Travel – Page 13 – PureSynchronicity

Jackson Meadows Reservoir #2

Site #34 Click this thumbnail to start slide show

Jackson Meadows. site 34 Click this thumb 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.

Jackson Meadows Reservoir - East Meadows CG site #34

Best campsite in East Meadows Campground

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

Katie

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.

Jackson Meadows Reservoir June 2013

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

East meadow campground at Jackson Meadows Reservoir

Our campsite #20

Sugar Pine Reservoir Campout 6/13

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

Fishing French Meadows Reservoir

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.

german brown trout — 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.

Road Trip to MacKerricher State Beach

In May I made a week long trip up the coast of northern California with my good friend Scott Oglesby. We started at Bodega Bay and ended at MacKerricher State Beach just north of Fort Bragg. Note these photos are in a gallery on picasaweb and if you click the linked album below you can see it as a slide show.

I also put up a video on you tube, quite ridiculous but funny, that you can see by clicking here Continue reading “Road Trip to MacKerricher State Beach”

Lakes Basin Spring Hike

Kate, the dogs (Ben and Biggs) and I took a nice 1.75hr drive up to Sierra Buttes in Lakes Basin area. We wanted to check out the campsites for future RVing up that way. It was perfect timing as the snow had greatly receded. In fact, it was equivalent to late June in a typical year. So the lakes were full and the waterfalls and streams were running full blast. We hiked to Frazier Falls, which I had never seen before since I usually go to this area late summer or fall and they are dried up. They were magnificent. Something like a 300 foot drop and this was at the 6200 foot level. We like to camp right on or very near lakes, so we really didnt find any great campsites in that regard, so we will have to just continue doing day hikes in that area. (click to enlarge photos)

Sardine Lake, Lakes Basin Northern California

Me and Biggs on Frazier Creek before we found the falls

Frazier Falls in Lakes Basin off the Old Gold Lakes road

My Wounded Winnebago

My old 1986 Winnebago had a bit of a mishap back in November of last year. It was my last campout of the 2012 season. As I was leaving Colfax for the ocean, I stopped at the post office to get my mail, parking along the curb. What I didnt notice was a low hanging tree limb that bashed the right top corner of my baby just as I was pulling out. It broke my heart and was a huge cause for concern because there was a big storm coming in the following day. When i arrived at Wrights Beach (trip photos here) I immediately covered the gash with duct tape.

Turns out the patch worked and other than some tiny drips from the window, which were easily kept under control with a bowl and a towel, I weathered the storm and drove home in the rain without any water damage.

When I got home I went to Home Depot and bought a huge blue tarp to cover it thru the winter. Which worked out quite well. But now that the weather has warmed up and I am planning a trip back to Wrights Beach May 1st, I decided to tackle the fix up project.

One of the key pieces to the repair was finding the curved trim/molding metal piece that went around the corner and was totally messed up. I sent out emails to various RV salvage yards around the country and was lucky to get a response from Arizona RV Salvage in Phoenix. They had a whole bunch of these pieces with a cost of only $75 …. plus $120 shipping, gulp. Anyway.. I was thrilled to have found the part.

Since this is an old RV not worth a lot of bucks, I couldnt see spending a fortune to get it back to the original state but instead just really wanted to secure the shell so it was weatherproof and looked decent enough. I talked to a Paramount RV in Reno and they suggested all I would need is to use ProFlex caulk on the two big tears in the fiberglass combined with putting on the new trim piece. This was great news. However… when I removed the duct tape I saw what kind of mess had been covered up all this time. Totally shattered fiberglass in the corner.

When I took out the shattered pieces of plastic I found I had a big hole fill. Foam insulation worked well for that. Finally I made the decision to cut out the really bad area, replace it with a piece of aluminum, screw it in place, and caulk the torn areas.

So after painting … good enough! A little bit of frankenstein scars but what the heck. Not that noticeable and now weather proof and ready to go.

Asilomar trip near Monterey

Kate and I happened across a fantastic deal for staying at the retreat center, Asilomar, near Monterey at Pacific Grove. We stayed there three nites last week 2/21/13 and found it to be delightful. There are something like 200 acres including beachfront with many buildings designed by the famous architect Julia Morgan. We brought our bikes and road from our room to Cannery Row in Monterey. Saw the famous Monarch butterflys, sea lions and a gorgeous coastline. Fabulous trip all together. Here are the photos.

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Asilomar Lodge

Kate texting in the main registration building.

Asilomar Arrival

We had just arrived at Asilomar on the Monterey coast on Thursday and were blown away by beauty and architecture of the complex. Buildings all designed by julia morgan. We hopped on our bikes right from our room and followed the boardwalk to the beach.