30 mile day hike through Desolation Wilderness

So I decided Friday afternoon to see if I could hike from South Lake Tahoe to Tahoe City in a day. About 40ish miles. However along the way I decided that it would be a bit to ambitious and with a cold front moving in a bit risky. So instead I hiked to Tahoma. Still a solid 30 mile day hike. I started at just after 4am so I could watch the sunrise up on Mt. Tallac.
Then I proceeded north on the PCT through Desolation Wilderness before exiting the PCT at Richardson Lake and getting a bit lost on fire roads(adding on about 2 miles) before hiking down the Rubicon OHV Trail to Tahoma.I made it to Tahome around 2pm. All in all it was an awesome hike. However I am certainly feeling it today. It would be cool to make the hike all the way to Tahoe City in a day though. It will take a bit more preparation and probably a bit lighter pack. Mine weighed about 25-30 pounds as I wasn't sure if I would spend the night up there. The scenery was quite spectacular as my pictures try to capture.
Wildlife encounters:
About 30 min into the hike I glanced up the trail and my headlight settled on a pair of 2 beady eyes staring at me in the middle of the trail. I stopped dead in my track as I tried to figure out what creature this was staring at me. The eyes were close together about about 3 feet above the trail surface. Debating whether I should try and get my camera out to take a picture I opted to not and instead make noise in case it wasn't a friendly creature that would not appreciate a flash in its eyes. Upon making noise the creature turned to the left and sprang up and off the trail. The silhouette was unmistakably that of a mountain lion. That certainly got my blood pumping. I was on edge for the next 30 minutes and making sure to be plenty noisy.

My second encounter came just after 6am as I was climbing up towards Dick's Pass. I was strolling up the trail when I noticed a small furry creature ambling along just ahead of me. I made my way a bit closer and figured out it was a fat porcupine out for a morning stroll just as I was. I followed him up the trail for a few minutes before he veered off and down the side of the mountain.
Pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/pvparsel/82830MileDesolationHike#

Map of my hike

Change in the Weather and the Work

This last week was HOT!! Wow, it was close to 90 degrees up on the mountain and it was brutal. However my crew was wrapping up our final section of trail on Mt. Tallac so having the end in site made the heat a bit more bearable. Luckily there is a strong cold front coming in today meaning it will drop from the high 80's to the mid to low 60's this week! Awesome! Possible snow showers also up in the higher elevations. May have to do a small backpacking trip this weekend.
I found out early this week that my crew will be moving over to a different worksite called Cold Creek. This is where the Forest Service Trail crew has been working all summer. However they have fallen behind schedule so we will be going over to help them out a bit. While details are still not known we should be doing more retaining wall construction and trail armoring for a very popular mountain biking trail. We could also be constructing some biking features like jumps and teeter-totters. This work will be quite different than what we have been doing since it is not in a wilderness area. We will be quarrying rock with motorized rock drills and transporting rock using cable high-lines and pulleys.
Since my last post I have been quite busy on the weekends. I have been home to visit my family. My 93 year grandmother is up visiting so I got to chill with her a bit and play a lot of cards. I also got to watch my brother race a half marathon in Salinas where he took 3rd place. I have had to go to Santa Cruz twice for work reasons and on the way down and back I have been able to visit a number of people including Marie, and Bri, and Himmel, and Solomon. I have also been able to go climbing a fair amount up in Tahoe. As summer is coming to an end and the weather will begin to cool I have been trying to get in the lake as much as possible.
There is a rumor that we will be doing 2 more weeks of work up the Tahoe area putting me here until mid-october. That would be very cool. And if that doesn't happen then I will have a bit of time off before my next project in Flagstaff meaning I will be doing something awesome still to be planned the first half of October.
Speaking of my first project back in Flagstaff, I will be leading a 6 week backcountry trails project in the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona. It will be 6 weeks straight in the backcountry with mules bringing us food and supplies every 2 weeks. Can't wait for that!!
That's all for now.

Rock Projects are a Huge Success

So we have finished the most technical rock projects of the summer and we had the head honchos of the Tahoe Basin National Forest Service check out our work and they had nothing but praise. The head of the Tahoe Forest Service Trails program also offered me a job for next year should I want to come back and work for him, so that is exciting.

They have since assigned us previously unscheduled rock work which means we will remain up high on the mountain instead of coming down to do routine maintenance work. So we will begin that work on Monday.

