ice on it in person. That is something just legendary you see in pictures of people ice skating around Christmas time, but it doesn't seem real. Seeing this in person was different for me to say the least.

With the positive end of a drought that everyone wanted in California we have to remember that nature does not play by fair rules. There were some negative consequences of such an overwhelming snowpack in that there were some damages to places that will need repairs. Some people that hope to have their business running by this time of the year will still be closed until much later in the season. A lot of money is lost in both situations.

The waterfall drop from Ellery Lake at Tioga Pass:

Tioga Pass is such an epic place:


Winter, Spring, or Summer? (YouTube Video)

Be sure to read this article on the damage done to Tioga Pass Resort.

The music used in video from Incompech.com is called Silver Blue Light.

Summer 2017 (Excuses and Updates)

I hope you are all having a good summer (or winter if you are south). I think it is about time for me to start blogging again. What I hope to do is have a blog every week or two until around Labor Day. Not everything I will be showing or discussing is "knock it out of the park" material, but is of interest to me so you might find a thing or two enjoyable.

Various issues:

1)I had a hard drive die on me some months back. Unfortunately, as much as I like to back things up, there were some movie locations I was going to show on that drive that I had no other place. So, I will have to start over with that, and that might take a while.

2)The other issue is my faithful camcorder is having some problems with auto focus. It is enough where I have to be obsessive compulsive to get correct video using it or going into manual mode. So, there is a good chance I will be getting a new camcorder in the future. That means that I will probably delay doing any serious movie location work or difficult hikes for that matter until this is resolved. Nothing is worse that spending hours of time doing this and coming home only to find out that I have a bunch of video footage I can't use.

3)At the end of last year I said I was working on a video I had hoped to have done soon after. I finally finished that one up and it will be on here within this summer blogging period. The big reason for the delay is I wasn't sure how I wanted to present it. I'll explain more on that one when I upload it.

4)In the past I liked to upload videos and create blogs on holidays. Although things could change, I have decided to skip Halloween and Christmas blogs this year. I enjoyed doing some theme connected to those holidays, but the amount of work and timing needed is not worth it right now.I have nothing planned, but even if something comes up I will probably release it before those holidays.

With all that said, I'll be back in a few days with the first real summer series blog. .  

The Mishe Mokwa Trail

(GPS: N 34 06.870, W 118 55.100)

It is that time of the year again where the unofficial start of summer beings on Memorial Day Weekend in the U.S. I wanted to show a short popular hike in the Santa Monica Mountains I did a few weeks ago. Admittedly, I’m a High Sierra snob so it is hard for me to get too excited about every hike in the southern part of the state of California. This one did have some good moments in it so let’s get to it…

My brother’s church hiking group wanted to do this one, and I was dragged along. To make it work out right I had to get up at 3:00am, meet up with the group, travel through Mulholland Drive on small roads though the Santa Monica mountains to get to the trailhead. We arrived at the small parking area sometime before 7:30am. There was some confusion here since some other friends we were supposed to meet ended up further on down in the main parking area where the Mishe Mokwa trailhead officially starts. We tried to get to them via cell phone, but the reception was not very good there. I wasn’t really in charge on this hike, nor did I know much about the area, so it wasn’t until later we all realized the simple mistake that had taken place.

About twenty minutes into the hike we encountered the nice looking canyon that contained the sandstone rock formations that are major scenic point in doing the hike. Unfortunately, any pictures at this time of the morning in this direction would not be as great as later in the day due to the some just coming up over the east. Still it gives you an idea of the area.

It was not too long after this that the open trail area closed up where trees and plant life were all around us. I had to constantly duck under the branches that would have “beheaded” me had I gone right through them. As we descended we finally came across “Split Rock”:

After some jokes about how isolated this part of the trail is and this is where a serial killer would strike…not my joke, but some of the younger ones talked like this…we were off again. We passed many sandstone rock formations along the way which is really the scenic strength of this hike.

