dive

My friend Jeremy chartered a dive boat out of Long Beach last weekend and invited me to come. We went back to Catalina again but had the luxury of diving in more remote spots than the popular "underwater park" we went to last time. I got seasick (again), which surprises me- I remember being on my grandpa's sailboat as a kid with 10 to 12 foot swells crashing over the bow and I was fine. Here it was mostly a gentle rocking and I lost it like three times. I didn't, however, let it prevent me from going on and thoroughly enjoying all three dives. We saw lots of lobster, eel, and fish amongst the giant kelp forests we were in, and the visibility was better than last time. The water was cold so we were fully encased in neoprene from head to toe. Just a couple of shots this time:

My friends Jeremy and Theresa. Patient and experienced, Jeremy's been great with helping me get back into the sport. He's logged scores of dives here, in Hawaii, and all over the Caribbean.


I spotted this gauge in the cabin and just had to snap a pic. Looks like we were well beyond the safe protection level, but I didn't actually notice that much rust. I can't help but wonder how this gauge actually works, and how one determines what's a safe corrosion level and what's "under" safe!

Road Trip!

This past weekend my friend Mark and I rented a Nissan 350 Z and hit the road with an open-ended itinerary. We left at 4 am Saturday and headed North through Yosemite. I've been in Yosemite Valley but I'd never been in the Tuolomne Meadows area of the park. It was beautiful of course.

Here's Mark in his favorite T-shirt (Reagan) and the Z on the way down from Tioga Pass, connecting the east and west sides of the Sierra.

Near Mammoth Lakes, CA, on the eastern side.

In Devils Postpile National Monument. We took a couple hours to do a five mile hike to see the monument and falls.

This is the Devil's Postpile itself. Very uncommon lava columns, apparently. They're quite symmetrical, as you can see better in the talus field in the picture below.

Rainbow Falls, also in the National Monument. If I recall correctly this cataract is about 110 feet.

Hwy 395 South, near Mammoth Lakes, CA. There's some windshield glare in this pic, but the air quality on this side of the mountains is always better than in the Central Valley.

A few hours later we were in Death Valley National Park. Note the temperature in the shade is almost 110 degrees (and this was after six in the evening!)

The salt flats in Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA. There was a big sign halfway up the cliff behind where we were standing saying "Sea Level" I took some pictures but it's almost too far away to read!

These naturally colored rocks are called the Artist's Palette. This one's for you Mom =)

There are some pretty cool roads in Death Valley. Long and straight, with visibility for miles in all directions. Perfect for testing the top speed of a 300 hp V6 rental car, which incidentally, happens to be 147 mph.

Saturday evening we decided we still had half the weekend ahead of us and continued west to Vegas. We rode the monorail and saw the sites on the strip. There were so many bright flashing lights everywhere I was continually thinking we were getting pulled over. We walked into the MGM Grand hotel and casino. Definitely not my cup of tea, although we did see some interesting things (caged lions- you know when the lion roars sometimes at the beginning of a movie? Well this is them- MGM films). A lot of these hotels have wedding chapels too. I saw one real bride wandering around (by herself) and another girl wearing a white frilly top with "Bride" in silver lettering on it. You couldn't pay me to get married there. Overall I feel I did all right in Vegas though. For $4.50 I got a slice of pizza, and the monorail ticket was $9, so I'm pretty sure I blew a lot less than the geniuses yanking the handles of the slot machines. Somehow they couldn't seem to comprehend a basic point- these things never give out as much money as you put in, or as they say, "the house always wins."

We kept driving west and around midnight found a dumpy little motel to crash at for a few hours. Sunday morning we figured we were so close to AZ, why not? We hit the road again and before long we were at the Hoover Dam and the Arizona border.

The Colorado River at the Hoover Dam (upstream side).

Downstream side. For security reasons they're building a new bridge for the interstate downstream from the dam. You can see the massive concrete pillars going up in this pic (four on the west bank (right side) and one on the east/left side. I have absolutely no idea how they plan on completing the rest of it. It looks to be like a quarter mile drop down to the water from between those bridge pillars. That's either an insane amount of concrete, or they're going to do some sort of suspension bridge.

