The Revenge of Blackstar Canyon (Black Star Falls)

(GPS: N33° 47.850 W117° 39.300)

Note: the above coordinates are approximate and just useful for looking at something like Google Maps to get the idea where this is at. The hike, although not easy, is primarily following a streambed. A gps is not really useful to take along due to the interference of the trees and rock walls around.

Let me give the background on me doing this one. A few weeks ago I posted the Beek's Place hike that was done in the middle of February. In the video I pointed out exactly where I intended to go at some point in the following weeks. It had been raining at lot during that time so I knew it would be the best time to visit the falls. I was preparing to go.

Something to keep in mind, like a lot of Black Star Canyon, the falls have been somewhat mysterious for a bunch of reasons. Very little has been written about it. I have seen at least one book written during the 1980's that has a picture of them. Occasionally, over the past few years, someone might post the pictures of the falls online somewhere. Yet, the exact location was not really that well known, that is until the recent O.C. Register article. It was almost the time I intended to go at the end of February that I saw the Whiting article on Black Star Falls in the O.C. Register. At the time, this was somewhat discouraging because it felt like all of southern California was going to be heading to this one right after the article came out. So, I decided to not go that weekend or any of the next few weekends, but wait until I had a spare mid-week day/afternoon to do it. Sure enough, lots of people have reported going to the falls since that time. So, that gives you some of the background on what happened during that time and why I just waited until now to post about it.

Of course, I had been to Black Star Canyon before which I have covered in a few blogs at the end of October and the beginning of November last year. I had experienced fall conditions. This time I was getting winter and almost spring conditions. It was a lot more green out this time which made it a lot more enjoyable to look at. You will notice the day was very overcast and almost looking like I could encounter a storm at any moment.

If you have read my previous Black Star Canyon blog I did for Halloween, you know that this area of the Santa Ana Mountains is notorious for being "haunted." One of the locals that lives back here has a habit of being confrontational to check up on who goes back there. The main thing I need to say here is the public has the right to walk on the road. If you go off the road you are probably on private property. I have noticed since the last time I covered this area that some people online have reported bypassing the barbed wire fence to visit where the bus is. That is not something you are supposed to do. Stay on the road and you are fine.
The conclusion I came to last time is the spooky thing about this area is that at some points you can not see too far ahead on the road you are walking because of the turns it makes. The dirt road gets smaller too at times. It is a great area for setting up ambushes. In any case, I passed all the familiar landmarks along the road and finally got to the concrete cylinders. At this point, instead of going left up the switchbacks, I went along the stream to my right that started the jungle adventure.
The rains caused a lot of water for this stream which was a good thing. There really is no trail here. You just walk along the stream, through the stream, over the boulders, and bushwhack through the poison oak. That was one thing I knew to expect so I wore lots of clothes. I was lucky in that I did not get a major case of poison oak like I have read others have.
The rock above was the crux of the whole adventure. I had a hard time getting up that one. I kept slipping since it was a very smooth rock. Eventually, I got up it, but I had wondered if I might have to turn around. I might have been able to bypass it going through that pool to the right. At the time, I decided against it because, if I recall correctly, it was a little too deep.

Keep in mind this "jungle" part of the hike is a total distance of about a mile, but when you are doing it the pace is not really fast due to the boulder hopping, bushwhacking, and moving along the stream. The elevation does increase here. So, it really felt like a four to five mile trip one way.
In the above picture, I encountered the small twin falls. There were lots of small waterfalls on this hike. The above small falls are key to know you are near the end. I did not know that at the time. I looked way up in the distance and saw some falls coming over the hillside much further up. At the time, I was thinking how was I going to get up past that? Well, it turned out I was at the end of the hike.
The area was not exactly the way I had imagined it. I thought the area would be more opened up at this point. That turned out to be the way most of this hike was. All throughout, the area to be traversed was very compact. Usually, this meant there was only one way to go with very little options. At the falls, this meant I could not back up and capture everything in the way I would have liked since I was so close to them.
The falls are about an 80 ft. drop and land into a pool. Some of the water goes through a cave that you see forming the double falls.