It was while observing this rock formation above that something was triggered in my mind. There was a Kurt Russell horror western movie called Bone Tomahawk that was filmed somewhere in these mountains. I’m not sure exactly where, but I remembered a certain look that film had with sandstone rocks in that movie.
As we went around this loop trail we finally encountered an area that I liked the most. There is a residential area down below and the Pacific Ocean is in the distance:

It was a little further beyond we were close to the highest point, Sandstone Peak, but we didn’t ascend that part because there were too many people near the top of that rock formation. We were content with the area we had ascended too; it was a big antenna adjacent to the highest point. On the descent back to the parking we saw a man made lake that I was pretty sure was Lake Sherwood. If I remember correctly an old silent movie was filmed at that lake connected to the Robin Hood story.

The last twenty minutes or so I had a really slow pace due to the amount of people just starting the hike. I was encountering groups of twenty people or more on the trail so I had to move off trail for them. A lot of Koreans like this hike from what I could tell.

As I got back to the now full parking lot, my brother was on the phone with the friends we were supposed to meet up with. We found out they were further on down at the main parking area and trailhead that morning before we got there, but after waiting around for us ended up doing the hike thirty minutes after we had started it. They were describing all the places they had been to that I have described in this blog, but were trailing us so we never saw them. That was the only disappointment we had about this.

Supposedly, there is over a 1,600 foot elevation change in this loop hike, but I never really felt I got any serious uphill in. It there was that type of elevation change then it is rather gradual with lots of ups and downs. Had we gone the other direction on the loop trail I think I would have felt it more. In any case, I don’t consider this hike to be that difficult and can be done in a few hours.

Some of the other pictures I took on this hike can be found in the following Album on my Flickr account:
The Mishe Mokwa Trail

WW1 Aircraft (San Diego Air Museum)

(AKA The 100th Anniversary of the U.S. Entering WW1)

On April 6, 1917 the U.S. entered World War 1 due to what is known as the Zimmerman note and German unrestricted submarine warfare. It seems like it was just a few years ago that I was noting the 100th anniversary of an old west hanging that took place. The world changed dramatically in those years of the war. WW1 was the great event of the 20th century that influenced just about every other major event of the 20th century to even issues we face today.

I decided to visit the WW1 exhibit at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. While they feature everything from the dawn of flight to the modern era, I wanted to focus this blog on the WW1 aircraft they have. One has to remember that at the beginning of the war in 1914 that airplanes had only been in existence for about a decade. At the beginning of the war airplanes were used to make observation flights into enemy territory to see where the enemy was. Reconnaissance was the key early on. Some have claimed that air power in the first world war did not have that much of an impact on the war, but at the same time probably made it a longer war because the element of surprise was gone due to the reconnaissance being gathered. In other words, it bogged down in trench warfare because each army knew where the other army was.

As the war went on something had to be done about the enemy planes or observation balloons viewing one's territory. That is where the origin of the dogfight took place: planes attacking planes. Early on the notion that there was chivalry between the pilots where there was a knightly respect between pilots was not uncommon. However, as the war went on and technology increased that became less likely. One of the key technological developments came though the design of the Eindecker III plane:

This was the plane Anthony Fokker developed a synchronized machine gun that could shoot through the propeller without hitting it. This is what led to what is known as the "Fokker Scourge" of August 1915 to early 1916. One of the main fighters that ended the scourge was the French Nieuport 11:

What is considered the best German plane of the war was the Albatros D. Va:

One thing I should mention is that even though the U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917 it had an economic impact for the Allies, and the navy helped too. It didn't have much impact on the war on the ground or in the air for another year. In fact, the U.S. had to end up buying airplanes from the Allies since it had none ready for an air force. One of these was the Nieuport 28:

Another was the SPAD VII:


Of course there were many other planes used. At some point in the future I will show some of the others I have from a different museum. There are not many WW1 era museums or aircraft in my area. So I was happy to visit this museum.

