Pure Synchronicity

I went for the final week of camping season at Jackson Meadows – East Meadow camp ground for Tuesday to Saturday and had the entire loop to myself until Friday night. It was fantastic. So quiet, all I could hear were the birds, chipmonks and wind in the trees. Oh, and then there was the leaf blowers cleaning up the pine needles for an inspection that week. Ugh. Why blow the sites and the roads when they would be covered in just a matter of weeks. oh well…. luckily it didnt last too long.

Fishing was good however, I had forgotten my rod holders (dam!!) and also forgotten to charge my fishfinder battery, so it wasn’t all as perfect as I wanted it to be. I improvised and caught 8 trout, kept 6. I had charged up my fishfinder and hoped to do my last fishing Saturday morning however it began pouring rain around 5am and finally at 9:30 I gave up and hauled the kayak up from the lake to go home.

I decided to do some videos of Biggs and Ben this time. Mainly documenting a journey up Pass Creek but also some playing around the lake/beach. I was hoping to capture whats its like to go exploring with them. The lake was the lowest I have seen it. With the middle depth in the part directly off my campsite, only 11 feet deep. And the main channel off the boat ramp (which was unusable) was only about 30 feet deep. Islands appeared that are invisible in the springtime. I look forward to see it full next year.

Here’s the video. Starts out with romping around on the lake, and then goes to the hike up Pass Creek

Buddies

So many Mud Hens on the lake.

Most of these rocks are under water in the spring

Biggs cooling off

Day one fishing. One looks like a Cutthroat Trout

Paul the Pelican still ruling the lake.

Site #30

Brown eyes

A sleepy Biggs after a big day hiking.

Sierra Buttes in the background

two buddies

“Uhhh… isn’t it time to eat now?”

The neighborhood turkeys are huge this year.  Seems like they were little tiny babies just a couple months ago.  I found these walking through our front yard and then again in the back of our property.   Ben doesn’t even bother to chase them anymore, although Biggs does and feels really proud of how scared they are of him.  Youtube has a process that helps get rid of the jitter from handheld with telephoto shooting, but it tends to cut off some of the top frame so in some cases the turkeys head is out of the picture.  ugh.   oh well.  Life living in the woods.

And the response from our grandkids, Ace and River

Wrights Lake, in the Crystal Basin, just outside of Desolation Wilderness, is beautiful this time of  year.  This lake is just west of Lake Tahoe.  Kate and I hadn’t been here in three years.  The first time I came here in 2011 with the RV, all the waters were flowing.  It was truly amazing seeing the water rushing over the granite.  Kate missed that trip so she has only seen it in drought years.  It’s still gorgeous.

It was a short trip, just the weekend with two nights here.  When we arrived on Friday we took the dogs and walked the trail around the lake.  Even though the lake was down, it wasn’t enough to take away from the view.  And its always nice to check out the cool cabins on the lake.  Lucky people, have 20 year leases from the USFS.   What a sweet scene they have.  We noticed many of the trees that had blown down a couple years ago during a huge windstorm.  Amazing how so many had actually been uprooted.   Much had been cleaned up but you could still see some of the devatation.

The second day, Saturday, we got up early and did our favorite hike up  into the granite and Twin Lakes.  Its about eight miles round trip and we decided Biggs could do it.  We brought both dogs and they didn’t disappoint us.  They were full of energy all the way till the end, but they did sleep quite well that night.   Clouds started coming in when we had lunch at our destination, and there was a forecast of rain possibly in the afternoon, so we headed back down right afterwards.  No rain, but better to be safe.  Total time was six hours, four hours walking time according to my  GPS.  Altitude at Twin Lakes is 8,000 feet.

Weather was perfect, with a chilly 35 degrees Friday night but warming to the 50s and 60s during the days.  Kate made some great hot toddies, Kathleen style, that were just perfect in the evening while we played Qwerkle.  The last night it rained and wind really howled, leaving me with visions of a tree or two coming crashing down on our camper.   We awoke to no problems and a clear morning, however.

This trip  I tried a feature on a new little Cannon camera I got (SX700 HS).  It captures a short 2-4 second video each time you shoot a still and then stitches  them together.  So I decided to make a video of our walk around the lake the first day, and then document our hike up to  Twin Lakes the second day.   Its really a pretty shitty video, so I added some music.  But my hope is that the viewer can get a bit of a feel for the hikes.  One problem I had was I didnt know when the camera did the the 4 second video; before, after or during the shot.  Turns out its before.  At any rate, any dialogue that you might pick up will, undoubtedly, be fractured and disjointed.   I think the pictures are better (farther down below) and most taken with my better camera, my Lumix FZ200, … but its only a five minute video so do check it out.

This is our place… I wish!

Cell Rock … good reception

Dam focus!!

Dinner, chicken, pesto, tomatoes, cheese.. awesome!