I spent about 30 minutes here. I was not too thrilled about heading back since the downhill on the boulders and the rest of the jungle adventure was really rough on the legs. I did fall down a few times during this one. Of all the crazy stuff I do, this hike was one that seemed a bit more dangerous to me than normal. Some of the pools were deeper than what they appeared to be, so that was another issue I had to be concerned with.

I did not encounter anyone on the way up to the falls, but on the way back I did meet two separate groups hiking up there. I gave them the information they wanted to know, but I was not too happy or friendly at that point since I was getting tired of walking on boulders and bushwhacking. I got back to the main road and then it was an easy walk to drive out.

So, it is an interesting sight for what one normally would not expect to see in southern California. I suspect it is really dried up or close to it now. Sometime in the future after some rains I would like to see the source of the falls from up above. The area is still somewhat mysterious to me. One curious thing, looking back at some the pictures and video I took, and keeping in mind the legends that have come out of Black Star Canyon, is that a lot of the rocks look like that have faces on them. Sort of like aliens, monsters, or skulls. LOL.

About a week after this I did another "jungle adventure." That will come at another time.

The Revenge of Black Star Canyon (Youtube Version)

The Golf Ball (Beek's Concluded)

(GPS: N33° 49.060 W117° 38.160)

Continuing from where I left off in the last blog entry, I went up behind the main cabin's ruins to the smaller cabin's ruins. Apparently, this one was where the caretaker would stay for the family.

There is not much left to this one either. If you looked at the O.C. Register article I linked last time there was a picture of this that showed some of the roof still up. Not much now.
I went in and looked around. Lots of weeds were growing in there. I looked out the "window."
A little beyond there is something known to the locals as the "Golf Ball." If you have seen the beginning of the video I did of the Indian Village back at the beginning of last November, then you saw it for a few seconds as I zoomed into it. It is a NEXRAD WSR-88d; a weather surveillance radar.
Up close I thought it should be renamed the "Volleyball."

This is something I had seen for years from far away and down from the freeway below. There was one day a few years back I was hiking to nearby Sierra Peak and it was a really foggy morning. Visability was really bad and I remember finally seeing it across the way. It was kind of mysterious at the time and decided I wanted to see what it looked like up close some day.

I really have learned to like a lot of the Santa Ana Mountains over the past few years. While it is not as fun and epic as some of the Eastern Sierra stuff I do, it does have some mysterious stuff I like to explore.

My concluding video:

The Golf Ball of Death (Youtube Version)

Finally, again, if you have further curiosity about this place, the links I posted in last blog should answer some of the questions and be a good start for finding out more.

Beek's Place

(GPS: N33 49.220 W117 38.310)

The day I did this it was overcast so the conditions for doing a video were not that great. So, I just made this one a little more silly while editing it and not something I took too seriously.

Beek's Place (Youtube Version)

Here is one of the local hikes I did back in February. At different times of the year I go out and hike some of the places nearby just to keep in some sort of shape. Normally, they are not worth putting on this blog. The next few that will show up on here in the next month all have something worth noting.

This hike starts in Corona, CA. Technically, if you work it out right, you do not have to hike it. One could take a drive up the dirt road. Once while I was exploring the beginning of this road, I had lots of vehicles passing me up. The trick is you have to be sure the gate is open and stays open when you return. I do not know the details to that, but I know people have had the gate closed on them when they return. There is a number listed on the gate if you get stuck.

The second thing to note is there was a part of the road, that due to the recent rains, really looked split up. You would have to park and continue on foot anyways otherwise risk being stuck in a really bad way. In any case, I intended to walk the whole thing. I cannot remember the mileage or how much time it took me. It seems like a 12 mile roundtrip and maybe a little less than a 2,000 ft. elevation change.