My WW1 Aircraft Album (Flicker)

WW1 Aircraft at the San Diego Air and Space Museum (Youtube Video)

A few books I have read and influenced this blog:

The First Air War: 1914-1918 by Lee Kennett

Marked for Death: The First Air War by James Patterson

Wikipedia articles:

U.S. Enters WW1

Focker Sourage 

Bloody April (April, 1917. Another 100 Anniversary)

Fokker Eindecker III

Nieuport 11

Albatros D.V.

Nieuport 28

SPAD VII

Be sure to check out The Great War Youtube Channel for a week by week look at the war. They just released this video of the U.S. declaring war on Germany..

Finally, the link to the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

Top Gear Episode (Season 24, Episode 2): Supercars for all Seasons

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A kindred spirit of the blog, The Stig, has mysteriously communicated that a segment of this weeks episode of the BBC show Top Gear will be of interest to my readers. The Supercars for all Seasons episode has something called the "Four Seasons Challenge" which starts out in Las Vegas goes through Death Valley to the High Sierra to Mammoth Mountain. Part of the challenge ends up at Bogart Curve on Whitney Portal Road as seen below:

The episode has already aired in the U.K. and should be airing this Sunday night on BBC America. However, check your local listings to find out dates and times.

I'll just say The Great Silence Blog had a tiny little influence on some of the ideas in this episode. Not whole lot, but it was there. While watching the episode I was amazed at how they used some of the concept ideas that I knew of before they filmed it and how the final product came out. It was really well done. There is this point where they travel by Owens Lake, which really isn't a lake anymore, but the reflections and the scenery make it very powerful! So be sure to check it out.

A few of my related blog entries on some of the spots used in the episode:

Bogart Curve.

Mammoth Mountain

As far as this blog is concerned. I've been a bit lazy in the past few months. I should have a minor project up in a few weeks. The big project that I meant to have up by the end of last year then delayed is...still delayed. I haven't forgotten about it, but need more time on that one.

It is nice to know the the drought is over in the High Sierra at this time. Lots of ice this time around. This is good. I'm excited for this season!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!



I thought since I've been hearing Gene Autry sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer just about everyday since mid-November on the local radio stations it was time to put up a video dedicated to him. I'm not a hard core Gene Autry fan, but do own a bunch of his movies on dvd and remember him as the Angel's baseball owner when I was a kid. However, my family always had great respect for him and the goodness he portrayed on and off screen. I mentioned the Gene Autry family story in the video and got out the paperwork I was talking about while I was editing the video to make sure I still had it. As I note in the video this was done about two hours after the hike to the Lon Chaney Cabin video I showed on Halloween. I thought I had time for it on the way home so off I went.

It wasn't that easy. I mentioned in that blog that I had to wait for roadwork on Whitney Portal Road. That was one thing, but what I didn't mention is the amount of people in the Alabama Hills.There were many travel trailers in key spots I wanted to video at. I intended to have at least two videos possibly three for today, but because people were parked in the spots I needed to video at I just gave up. Keep in mind what I had faced at the Lon Chaney Cabin if you read that blog. I wanted to slam my head into the ground since I had put some mental preparation time into what I intended to video. Let's just be grateful that I was able to get this video done and leave it at that.

Which leads to this video. Even though I mentally prepared for this one I did make some mistakes in it that I had to do some major editing to make it work. I typically do a bunch of "takes" on all my videos. Then I do the editing of the clips, cut stuff out, add the movie video to it, add music, etc. Some of the clips are out of order in the way I thought I was going to present it when I was there making it. For me to watch it is slightly strange because I say something in the middle of it that I intended as the intro, but to make it work with the movie clip I had to present it as you see. It is not something you would probably know unless I told you, but if you get the idea the video has some repetitive awkward moments then maybe now you understand why.

Have a great day and enjoy the new year with family and friends. I do intend to put together a video in the next month or so that I have put off that will take a lot of work to do. I had hoped to have it for today or the new year, but I wanted to enjoy the holidays and not be in video obsession mode for this one I intend to do. So, I will see you when that one is completed.

