Due to the ridiculous government shutdown, my plans to go to Wrights lake were aborted.  However, since Loon Lake is run for the govt. by a concessionaire it was still open.  Loon is also right next to desolation wilderness, the beautiful granite laden high country of the Sierra.  I hadn’t been to Loon in 5 years, I believe, and it was a great reminder of how beautiful it is.  I think its now my favorite lake to camp at.  It’s about 1.75 hours from the house with all smooth road and no traffic.

Fishing was terrific with one day getting strikes or nibbles on practically every cast of rainbow colored powerbait.  I ended up with 5 nice rainbow trout.  It was cold and windy at night with huge winds on Friday morning easily bringing the temperatures into the 30’s considering wind chill factor.  A couple fishing boats left out on the lake overnight were swamped with water from the waves splashing over the stern.  Bad luck had my heater deciding not to work in the rv, but I was able to use the oven and it heated the place up just fine.

With the lake down considerably, hiking along the shore was perfect.  Loon has amazing boulders combined with beautiful sandy beaches,  reminiscent of Sand Harbor in Lake Tahoe.   The ferns and grassy areas all had a yellow autumn color to them however the Aspen trees were just beginning to change. When the shoreline got a little rough for hiking with the dogs I was able to use my Garmin  and bushwack over to the Rubicon trail running parallel to my hike and came back that way.

My campsite, #17, was right next to the lakeshore, protected from the wind by plenty of trees and  with a little path directly to the lake.  A really sweet spot.

Site #17, sweet!

Biggs

Ben

Butt Rock

Me and Ben

Boat left out over night got swamped with water from the waves.

With gusty winds early in the morning the sunlight thru the spray from the waves created beautiful rainbow colors.

I found this crawdad trying to eat my fish.

Friday’s catch

Path from the campsite to the lakeshore

After a couple delays we finally did our annual Fall Creek Mountain hike on 9/22.  It was just Stephen Bannister and Janelle and me this time.  We added to the normal route by going north after the climb toward Culbertson lake and then dropped down to the Crooked Lakes Trail and back to Island Lake.

Here are photos of the trip.  You can go right thru them by beginning with first one and clicking the arrows to move fwd or back.

Crooked Lake in the background

Heading back down

Last Sunday Kate and I tried a new hike.  We went to Boreal Ski Ranch to pick up the Pacific Crest Trail head but instead of going north toward Castle Peak, we instead went south planning to see the three lakes … Azelea Lake, Flora Lake and Lake Angela.  The PCT is well worn so its a great trail, easy rolling at around the 7200 foot level.

Click to enlarge

In about a mile we found a trail off to our right and looking at my Garmin Dakota GPS it had to be the trail to the first lake, Azelea.  Sure enough a real beauty. (click images for full size)

The next lake, Flora Lake was not far away at all according to the GPS and sure enough the lakes side trail led us right to it.  However, the trail seemed to end at Flora Lake and we resorted to bushwacking climbing over nice granite but also plowing thru manzanita.

Donner Lake

Biggs, the braveheart

Biggs, being so low to the ground, had a rough time so Kate or I carried him thru some but then decided to just put him in my pack.

We finally got to some relatively flat granite where the big watt power lines were going overhead.  I kinda thought if we followed them we would get to Lake Angela but it was getting a little late, and I forgot that I had Google Earth on my phone and I was getting reception.  That would have showed me what you see here on this map I pulled up at home.

Stopping for water at the power lines

If we had followed the power lines to our right we would have eventually met up with a trail to Angela

If you look carefully and blow up this map you will see the power lines. Lake Angela is off the map to the left.

Instead we chose to go left and  try and get back down to PCT which we could just make out below the cliffs we were on.

You can see our track where we tried to get down several places but either too steep with the dogs or way too much manzanita to get thru.

Here is what we were dealing with:

Biggs went right after me

Kate, not too happy about the descent

Our view looking down, and all the brush. PCT was down there.

We finally gave up on going to PCT and just retraced back to Flora lake and everyone but me had a nice swim.

The trail around Flora Lake

Next time we will go all the way to Lake Angela, probably following PCT till it meets up with side trail to that lake.

I  attempted to camp at Gold Lakes last week however, the terrain was a bit rough for my old RV, so I ended up back at my favorite campground, Jackson Meadows Reservoir.  Lousy fishing again due to the warm water but had a nice time with the dogs swimming and kayaking.  We had some thunderstorms over the Sierra so the cloud formations at sunset were pretty amazing.  Here are some shots.

Site #34 Click this thumbnail to start slide show

Ben and Biggs always get tangled up in their leashes. this time ben knocked over the BBQ twice.

This gizmo, 4-5 pennies in a ziplock bag filled with water, hanging nearby.. keeps the flies away and it works!

Lake about 20 ft low

Kate fixing Old Fashions

View from our campsite

Sierra Buttes in background

Ben swam and swam and swam…

View of Jackson from Pacific Crest trail

Kate at entrance to our RV, gorgeous view from this campsite #34

Geoff and Ben swimming

Passe Creek, way down but still running.

Hiking up Passe Creek

Katie

Evening light, Kate and Ben helping me fish. No luck.

Best campsite in East Meadows Campground

This is what I stared at waiting and watching intently for a nibble. None had.