This picture is early on in the hike, but I have gained some elevation. In the background you might be able to see a tiny white round ball-like structure and some trees below it. That is where I ended up.

The video shows more of the I encountered on the hike. It is just a long dirt road that switchbacks a lot then flattens out a bit, but a few uphill portions remain. Here is what used to be at Beek's Place:
Here is what it looks like now:
In the early 1930's, Joseph Beek purchased the land and built a cabin here for his family. It was the family getaway place to spend time at. Vandals have take over and decimated what was once here. The sad thing is I have seen pictures taken in the 1980's which had the structure a lot more intact than what is left.
This is one of the unsolved mysteries that I do not know the answer to. What are these old towers? Supposedly, they did have electricity up here. Maybe this is what helped generate that. This area was also supposed to be a fire look out point. Also, I have read somewhere that this area was used by the military during WW2, but I do not know anymore than that.
Under these towers the initials of Joseph Allan Beek are listed here with the date being 9-26-41.

I will finish this hike up with another blog in a few days. In the meantime, you can check out these few links with give more information on this area.

The Mystery Above (O.C. Register Article)

Beek's Place (Dirtopia)

Joseph A. Beek (Wikipedia Article)

As the Summer Approaches (Update on What's Up)

Since I have a little more free time right now I am in the mood to reflect and mention what is going to happen this summer and beyond.

As I mentioned in the last blog entry, I am practically finished with all the hikes I want to talk about from last summer. There were a few others I did, but they were the type that I always do during the summer and felt there was nothing worth showing this time around, or the type I will probably do again soon with better pictures and video, so I do not feel the need to put them up now.

I did do some hikes last October that will come up this summer, but before I get to those I want to show some of the local southern California hikes I did in the past few months. Normally, for me, these type of hikes are not worth talking too much about. However, the few that I intend to show do have something worth putting up. These lead to what I mentioned a few months back as my "jungle adventures."

I am finishing up the videos about the local hikes right now. I have been working on fine tuning some of the techniques I have learned on Sony Vegas. I am only now starting to understand the basics of the program. It was sad to find out that I only needed to make a few adjustments and my videos could have been better than what I put out. Oh well, live and learn, or, better yet, learn and live. So, when you see them come up, you will notice I played around with the editing a little more than normal and just had a load of fun with it.

The same goes with the movie location videos. Some of the footage I took last summer I look at now and do not think I shot them well with the then new video cam. Well, I have picked up some techniques in Sony Vegas that will make them more useable than I thought. I just have to use a little more editing than I was going to.

Meanwhile, as far as what I am currently doing "out on the field," I am in the process of putting together my most ambitious project yet. Unfortunately, I was not able to make the "old west" history trip happen just yet as I told some I would be doing a few months back, it will come eventually though. However, what I am doing now I think makes up for it. I had been looking for something new to explore for this blog. I found it. It has taken me to places that are really not that far from me and really just expands on the history, movie locations, and hikes I like to do. The theme fits in with everything I do on this blog, but I will be curious what type of additional readers/followers it brings in. In any case, this epic will start at the beginning of next year and take most of the year to present. I will mix in other stuff during the year so it will not be only the epic that I do next year. I will have a "prequel" type of blog/video coming this summer that indirectly shows you a little of what is to come.

I was going to mention two or three other things, but those can wait. If for some reason you thought I was running out of pictures, video footage to play with, or stuff to talk about, well, talk to me again in 2012. ;)

The Silent Cathedral Hike

(GPS: N37 50.720 W119 25.345)

The Silent Cathedral Hike (Youtube Version)

Here is what the deal was on this hike. We decided to get up early and do something simple in the morning and then drive into Yosemite Valley. It had been some years since I had been into the valley so I wanted to take some updated pictures/video and examine a few other areas to prepare for a much bigger hike (ex. Half-Dome).