A stray boat

Autumn started this week and I brought it in at Jackson Meadows Reservoir, trip number five this year.  Kate joined me for two nites and a day, and also our friends Mike and Vicki and their tiny, cute pups, Wookie and Ginger.  No swimming but kayaking, fishing, short hikes, Qwerkle games, cocktails and much laughter.  Weather was perfect.  Fishing was pretty darn good.  I got 10 trout, let most go, including the 15inchers but kept three for a nice dinner.  And… I lost the monster trout.  So big he pulled the hook right off the line.  Gargantuan!  The East Meadows campground closes in a couple weeks so I will have to start going to the Pass Creek CG since they leave that open all year.   Anyway, here are some pics.

Kate relaxing with her book.

The one Pelican that resides over the whole lake.

Ben wanting an object to be thrown in the grotto.

Dry dock

What drought?

Wookie and Ginger

Vicki sprinting across the lake in their tandem kayak

Sierra Buttes in the background

Pass Creek grotto

A new visitor, Mr. Heron

Mike using my kayak to fish

Mr. Heron

English Mt. in the background

Early morning fire

Ben staring down a chipmont, went on for 15 minutes at least

Jamie and Angela got married on September 5, 2015.  The event came off beautifully in spite of the traffic and closed roads due to the Cal football game.  It was held in the Botanical Gardens with the actual ceremony in a wonderful amphitheater in a grove of tall redwoods (??).  A professional photographer took the really good photos, this is just some candids I took with my new little crappy camera.  We stayed at the Rose Garden Inn along with Molly, Neil and the kids, while everyone else chose the double tree.  I liked ours the best.

Back to Loon Lake right after the Labor Day crowds left.  I started out at site #28, only to find there is a tit mouse burrow somewhere near the RV pad, so I had mice in my raisen bran cereal box in the middle of the night.  Next morning, crack of dawn, I was packing up to move to site #17 (my goto site from now on).  I had the whole loop to myself until Wednesday afternoon, and then only a couple campers came in.  It was great. The sky had some haze from all the fires and it was on the hot side, low 80s in the days, but otherwise it was gorgeous.  Kayak fishing was great catching five fish and only one released cause he was too small.  One 13″ rainbow and three just shy of 16″.  Real fighters too.  It seemed to me, looking at my fishfinder, that there were much less fish this time than last.  Lake was about 2-3 feet lower than when I was here in July, but appears to have stopped dropping.  Water temperature had dropped to around 63 whereas in July it was almost 70.

Biggs and Ben were with me, and because of little Biggs we just took short hikes.  Also did some kayaking with Ben swimming along while Biggs sat on the bow.  I finished three books while there and had a really relaxing time.

This old camper.

In August, in fact the week ended 8/21/2015, the market made a significant turn.  The weekly indicators (moving averages, linear regression curves) turned bearish for the first time since 7/2011.
The Dow downside targets are 14,500-13,700 or as low as 11,000
S&P  downside target 1560-1400

The SPY is the ETF that tracks the S&P and here is a chart with a suggested range for escaping or shorting.

I got this sweet shot up at Jackson Meadows Reservoir in late August, 2015.  I just really like it.

It’s the end of August, and I spent 3 days camping at Jackson Meadows, again.  This time I had the entire camp loop to myself.  Just me and Ben this time since Biggs had stitches that did not need to get in the dirt.  I caught 6 trout, kept the big one, a heavy 16 incher.  Beautiful weather, Ben and I swam together and he also swam along next to me while I kayaked.

We hiked up the south end of the lake, which is a big meadow, now dry, exposing foundations of old buildings that had been covered up when the reservoir was created.  Apparently the reservoir has gone thru many changes over the years.  It started as a Log Crib Dam in the 1850s to deliver water to the hydraulic gold mines via 80 miles of flumes and ditches.  About 1875 the dam was raised to form a reservoir 2.5 miles by .5 mile wide.  Then in 1883 the dam was again being strengthened and raised when it either collapsed or was dynamited with the resulting flood took six lives and  caused tremendous damage along the Yuba River Canyon and Sacramento Valley.  Then in 1965 the dam  was reconstructed to the state its in now.

My fishing kayak

Sierra Buttes

The annual “birthday climb” of Fall Creek Mountain, over by Feeley and Carr lakes, happened this year on 8/23.   We had ten participants, and everyone made it to the top followed by a refreshing swim in Island Lake afterwards.  Along with Kate and I, we had Stephen & Janelle, Mike & Vicky, Nan, Patrick, Alan and Kaye.  My little P&S lumix camera died before the swim so no pics of that.  It was a gorgeous day and possibly the best trip yet.  I have been climbing Fall Creek Mtn since 1999 and its always a new adventure.

Fall Creek Mtn taken by Patrick from opposing mountain range.

Island Lake

Island Lake in the background, our swimming hole