The old blog on the Gene Autry Mule Train Waterhole

The music from Incompetech.com used in the video is called "Fireflies and Stardust".

Follow the Gold Leaf Trail! (Christmas Eve 2016)

Happy Christmas Eve! I hope you are done with your Christmas shopping and preparations for the big day tomorrow. Take a moment and relax with this one. It has some nice magical/fantasy moments in it:


This was done on the last day for fall colors in that area because the wind that would come that day would wipe out a good portion of the leaves you see in it. The fall colors were the main reason I did that hike to Barney Lake.

I had not been to Barney Lake in about ten years. I had been on the trail a few years ago when I took some pictures in the snow there, but I didn't get to the lake. Some of my earliest blogs from 2006 show this area back then and what is beyond Barney Lake. I would have liked to have gone further, but windy conditions that were to come would have made me miserable. I achieved the main goal which was to see some of the colors and get to this lake so I was happy.

There was lots of gold on this trail. On this mountainside there was a river of gold flowing through it.

Then this was the point I thought the elves and hobbits would show up in this enchanted forest:

Finally I reached Barney Lake:


The above picture is actually looking back, and it was the furthest I went on the trail that morning.

If you would like to see other pictures I did for this hike then go here: Follow the Gold Leaf Trail! (Flickr Album)

The music from Incompetech.com used in the video is called "Ascending the Vale"..

In Remembrance of Pearl Harbor (75th Anniversary)

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the day that would live in infamy. You might remember a few months ago I posted some pictures and an unlisted video of the Planes of Fame Airshow in Chino, CA. One part I left out of the video was the tribute to Pearl Harbor they did. I decided to withhold that until today. So here we go:


There is so much out there on Pearl Harbor that I think it would be foolish of me to try to say too much on here. A google search of "Pearl Harbor" or watching the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! should do the job if you are lacking in this area. There are tons of news articles out today.

The Japanese Zero fighter is one of the main aircraft in this video. One of the Zero fighters you see was actually captured by the U.S. in 1944. It is the only one in the world that stills runs on its original engine. You can see the particular zero in the Memorial Day Blog I did.

The Curtis P-40 Warhawk was the fighter that had to intercept the Zero at Pearl Harbor. It was inferior to the Zero, but a few pilots were able to shoot down some of the Zeros.

353 Japanese aircraft were involved in the attack at Pearl Harbor. Yet the the U.S. aircraft carriers they were sent to destroy were not there. A victory for the Japanese, but not the one they needed to defeat the U.S. The element of surprise was gone from now on. The sleeping giant had awoken.

Click here for the unlisted video of the airshow.

North Lake

(GPS: N37° 13.870 W118° 36.770)

Happy Black Friday! Actually, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be happy or wish that on anyone else on this day. I pretty much stay home on Black Friday. So, wish you well if you are one of those that braves the lines. Not my thing, but if it were a long distance hike...

From Sabrina Lake I drove back to the turnoff to North Lake. It is a dirt road that goes to the lake. Since I'm a little different to say the least, I decided to hike in instead of driving to it. I was just in the mood to explore the area and not drive back and forth. So after about twenty minutes of up hill and curves I encountered the lake:

It was very quiet. Much like Lake Sabrina, there were a few fishermen around the lake. There were a few people taking pictures around the lake. I knew this area was past prime with the fall colors before I got here. You can notice that most of the trees have lost their leaves across the lake. However, the trees on the right side of the above pictures still had some left.

So, I was happy to get this. See the tiny fisherman on the other side of the lake?

Again, like Lake Sabrina, this is another area I would like to come back to for some hiking in the canyon.

Lake Sabrina

(GPS: N37° 12.720 W118° 36.680)

I want to wish my fellow Americans a Happy Thanksgiving! If you are somewhere else then I wish you a great day as well. 