The hike to Cathedral Lakes seemed like the perfect choice. A short tourist hike with a little uphill to a nice lake. I cannot remember how long it took us, but I suspect it was about an hour and half. The hike was nice while you are experiencing it, but nothing I want to spend too much picture/video bandwidth showing. There was a lot of glacial polished rock everywhere which is what Yosemite is known for, and even showed up at the lake edges we were at. We saw Cathedral Peak:

Then just turning around from the above picture we encountered one of the Cathedral Lakes. In the video, which shows how it was when we first got there, you can see there was an awesome reflection in the lake. That lasted about ten minutes.
I believe that is Mt. Hoffman, in the picture below, in the background. That was definately one peak I intended to bag during my time there last summer.
I did not add music to the video because I wanted to show how quiet it was during the time I was there. It really felt like to make much noise there was the wrong thing to do.

So, after spending about a half-hour there we headed back to Tuolumne Meadows and there were tons of cars parked along the road. We got in and headed to the valley. After passing Tenaya Lake I had the video going and turned to see that I could hardly see the area over the valley due to the smoke. I cannot remember what I said, but I know it was recorded on the video. I was not too happy because I kind of realized what was going to happen. Eventually, we were forced to turn around.

That fire was an ongoing story while I was there last summer. I had high hopes of doing many more climbs, but never got to. I remember one of the information desk people I talked to in order to get the latest on the fire, told me as one of his final comments to me that, "There is plenty of stuff to do over here." Well, maybe for the first time tourist, but for a guy that plans out my long backcountry hikes a year in advance that was not too helpful. Or, in other words, to respond to this guy I should have said, "Google 'Great Silence Blog' and get back to me." ;)

I think I mentioned back in September how we spent the final day trying to force a Mt. Hoffman hike, but after driving there we were forced to turn around and did not even try. The problem we had is we never knew how much of it was contained. The reports made it seem like it was almost contained, but when we drove in that last day the visibility we had off the road was the worst we had seen.

We salvaged that day by hiking around the loop of lakes that start at Saddlebag Lake, but our enthusiasm was pretty much shot at that point. As I remember, I was kind of angry too that day. So, we came home a few days early. I did take a bunch of pictures and video of that hike, but I think I would rather do that hike again with better conditions than the smoke you would see. I will think about whether I post that one in the next two months. I kind of hope this is the last blog I do that I have to mention any Sierra fires.

So, this marks the end of the Sierra hikes I did last summer that I want to show. I did do some more hikes last October that will eventually show up here soon. I will have an "update" type of blog sometime this next week on how this summer and beyond should be with this blog.

Out of the Past Locations (Index)

I decided to revive this "oldie" with a new video.

Out of the Past Locations (Youtube Version)

I covered some of these areas in Bridgeport, CA with pictures before:

Out of the Past (Part 1)

Out of the Past (Part 2)

Out of the Past (Part 3)

Out of the Past at Upper Twin Lake (Correction)

Originally, in those entries I decided not to post a picture of one of the historic houses since it is private property, BUT, you will see it in the new video...it is a historic house and there have been tons of pictures taken of it both old and modern. It is even on the cover of a book, so I just "gave in" on the video. However, if you go there be respectful and don't be an idiot. :) Basically, the movie begins and ends in Bridgeport. It has other locations as listed here.

Interesting enough, I had a sense of deja vu with regarding these locations in the past year. I have found out something new that I am not sure many have realized about the director filming this movie here. I will reveal that sometime in the future.

Corriganville Cabin (Corriganville Series)

(GPS: N34 16.050 W118 39.350)

Corriganville Cabin Location (Youtube Version)

This is one of those that had I been around during the time the theme park was up it would have been obvious. The first time I went to Corriganville I had this one in my mind, but since I was just trying to get the feel of the area I think I went by it without figuring it out. I then came home and made a few comparisons and knew where to go when I came back. It is slightly off the obvious trail that circles around the park. In the Fort Apache video I point out the direction you have to go down since it is right next to it.