View of the dam from the east bank. Incredible to think that this was built without most of the machinery and technology that we have today.

A few hundred miles further east we were in Arizona at the Grand Canyon. I can certainly see what all the fuss is about. It was spectacular. What I can't see is how Evel Knievel could have jumped a motorcycle across it. Okay, so I just Googled it and found this interesting article about the Knievel's exploits. http://www.geocities.com/shioshya/knievel.html

I like the contrast between foreground and background. Even so, it's still hard to grasp the vastness of the canyon. I was also was fascinated by how straight and level the canyon rims were (The North rim is at the horizon in these pics. We were at the South rim) despite the varied and jagged topography they contain.

This was a pretty cool spot we found right off one of the hiking trails.

One of the trails that winds down into the canyon. In the middle right of the pic you can see where it tunnels through the rock.

About 2:00 it was time to turn around and head home. We wanted to make it to a mountain pass I had heard about while there was still some daylight left. We got there just at dusk.

This is not just a pretty sunset. It's smoke from a forest fire that started earlier that day. When we stopped the car to get gas a few miles further on, we were blasted by hot smoky wind. The sign still said the Sherman Pass road was open though, so off we went! We didn't end up seeing the fire and it cleared up once we got closer to the other side. (The road is a snowmobile trail in winter, and goes over 9200'!). I read later that about 2500 acres had burned but that it was mostly contained.

Here's our trip by the numbers: 2 days, 1500 miles, 3 states, 3 national parks (not even counting the two closest to home), several national monuments and conservation areas, and
a boatload of fun. (Oh, and 1 black bear in the mountains and 2 coyotes in the desert!) I'd never seen Death Valley, the Hoover Dam, or the Grand Canyon before. I definitely feel like I got a taste of the Southwest, and though I'm becoming more familiar with the Sierras, this was my first trip to the Eastern side of the range.

recent adventures, SMR update

Seems like I've been in the mountains all but one or two weekends the last couple of months, and I'm still not tired of them. (This past weekend my friend Mark and I took off for a crazyfun road trip that will have to get its own separate post once I organize the pictures.) The other day I drove an hour into the foothills by myself to swim in the river , see if I could start a fire without matches or a lighter (I succeeded with flint, but still haven't gotten a flame with the bow and stick method), and do some target shooting. My friend Ronnie invited me to go kayaking with him on the holiday weekend, and it was an absolute blast. I didn't get any pictures, but I did manage to stay upright most of the time which was a definite plus. I can't wait to get my own boat and learn more about the sport. Some of the best whitewater in the US is right here in the Southern Sierra. On the 19th and 20th of last month The Tulare County Sherriff's Dept organized May Days, the big mock Search and Rescue event for the spring. Sequoia Mountain Rescue conducted two rescue missions. The first scenario involved an injured aircraft pilot/passenger whose parachute hung up in a tree and left him hanging about 30 feet off the ground. The second mission involved rescuing an injured climber off of Dome Rock, the same place I went climbing several weeks earlier. SMR's performance wasn't flawless, but we did pretty well. I was just glad for the opportunity to observe and participate even though I'm still in training.

I got to do a nearly 600' rappel and ascent.

This was taken looking nearly straight up. It looks like I'm just standing there, but you can tell it's a high angle environment because of the way the rope dangles below me.

I just thought this was a cool shot of part of our anchor system, a figure eight on a bight backed up with a barrel knot.

We camped at the Peppermint Campground. At over 7000 feet, it got surprisingly cold at night! Here SMR team members huddle around the fire in down jackets and hats. Hard to believe we were sweating in 90 degree temps and using our AC's down in the Valley the day before.



This is a Huey chopper the Navy flew in from the China Lake Naval Air Station on the east side of the Sierra. If you look through the cockpit you can see the Blackhawk the National Guard brought in to assist (yeah, there were a lot of agencies involved over the weekend).

Here's the California Highway Patrol CHP chopper taking off.

Apparently the Discovery Channel is putting together a show about search and rescue. This film crew interviewed several of our members and shadowed us for much of the day.

This was our first mission, something SMR has never encountered or trained for- a tree rescue.