I'm going to keep things simple today. This is an area that I haven't spent much time at. About a twenty minute drive outside of Bishop, CA gets one to a couple of different areas in the High Sierra. One of these is Lake Sabrina:

I was there during the morning hours, and the sun had not quite cleared the canyon.

I zoomed across the lake for this shot. There were some fall colors there.

It's been a while since i watched Star Trek: Insurrection, but this lake was in that movie (as well as Convict Lake which is about a thirty minute drive away). In any case, I hope to return here in the future to hike some of the trails here.

Tankland! (Veteran's, Armistice, Remembrance Day)

Happy Veteran's Day! Armistice Day! Remembrance Day!

A few months ago I was at Tankland (Aka The American Military Museum) in El Monte, CA. It is a big lot of military vehicles with the emphasis on the American tanks. It was really fun to see some of these machines in person.

Two Sherman tanks.

M5 Stuart.

 M47 Patton Tank from the side.

M47 Patton Tank from the front.

Go here for more Tankland pictures I took on Flickr.

I took video too. Sometime in the future I will edit a video of this place as well. I'll link it here at that time.

I just wanted to acknowledge the Vets of the U.S. and other allied countries today. Bless you! Thanks for keeping me safe.

Recently, certain American football players have made the news in not acknowledging the American National Anthem while it is played before their games. They have every legal right to do that, but I do not believe they have the moral right to do this. Whatever past sins the U.S. has been apart of, those players have not made the sacrifices that our veterans have made. Many of which are minorities. I used to enjoy watching NFL games, but I refuse to watch anymore until those players apologize. My sacrifice is not the same as landing on Normandy, but I will not spit in the face or on the graves of those who have given me my freedoms.

Survival of the Fittest

I wanted to upload this video I took a few months ago. I thought it was kind of interesting. I was not sure who I was rooting for while I was watching it take place:

What I thought was “fun” about this was how prey used its environment to its advantage. Normally a predator like this would completely overwhelm the prey. However, due to the ‘smartness” of the prey it was able to do what it did. I had one of those “Bruce Lee” moments while observing nature in action. A powerful opponent can be stopped if you can find a way to neutralize its strengths.

A few thoughts on the election (really about the media):

I did want to make a few comments about yesterday’s U.S. election. As I have said in the past, I really don’t like it when entertainers or bloggers I follow that specialize in something that has nothing to do with politics feel the need to go partisan. There is a guy with a nature blog that does this to a predictable level during every election cycle that drives me nuts. So, I hesitate to do too much of this on my own blog for the same reason since this is not a political blog. However, one of the issues that comes up from time to time on here is the sources of our beliefs. What good reasons to we have to believe something?

What bothered me about this election was not the candidates involved. It was the way the media handled it. Imo, they were not even trying. Or, from a different perspective, they were trying way too hard. I would log into my e-mail everyday and before I would do that this past year I was getting “hit piece” after “hit piece” on one candidate. There was a blog earlier this year that I mentioned my frustration with the media on this issue.

I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but one day I was on the Reddit conspiracy message board. It was chilling to see that they had come to the same conclusion I had come to. There was one message that showed how all the news stories over a few days to a week were so anti-Trump to the point of absurdity. It actually shocked me that I’m in line with a conspiracy site. That’s aliens and UFO territory there, right?

The expectation is that the media is reporting and representing the issues the public cares about proportionally to the views of the public. The media should not be trying to create reality or influence the public this way. That is what Joseph Goebbels style Nazi propaganda did. I wonder if members of the media truly thought the way they presented the election was fair, or are they really that biased and blind? As it is, it came across like they were bought off by someone. That is what I get off of popular sites like Yahoo news where someone is just paid off by some group to promote their views.

The notion of a “fact checker” is always an interesting idea to me. Who “fact checks” the fact checkers? Especially when they have different values, assumptions, and agendas.

I need to add that Wikileaks exposed a lot of this too. CNN was shown to be colluding with the Clinton campaign. Preparing questions to Clinton before the debates, asking what questions should be asked to other candidates, asking about what they should be publishing, etc.

