EISPIRATEN

Both springs at Kellys were flowing. The second spring, about 20 feet past the first, had the better flow. We drank from the second. The water is good. Here are pictures of both: https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/richardk.smugmug.com/photos/550416287_QxkAM-M.jpg https://eispiraten.com/images-ar...

I have wondered what Cedar Canyon is like. Thanks for posting a great report. Too bad about the buckthorn. Wading through sticker bushes is not much fun. I really like the Chapman Trail. It adds 1.7 miles to the IHC route, but being higher up the views are better. Somehow it seems Sierra-like.

We stopped in the Mt. Baldy Visitors Center this morning to get a wilderness permit. They have a new book for sale: "Images of America Mt. Baldy". It has lots of old pictures of Camp Baldy, the Icehouse Canyon resort, the Summit Inn (on the summit!), the 1938 flood, etc. I think anyone int...

Kathy - The wildflowers were just beginnning to bloom. The peak is expected in 2 to 3 weeks. It should be an average bloom, nothing like the vast fields of flowers in 2005. We saw some small desert golds here and there. The Daylight Pass road had a lot of small yellow and purple flowers along the ed...

While everyone else was plowing through ice and snow on Mt. Baldy, we headed to Death Valley. On Thursday, we hiked Corkscrew Peak via the south east ridge. On Friday, we hiked Fall Canyon as far as the dryfall. Weather was nice and the views from Corkscrew were stunning. My wife wanted to see the p...

There is a spring at Kellys at the western end of the camp. Here is a picture made in June 2008. The flow in August may or may not be this much. Columbine always has water even in the driest years. A few years ago, a ranger told us a story. Some Boy Scouts were camping at Kellys when a bear entered ...

That is just one of a helluva of a first time post.

Congratulations!!

Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for posting.

I started seeing a lot of footings and stumps of steel posts that have obviously been cut away at some point in the past. Was there ever a chain installed along the Backbone? What were those steel posts for? I read somewhere that there used to be safety cables at the beginning of the Backbone trail...

Dudley - I grew up in Nashville which is definitely not Appalachian. It's just redneck. So, I don't know how much help I can be on the culture. You really need someone much more to the east like Johnson City or Kingsport for Tennessee. Better yet is there anyone from West Virginia?

That footage is fantastic. I want to see a lion in the wild (I think).

Rent the movie "Thunder Road" I grew up in Tennessee. I don't know if anyone remembers, but maybe 30 years ago there was a big run up in the price of sugar. Restaurants took it off the table because everyone was taking it home. The high price of sugar killed what little was left of the moo...

Thanks for posting these pictures. We were in Icehouse Canyon on Saturday, but stopped at the saddle. So, we did not see the smoke until we drove out at 3:00PM. From the radio, we knew that the 57, our road to Placentia, was closed. The 10 and 605 freeways were log jammed. We used surface streets th...

From the fire maps on the internet and from what I can see, Chino Hills State Park is completely burned. My wife and I have hiked that park for the last 14 years. Maybe the deer and coyotes were fast enough to escape the flames. Everything else must be dead. The grasslands will recover with the wint...

I have read that mountain bikers will bring in the weed whackers and cut a new trail to ride. There was a newspaper story a few years back about this. I seem to remember that one of the Orange County parks had such a problem with outlaw trails that arrests were made.

That is a great report and nice pictures. Thanks for posting. Such a hike is beyond my ability, but it is good to know that someone is rough and tough enough to pull it off. Congratulations!

Yeah, we need GPS coordinates for the pot farm. Got to find it before the helicopters do.

As another poster might say: the water from Columbine Spring is filtered through solid granite; it's the purest on the planet.

Congrats on making the summit.

I did not know that those falls would still have water this late in the year. Thanks for posting!

Not vampires, but sap oozing out from one of the big trees that had a hole cut in it at the Mariposa Grove.

We hiked Half Dome from Happy Isles and Clouds Rest from Tenaya Lake last week. Pictures are here. The granite between the cables is really slick. I wouldn't do it again unless I had a climbing harness and clipped into the cables.

This looks like the SAR copter. Can anyone give positive ID?

Since there are times when there is a rattle behind every bush, this is not a trivial question. I always carry a Sawyer Extractor as do others, but I can't find anyone who has actually needed to use it. It's effectiveness has been questioned, but I figure it's better than nothing. I carry a cell pho...

We hiked Baldy via the Ski Hut trail Saturday, August 23. We left the summit for the Devils Backbone about 1:45PM. At 2:15 a copter orbited the sumit for about 15 minutes. Everything was normal when we left. Does anyone know what this was about?

The spring below the hut that flows across the trail is good water if you can't get water at the hut itself. We have used it twice this year.

We hiked Telegraph Peak today, Saturday, August 9. There was a note at the start of the spur trail going to Telegraph's summit that a set of keys was found. The note said that they were left at the lift office at the bottom of the lift. If these are yours, that is where they are. https://eispiraten....

We hit the Ski Hut at 10:30, took a 30 minute rest stop, and reached the summit at 1:00. My wife saw a streak of broken dirt on the face of the bowl and said it looked like someone had gone down it. It must have been the group of ten. What a zoo today.

We repeated last week's hike up the Ski Hut trail and down the Devil's Backbone (training for Half Dome Labor Day week). I have never seen this trail so crowded. It was hard to find a gap to take a pee. Everyone going downhill seemed to be running. Good luck on what kind of shape you knees will be i...

We reached Baldy's summit at 1:30 PM and stayed for half an hour. It was in full sun the whole time we were there. There was a big cloud to the northwest that I kept hoping would give us some shade, but no luck. Dawson and Pine were in deep shadow. You can get big clouds over Baldy that never develo...