I am currently relaxing at home now and it is nice to come out of the mountains and sleep in my own bed for a change, rather than on a thermarest in a tent. That's all for now. I'm back to Tahoe on Sunday and will be passing through Davis to get Dos or Guad if anyone is around and would like to meet me there.


putting in one of the final stones on the largest wall


The completed wall


Completed stairs with Tahoe in the upper right corner


Completed small wall in foreground with finished stairs in the background


My crew working on two of our walls

Lots and lots of rock

all of us on top of Mt. Tallac
So, it's been a few weeks since my last blog and much has happened. When I left off I was about to go to a beer and bluegrass festival. That was more awesome than you can imagine. $30 for free beer from 30 breweries and 3 incredible bluegrass bands. I went with 12 or so people from my crew and we had an amazing time, and I will be back again next year.
I also had 10 wonderful friends come up to visit the following weekend. What started as a visit from 1-3 friends blossomed rapidly into and huge group of us having a blast all weekend. From hiking up Mt. Tallac and Fed carrying his dog most of the way up and back down, to spending all day at lake tahoe and then camping up in the woods getting drunk and rowdy with a rusty hatchet throwing competition (you can all imagine who won), it was spectacular. Everyone was sorely missed after they left.

I have since been very busy with work. We are nearly done with our largest rock work projects of the summer. 2 of our 3 multi-walls have been completed and the final and largest is due to be completed early next week. I have posted some pictures, but they are not quite up to date as my camera lens finally broke early this week (over a year since I initially broke it after a sophia's trivia night), so I have not captured out most recent advancements. While we have had a few broken/crushed fingers, we have been very fortunate to not have any serious injuries thus far. The same cannot be said for the young fellow who had to be evacuated via helicopter from above our worksite after he tumbled 100 yards head over heels down a talus slope breaking a number of bones and incurring more than a few serious lacerations.

That's all for now. Here are some pictures.

My crew working on foundation stones for our largest wall


Chiseling on stones for the lower part of the wall


Upper wall in middles stages


Upper wall Nearing Completion


Final touches going on upper wall


Dropping a stone to use on the wall


Our new staircase


Our largest wall as of Monday. Then camera died.

Unending Things To Do

While I may be writing this blog only for Lonac at this point that is fine by me. But since I have removed my Facebook account perhaps more will look here for what I am up to. As for why I removed my facebook it is because I am lucky to be online for 1 hour each week and it proved to be more of a burden than a help for me. So if I do get more than an hour to be online I will try and post something here.

I have been awesomely busy. Work is going great. I have been moved to the west shore where I am heading up the largest project of the summer which is the reconstruction of a set of switchbacks on the Mt. Tallac Trail in Desolation Wilderness. It is a 3 mile up hill hike to the worksite each day where we are building a number of dry stone retaining walls. The largest of which is about 40ft long and 6 feet tall. Our building specifications require that over half the stones weigh more than 150 pounds. This entails quite a bit of creativity for us as we are in a wilderness area meaning we cannot use any form of mechanized help. So moving all these stones by hand is quite daunting and often dangerous, but very fun an rewarding at the same time. I have not loaded any of the pictures of our work onto my computer just yet but I will be before too long and then you can see exactly what I am doing.

I am lucky to have every weekend off and this has allowed me to have some extremely fun times up here. I have gone on a backpacking trip in Desolation Wilderness, rock climbing all around the basin, floating down the truckee river, swimming in the lake, drinking at the bars, gambling at the casinos, watching 4th of july fireworks, and am heading to a beer and bluegrass festival today at Northstar.

That is all I have time for now. I will try and post more regularly and include more pictures. Here are a couple from my recent backpacking trip.

Been a while: Greetings from Tahoe

Wow, it has been madness since my last blog post. There is far too much to write about since April 26th but the short of it is that after a month more of work as an assistant supervisor in Flagstaff I am now seated in a coffee shop in south lake tahoe working as a Field Supervisor for the California office. I will be in Tahoe working for 4 months before returning to Flagstaff to finish my last month of my internship and then working as a supervisor for them through the end of 2010 and then who knows where I will be.

View from worksite

My crew getting the job done

I only have one day off right now and am anxious to get out and explore around so this is the end of this blog post. However I have every Friday Saturday and Sunday off up here so people are welcome and encouraged to come up and visit and go climbing, camping, kayaking, swimming, fishing, or anything and everything else. Next post should have many more pictures and stories. Until then, goodbye.

Step 20: Staying busy and coming to Davis

A quick post before I head back to the Grand Canyon tomorrow morning. I spent 4 days at Lake Mead doing Fencing. Our Zion fencing crew got moved to Lake mead so with their addition we had over 40 people working with us. This meant managing all these people was quite a task, but one that was very challenging and enjoyable for me. Between hail, wind, rain, super hot weather and flat tires and a disorganized project partner without a clue as to where the fence was going it was a very eventful 4 days which I will not get into details about right now as I have a crazy day getting ready for the canyon. I went climbing yesterday by Sedona and was learning how to trad climb and place and take out gear, so that was cool. But most exciting is I am coming to Davis for 7 days as soon as I get back from the canyon. So if you will be in town and are reading this then I will be hanging out with you because you are cool and reading this. However, if you are not reading this and not in Davis, then you are not cool and I make no promises about seeing you. (although it may still happen)
Adios