Katie

Merganser

Merganser

Merganser

Evening light on Jackson Meadows

This was a delightful trip back to Jackson Meadows Reservoir located around the 7,000 foot level in the Sierra Nevada Mtns, Tahoe National Forest.  Weather was cool at night and warm enough during the days for great swimming.   Kate and I  took the tandem inflateable kayak (SeaEagle) and paddled around the lake with Biggs inside and Ben swimming along next to us.  Fishing was lousy.  I tried salmon eggs and power bait.  Even tried my kastmaster lure and then lost it to a snag on the second cast.  We tried the strange method of keeping flies away with pennies in a ziplock bag filled with water and I do believe it worked.   We had site #34 which I believe is the best site in East Meadows campground.  It’s at the far end with a nice forest trail on one side and a straight shot to the lake on the other.  And an awesome view.  Water line was broke so no running water and therefore flush toilet bathrooms shut down for the first day.   Once fixed all was well again.

Passe Creek was still running, with small waterfalls but way down from when I was here two weeks ago.  We hiked north, this time, on the Pacific Crest Trail and it was just a beautiful hike.  I prefer it to the southern direction hike on the PCT.

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My first visit to Jackson Meadows this year.  One of my favorite lakes for camping.  Fishing is normally awesome but wouldn’t ya know, this year I actually have a fishing license and it pretty much sucked.  Not even  a nibble.  We were (are) having a heat spell so the water had warmed up to around 70 degrees which I heard caused the fish to be lazy.   Also heard it was because the mosquitoes were plentiful so the fish were full.  I tried fishing both from shore and from a kayak.  Natha.

Kate couldn’t come along but I did meet up with my friends Mike and Vicki who camped right next to me in site #23, I was in #20.  A short path to the water.  Even tho we had a really dry winter the lake was quite high, probably only down about 10 feet.   The warm winter also resulted in bears visiting the campground.  Apparently the night before I got there, the campground was woken at 1am by a woman screaming.  She had gone to the bathroom and found a bear in there.  What a shock that would be.  I hope she held her water.

We hiked up Passe Creek which was still running nicely.  Lots of little waterfalls and the water was so amazingly clear.   Wild flowers were out, as they usually are at this time of year in the Sierra.  Lupines along the highway getting there, were gorgeous.

Swimming in the lake with Ben was a great cool down and fun.  He would spend the entire time in the water if he could.  While we were there, they were experiencing 107 in the Sacramento valley.  I think it was 100 at least at our home in the foothills, in Colfax.

Click the first thumb to start reviewing them at large size.

Mike and Vicki’s campsite, mine in the background

Mike and I went out kayak fishing early in the morning. We got zilch.

Passe Creek

Me and Ben

Biggs

Passe Creek

Biggs

Ben

Biggs and Ben cooling off in the crystal clear water

Mike and Vicki and Ben at Passe Creek

Biggs

Passe Creek

Our campsite #20

In June, after the French Meadow campout, Kate and I did Sugar Pine Lake, Giant Gap campground for a weekend of camping.  This is only about 1.25 hour from our house and at the 4,000 foot level.  The lake was full with great swimming but crappy fishing.  Just got a couple bites when I tried fishing from our inflatable kayak.  Ben got a lot of swimming in as he would swim along while we paddled around the lake.  Biggs enjoyed the ride.  Click the first pic to nicely go thru them at big size.

Our site #22 right off the lake.

Ben loves to retrieve sticks. The water was so incredibly clear.

Biggs cooling off

A great 4 mile trail around the lake

Wild Lillies

Me and my sweet Katie

Ben and Biggs

Its amazing to me that Bank Of America gets away with all the dirty deeds it does. It totally worked the system with the govt. HAMP program. Stringing people along, lying to them about their loan modifications and ultimately foreclosing on them anyway. We certainly didn’t get foreclosed on but they lied to us and put us off for over a year. Gilbert Delacruz in the Phoenix office was our case manager. I have never met a more useless person. I guess he was getting paid just to jerk us around. We finally went to a private loan broker Delia Fling who got us a great refinance deal in just about 60 days, beginning to end.

At any rate, I found this great article on Salon that really tells the story about how BofA has screwed the people and whats amazing is that, like most corporations, gets away with it. Banksters is definitely the name for these Parana’s. Here is the article. “Bank of America Whistle Blowers bombshell”

I haven’t been fishing in probably 25 years  but this year I decided to get my license and give it a try.  I  prefer camping by Sierra lakes and I’ve seen how good the fishing is up there.   So my first mountain excursion this summer was to French Meadows Reservoir over the fathers day weekend.  It’s a bit more remote than my usual camping spots and therefore not as crowded which pleases me immensely, but it is a long windy road down then up the American River Canyon.  Takes 2.25 hours from home in Colfax, including the gas stop.  Of course I had Ben and Biggs with me, while Kate was in Portland visiting her son and grandkids.

When I arrived I was surprised the lake was down so much, this being early in the summer.  It had to be a good 30-40 feet down.  Apparently a record low for this time of year.  The campground was about half full, or less.  Gorgeous campsites, well maintained with flush toilets.   The camp host, Mike, was a terrific very likeable guy, who gave me some tips on where to fish and that they were averaging two fish per day from the shore and five per day from boats.

I had two spinning rods, one set for power bait rig and the other for casting lures.  I had a masterkaster lure and tried that first around 5pm just for practice.  Bam within 15 minutes I had a big German Brown Trout on the line.  What a surprise.  A real nice one measuring 16″ long.

Note Ben rolling on his back in the background laughing at me for being so excited about catching this fish.

I ended up catching 8 trout all together and let go 5 since they were too small.  The power bait worked good but the rig kept getting snagged in the rocks until I alleviated that problem a bit by reeling it in faster when done.   Biggs sat next to me nicely while Ben, being the water dog he is, got frustrated when I wouldn’t let him swim out to the bait.  But eventually he just decided to swim by himself going out to the center of the lake and exploring.

A beautiful Bald Eagle soared right above me while fishing and of course I had no camera.  It was so low I could see it perfectly.