The dug out cabin or hut has been used in lots of movies, but I will just use what was shown in Fort Apache.
The huge rocks on the left were really my targets. As you can see there is a lot of overgrowth here.
In the video I show a lot of what remains there. Whether that is actually from the cabin I do not know.

The Hemet Maze Stone

(GPS: N33 46.880 W117 03.390)

Hemet Maze Rock (Youtube Version)

I was always curious about this one. So, I traveled to seek it out. You park at the end of the road and walk about 1/4 of a mile to it.

The pathetic thing is that it is gated with two fences. I had to stand on a rock and avoid falling to get these two pictures. It is a California Historical Landmark, but that is hard to read because of the fences. All I know is that it is a cool looking petroglyph in Hemet, CA.
I am sure you can find more about it if you google it.

Ride the High Country Location #2

(GPS: N37 36.345 W119 01.135)

The final stop in my day in Mammoth, CA last summer. Although I had never been here before, my father had taken many pictures here years ago that I had seen. I knew what to expect and what I was after.

The first thing one notices at the parking lot is all the dead trees around. Mammoth is a volcanic area and the high concentration of carbon dioxide started killing off the trees here about twenty years ago.
On to Horseshoe Lake, it is here that Mariette Hartley met up with Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Ron Starr.
My picture:
A close up of Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea:
My picture:In the video I also show a scene from Gene Autry's Melody Ranch done here on this beach and a little more of the lake.

Ride the High Horseshoe Lake (Youtube Version)

Some of Rose Marie (1954), a musical, was shot nearby too. I know someone uploaded that whole movie in different parts on youtube so you can do a search for that one if you care about that.

This ends everything I did in Mammoth on that day. There are other things I want to do there when I go back, but that will probably not be anytime soon. I already have some ideas as to what I want to explore next when I do go back there.

Let me say a little bit more about Ride the High Country. It is one of my favorite westerns. Originally, it was supposed to be the retirement movie for both Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. For Scott it was, but McCrea did come out of retirement. More of this movie was supposed to be filmed in Mammoth, but they were there during October which one always runs the risk of encountering unexpected early heavy snow winter conditions. In the past, I have encountered this myself when everything was nice then all of a sudden a heavy snow storm came and I wondered if I would get snowed in a for a while. I have read they were there for only four days before they were forced to film elsewhere. That is why they ended up shooting the mining camp scenes in Bronson Canyon.

However, you can still tell they were in Mammoth during the shootout on the mountain side. It looks like they were just north of these last two locations I have shown because you can see some of the mountain features when they look south. I would have to watch the movie again, but I suspect I could probably find out where they were and there are probably trails that go by there. It is probably just off of Mammoth Mountain. If I am every in the mood I will go back and figure it out.

Edit August 26, 2013:

Originally at the end here when I wrote this I mentioned how the farm used in the movie, which is the location of the final gunfight, was a mystery to me. I asked for some help if anyone knew of where it was. I finally have followed up to this and reveal where the location is here:

Shootout at the Knudsen Farm

Ride the High Country Location #1

(GPS: N37 36.675 W119 00.625)

After the crater, the postpile, and the falls, I was starting to lose my enthusiasm. This is the way things sometimes are when I plan things out way beforehand and by the end of the day I just want to go home. So, I had to really "push" myself to do this part, but I knew this would be rewarding.

This is Lake Mamie and the unique mountain formation in the background is Crystal Crag.

It has shown up in a lot of old b-westerns. It is the first thing you see in Ride the High Country.
My shot from a different angle.
Just across the street is where they shot a short scene in Ride the High Country. They show you Twin Lakes below.
My picture looking below.
The camera was probably very close to where I was at, but then they look like they moved a little to the right (south) to show Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea coming up the mountain with their horses. When Randolph Scott comes up and you see the lakes again through the trees.
This is looking towards my right (south). More than likely they were over there somewhere then came up to the road. Right after they come up here it looks like they were on Lake Mary Road, but the cameraman shoots it at an angle so you do not see the road or Lake Mamie.