In any case, if there is one thing that I took pleasure in, it was seeing the public give the media a dose of reality. The media was defeated big time. Something to remember as you watch or read anything from the media in the future. Which leads to the following article:

I hope the media starts to reflect a little more like this article does.

One of these days I will talk about what I call, "Playing Psychology" when you can't win someone over with facts and good reasoning. The article hints at that on a few points.

Big Pine Lakes #1 and #2

So this is a continuation of the last blog which was really dedicated to my return to the Lon Chaney Cabin. As I said, when I got to the cabin there were already people there which kind of ruined the moment of making the type of video I wanted there. So, somewhat demoralized, I just skipped the cabin and moved on for another forty-five minutes to an hour of uphill switchbacks in an elevated canyon. Finally, I discovered Lake #1:

That picture is looking back at it since I didn't like any of the views of it from the trail. I was always getting blocked by something that didn't really capture the beauty of it. I'm sure I could have gone off trail to get better pictures of it, but I wasn't in the mood to do that. The thing was I knew Lake #2 is connected with it, and just a matter of minutes of getting to that lake.

This was really the "payoff" lake as far as I was concerned. This was the personal goal of the hike that morning since I had hiked to the cabin before. I had seen pictures of Temple Crag in the background so I had always wanted to view this lake in person. I like the "hand" reaching toward the crag. :)

These are glacial lakes so that have that glacial tarn turquoise look to them. There are many more lakes back here, but I turned around at this point. I am inspired to go back and explore beyond this point. So in the future I hope to have more to say about this area.

The Lon Chaney Cabin (Flickr Pictures)

I did an alternative video for this hike that I am calling the "Majestic Edition".The area is beautiful, and I wanted something to reflect that. I cut out some footage, added the lake footage at the end, cut out the special effects, replaced spooky music with more uplifting music, and cut out the intro narrative. It is unlisted, and I don't expect many to view it, but it is okay to share with others if you want to. I just wanted to get away from the "horror" theme for this one.

The Return to Cienega Mirth (Majestic Edition)

The music used from Incompech.com is called Brittle Rille and Majestic Hills.

The Cabin at 7 Cienega Mirth (Halloween 2016)

Happy Halloween!

Up until about a week ago I planned to skip doing anything for Halloween. After thinking about it I thought there is one area I would not mind doing again on here. So without further ado, here is the video for The Cabin at 7 Cienega Mirth:

I’ll be doing another blog that should be up next weekend that will run a slightly different non-Halloween edit of this video with some alternative footage. I explain why when I get to that point. However, in the meantime let me go over some of my thoughts on this video and what actually happened.

Video editing thoughts:

If you have seen the original video that I put up some years back, you might remember the weather conditions with the clouds going over the mountains making it a little extra spooky. I knew there was no way I could reproduce that atmosphere in this most recent video. That is probably the main reason I will keep the old video up along with this new one.

The old video, like a lot of my old videos, is hard for me to watch. It was good for the time I did it, but it was from an older camcorder that did not have the features my latest one has. I did a bunch of things in that video that I would consider editing mistakes today. After thinking about it over time I started to get the itch to do another video of this spot.

Originally, the idea was to video the cabin all in one take right as I reached the spot. That didn’t work out as I explain below. So, I went with the backup plan. The video came out alright. There are a few moments I would have liked to have done over, but overall I am pleased. I had more special effects ready to go, but when I did some tests on Youtube the quality wasn’t working. So, I decided to cut some of them out.

Hiking thoughts:

You know how I mentioned in the video that it can’t get worse than a zombie outbreak or the Evil Deadites showing up? Well, it did!

I parked at the backpacker’s parking lot again for this one. There is a trailhead closer to Glacier Lodge in Big Pine. The trail from the backpackers parking lot is a little more exposed, seems slightly longer, but starts out a little higher. I got there around 8:30am, noticed a bunch of cars parking, and started right away.