Ride the High Mamie and Twin Lakes (Youtube Version)

Alright, one more of these from Mammoth and I am done with this area.

The Silent Rainbow Falls

(GPS: 37 36.090 W119 05.075)

The Silent Rainbow Falls #1 (Youtube Version)

I use some alternative footage and show the falls from the other two observation points:

The Silent Rainbow Falls #2 (Youtube Version)

A young boy commented in a loud voice on the bus ride back to Mammoth that, "Devils Postpile is overrated. Rainbow Falls is what the area should be really called." I had to laugh at that because I understood what he was trying to say. I think the average person gets more of the "wow" factor from seeing waterfalls.

We continued the last 1/2 mile from the area I showed in the previous blog entry. The San Joaquin River was beside us for most of the hike. Here is where it drops over the falls.

When we got to the first observation point I quickly started videoing the area. I wanted to get a few minutes in, but the problem was everyone started really crowding in at this point. There was not an overwhelming amount of people, but the people that were there quickly crammed into the areas right next to me. I do not think I have ever had that issue in the Sierra before, but as I said in the previous blogs this is a well known tourist area. It would have been nice if they could have given me a minute or two before they tried to take my place.
A few blogs back I mentioned we did not get on the tour bus as early as we should have. I think this is the area I kind of "paid" for it in that the rainbow might have been a bit better an hour earlier. I do not know, but from what I have read you need to be there during the morning hours. We were sometime before noon, so at least I was able to get the above.
There are two other main observation points of the falls. One is a little lower from the first one (which you can see in the second video), but the bottom one is where you go down a long stairway to get to the above picture. You can definitely feel the mist down here.

According to what I have read, the falls have actually moved 500 feet back from the original location. This has to do with the erosion due to the water continuously undercutting or sculpting the rock below it over long periods of time.

People were really complaining about going back up the stairway. The way the hike worked out the stairway back up those 100 steps is lot more work that the hike itself. From the falls you just have go back the way you came, but there is a closer trailhead to where the bus takes people out. From there we rode the bus back to Mammoth.

My day was not over with this though. I wanted to be sure to hit two Mammoth movie location areas before we headed home. Those will come up in the next blog.

The Rainbow Fire

(N37 36.405 W119 04.745)

GPS coords are just approximate according to Google Earth since I did not take any readings there on my own.

From Devils Postpile to Rainbow Falls the hike is just a few miles. A few miles can be a lot of work in the Sierra depending on what you have to hike up or through, but going south from Devils Postpile is rather simple. It is mostly flat, and if there are any elevation changes, then you are really just going downhill. So, we were just flying down the trail as quick as we could go. We ended up passing a lot of groups of people (ex. Boy Scout troops, middle aged to elderly on their backpacking vacations, etc.). Since this is a tourist hike we encountered a lot of people that one could tell do not get out very much. In any case, we eventually passed those people and the area opened up a bit.

For a lot of the hike we were just traveling through a forest area with trees on our sides. It did open up a bit. I knew we were heading into Ansel Adams Wilderness. When you think of Ansel Adams you think of beautiful b/w scenic pictures. So, here are we are:
Ugh, oh! Not good. My memory is a bit hazy, but I seem to remember the fire in August, 1992. A lightning strike three miles south caused a fire that did not seem like it would do the damage that it caused. However, the wind picked up a few days later and spread to this area.

At first I did not care for it, but after looking at it for a bit my opinion changed. It does remind me of what could be a possible fantasy movie type of location. While something like this may seem bad at the moment all it takes is time for nature to bring all the trees back. What has happened in the past 18 years is the new habitat has brought forth new types of plants and animals there were not here before. So, the dead wood is being used in someway.