I had the trail all to myself. It took me about an hour to get to the cabin. Then as I was making my way with the camcorder recording I spotted two people in front of the cabin. It was slight shock to seem them since I thought I would have the place to myself. I decided to skip the cabin and go to the first two Big Pine Lakes.

On returning to the cabin I started the recording again. This time I noticed some people sitting by the stream by the cabin. Oh no! I didn’t want to have any people in this video since that would ruin the mystique of what I was trying to create. No problem, I just went with the backup plan you saw in the video.

However, before I did that I shut off the recording and went to the people there in an attempt to just be High Sierra friendly and let them know what I would be doing. Oh my goodness, these people were complete “holes”. As I approached I said “hi” and then asked in a joking way, “So, are you fishing today?”  They didn’t look back at me, but just said “Huuuuhhhhhhhhhh?!?” I asked the same question and got the same response. Then I changed it to, “Are you taking pictures?” and the same response. Sigh. I understand people wanting to be left alone in the isolated High Sierra, but these people were ultra-unfriendly. I then told them that I was going to take a short video of the cabin, but not too worry I wouldn’t be getting them in the video. The guy then completely understood me and told me they were only going to be there for five more minutes anyways. I did what I said and got out of there right as others showed up. So, I never did have the cabin to myself. No big deal, but that couple really put me in a bad mood. Zombies, Evil Deadites, or unfriendly idiots made stupid by a haunted cabin seem to be all the same for me.

Other tidbits:

When I got back to the trailhead I was still a little irritated, but felt better driving back to Big Pine and HWY 395. I still had another thing I wanted to do that is…going back to the Alabama Hills! I should be feeling great when I get there! Then as I made the turn in Lone Pine to head to those rocks, and I saw a sign that said, “Roadwork ahead! 25 minute wait!” You have to be kidding me! I thought I had escaped this. Turns out on this trip at many points on HWY 395 from just past Kraemer Junction to the June Lake Loop to Lee Vining and beyond there were twenty minute stops due to roadwork. The one place I didn’t think would face this, but they were doing something on Whitney Portal Road. There was something else that was annoying about the Alabama Hills, but I leave that for some other time.

A few links:

Lon Chaney Cabin Hike Pics (All new pictures on Flickr)

The Lon Chaney Cabin (The old blogs about this place that has the old video if you have not seen that)

The music taken from Incompetech.com is called Metaphysik, One of Them, and Thunder Dreams.

The Ten Year Anniversary of The Great Silence Blog

I wanted to note the ten year anniversary of the blog. My sense of time is really warped. I know it has been ten years, but in some ways it doesn't seem THAT long ago.

What I remember when I started this blog site is I was recovering from Giardia or something very close to it. I had been doing long High Sierra day hikes and was in great shape. I started to feel the symptoms, but even then I was still doing long hikes. It wasn't until the day I drove home it really hit me. For the next two weeks trips to the bathroom were quite frequent, funny, and painful. The creation of the blog was to keep my mind off my ailment.

The first five or so years I was really cranking out many things. Almost once a week at my best to once a month I would put content out. Then I announced I would go into semi-retirement mode with me occasionally putting out further content. That's kind of the way it has been for the past five years and will continue to be.

I want to thank those who have been supportive along the way. I have never been a person that has sought out for the approval of hundreds of people. Yet, it is nice to get a few people that appreciate what I have done.

Along these lines, I thought I would mention that my experiments on my original Youtube channel started almost ten years ago as well. It's interesting how that site has changed over the years. When I originally started I could put up a video and get a hundred views in a day easily without even trying. These days if I am lucky, where the quality and editing of video is so much better and easier, it takes about a month to get the same amount of views. That’s with over three to four times the amount of subscribers I have these days. There are a lot of reasons for that which I am not going into here, but it is interesting to me how the quality of something can increase dramatically and yet not get the same results. Fortunately, I don't obsess over view totals, but it is always fun to see what happens with that.

With that said, God bless and I will see you all somewhere down the road.