At the end of my last video on Devils Postpile I showed a little of this area. In the video that comes after the next one I added some alternative footage of this area. So, wait for the next blog or two for that one.

We were only about 1/2 mile until Rainbow Falls. The waterfall ended up being the highlight of the day for me. I think you will really like the next two or three blog entries. It is the stuff I really wanted to get to on this day we did in Mammoth.

Devils Postpile

(GPS:N 37 37.510 W 119 05.065)

After visiting the craters we headed to Mammoth. I knew we needed to take a bus to Reds Meadow Valley so we could get to Devils Postpile. After purchasing our tickets we waited. As I remember, we sort of messed up by not notifying the guy who reserves seats on the bus where the bus takes off that we intended to go on the next bus. Which meant we had to wait around another 30 minutes or so. That was not really a bad thing, but looking back on this it slightly messed things up, and I will come back to this in one of the next two blogs.

After the 10-15 minute drive up and then descending, we started the short hike to Devils Postile. I had never been back here before, so I was looking forward to actually seeing this landmark. It is a well known tourist destination, so there were lots of people walking around.

Basically, somewhere between 700,000-100,000 years ago lava flowed over this area. It slowly cooled over the rock. The jointing occurred while the lava contracted. Then a glacier polished the rock. This created the organ pipe look to it and the "postpile" of rocks below it.
Most of the columns are hexagons, but the rest are 7 sided, 5 sided, 4 sided, 3 sided. This picture is standing above the postpile.
From the dozens of pictures I had seen and what I had read over the years, I kind of knew what to expect in coming here. Nothing surprised me too much. I think the only thing was I thought the postpile would be a bit bigger. The area is pretty much isolated to what I show above.

So, I would say we spent about 15 minutes total below and above the postpile. The next thing to do was to head to Rainbow Falls which is an easy hike a few miles to the south. We did encounter something I want to cover in the next blog. You will see a part of it the video I did for Devils Postpile.

Devils Postpile (Youtube Version)

Inyo Crater Lake

(GPS: N37 41.610 W119 00.250)

There are a lot of areas I show that I never feel that great about the pictures or the video I take. Usually, it means I have arrived at the area too early in the morning or there are other factors like bad weather involved. I always tell myself that I can just come back some other time, but it may be years before I do that. This is one of those times that I think the area is really cool, but I knew going that it might turn out this way.

This begins a bunch of blogs dedicated to a day I spent in Mammoth, CA last year. Normally, I stay away from Mammoth because it is a little too touristy. I am not saying it is a bad place to go because there is a lot of stuff to explore there. It just usually turns out that it is a little too populated during the times I go. Let's put it this way, it is the only place I drive by that I might encounter traffic and slow down the drive...and I do not drive that fast! ;) I do intend to go back at later time for some things I want to figure out.

In any case, I think some of the best stuff I got to was later in the day. It will take a few blog entries to get to those. I still want to cover this area and the next area I went to on this day.

The Mono-Inyo area is filled with many craters. I have shown a few in the past. This one I had always read about, but had never visited so I wanted to cram this one in as the first thing I visited on that morning last August. After a short drive on the Mammoth Scenic Loop Road, we drove a few interconnected dirt roads, and then hiked about a 1/2 mile to the two craters.

I am only going show a few pictures of the southern crater. The northern one is interesting too. It does have a lake, but there are many trees in the crater. The southern crater is a lot more opened up. There is another crater further north that can be hiked to, but I did not even bother going to that.

From what I have read, this was not a volcanic eruption. Basically, moltan rock heated up some water underneath creating steam. The pressure blew off the top of the crater. The lake is supposed to be shaped like a wine glass in that if you were to go down it would get more skinny. I actually waited around on this one hoping the shadow would go away. I would have to spend a few hours here during the middle of the day to get the pictures I was really after; I know others have done just that on the web so you can search others sites for that. We really had to keep our schedule for the day so we took off back to the car.

Refer to the Inyo Craters Section in this link.

Wikipedia article on the Mono-Inyo Craters

My Video on this one:

Inyo Crater Lake (Youtube Version)

Yer A Bunch A Idi0ts!

How is that for a title? Insult my audience. If there is one thing I have learned from something like Youtube is the way to get more people to watch your stuff is to anger them. It is the whole, "there is no negative publicity," thing. The unfortunate part is you get a bunch of people that do not watch your stuff because they like you, but quite the opposite. A mob mentality forms. I am totally not like that, and the last thing I need after a hard day at work is dealing with an angry mob during my "hobby" time.

In light of what today is...check the date...you get the idea...I thought I would offer up a screwball video and a little commentary on a screwball documentary.

You can figure this one out:

Left Turn to Nowhere (Youtube Version)

Okay, a little while back I referred to a tv documentary that I felt almost made a mockery of what I do. It had nothing to do with me, but the coincidences were kind annoying. There was a series on the History Channel called Monster Quest. It deals with legendary animals/creatures and the paranormal from what I can tell. Well, I was told I needed to watch the episodes called, Sierra Sasquatch. At the risk of taking something too seriously that the producers were probably laughing at behind the scenes, here we go...

First, before I turned this on, I was thinking, "why is this on the History Channel?" Maybe Sci-Fi, Discovery, etc., but the History Channel? Of course, I realize there is the issue of putting stuff on to get ratings, but even this was so over the top I thought I better comment here.

This episode might have worked with me had it been somewhere in Canada I have never been, but the fact it was practically my backyard during just about every summer of my life was just too much. The premise of the episode is there have been Bigfoot sightings near the Mono Lake vicinity.

In my experiences, there are lots of animals that have watched me during my hikes, but I really seriously doubt a bunch of Bigfoot are out there. This particular area is remote, but not THAT REMOTE from people crossing by. I think I would have been more impressed with a documentary on wolverine's in the Sierra because they are out there, but are very rare to see.

They had a guy who was training at the marine base in 1985 that supposedly saw some while doing a training mission, they had a glider plane fly over Mono Lake and the June Lake area with radar, a hunter who allegedly encounter some a few years back, and one of the lead investigators supposedly saw one cross the road out near the June Lake area. Then the had 11-13 foot tracks at what looked like Grant Lake. Yeah, my shoe size range. The main thing they showed was video footage taken in the early 1990's at the western tufa site of Mono Lake.

We are told the video footage was done by a father with his family and was not seen until 17 years after while going through the video. Of course, the father was shown as a shadow since he feared for his families privacy. Yeah...right. ;) This is what showed up:

You can clearly see something moving by.
Is it a man with a parka or bigfoot? They went to the site above these days, and it is under water where the "creature" would have been standing. Take whatever you want from this, but these days video footage is very easy to manipulate. Inserting something like the above would not seem to difficult.

Here is what was sort of funny about this episode. They did it during the time I was there for a weekend in October. I hiked in both Lundy Canyon and near June Lake and both were the main featured areas in this documentary. I will blog about these in the future, but the funny thing is I seemed to remember driving by a bunch of people when I left Lundy Canyon that could have been a film crew. I might have walked right by some of these guys out there and not even known it. Check this out, this guy was out there looking for tracks:

I saw that plume of smoke in the background. I knew I was there the few hours that thing was up. This is right after we got done hiking in Lundy Canyon. It was a bizarre thing to see so I said we had to stop and take pictures.
A close up. That was there only on this day.
So, it was downright creepy they filmed in exactly the two main areas I hiked that weekend. I told my brother we need to stop hiking these areas because some idiots think were Bigfoot/Sasquatch. ;)

There is a sucker born every minute. Don't believe everything you see on tv. Alright, enough for the screwy fools day. More serious stuff next time.