Oregon trip...June 2006

Crater Lake and Wizard Island on a calm day.

In late June I traveled to Oregon. Passed thru Crater Lake National Park and took a short hike and just enjoyed the beauty of the lake. It's a power spot...you just sit on a rock overlooking the water and soak in the beauty and imagine what it was like when Mount Mazama blew its top...an eruption much more intense than Mt. St Helens in 1980. Another anomaly of Crater Lake is that while most lakes are in basins, Crater Lake is on a mountaintop! To get a better feeling for this phenomenon, hike to the top of Mt. Scott on the crater rim and take in the countryside.

Went hiking on Mount Tamalpais today. It's a fine mountain, very close to San Francisco yet peaceful and serene, especially on a weekday. I covered seven miles or so, hiking above the marine inversion; you get fine views of the top of the overcast, shrouding the ocean and the city, while you're in clear air above the smog and haze. The vegetation is a mixture of fir, juniper, fern, and madrone. A distinctive rock, serpentine, is seen all over the place near the summit of Mt. Tam; it has a greenish hue, and areas where it is prevalent are more lightly vegetated than surrounding spots since firs don't grow where serpentine prevails. The basic pluses of hiking Mt. Tam are fine views and solitude, as well as good exercise. It's a Bay Area institution.

Desolation Wilderness...August 2006

Lake of the Woods, Desolation Wilderness.


Spent a fine four days in the Sierra Aug 8-11. Did some hiking up in the mountains. On the 9th I hiked a loop trail near Mt. Rose that had fine views of Lake Tahoe to the west and Carson Valley a mile below to the east. On Aug 10 I did 8 miles in the Desolation Wilderness to Lake of the Woods, Lake Aloha, and Tamarack Lake. Found fine slabs of granite for vegging at the first two spots. It was a fine scene...blue skies, bright sun, crystalline air, majestic mountains, and serenity after a good workout. The granite of the High Sierra has always been attractive to me; rugged, scenic, but with fine opportunities for laying out.


West end of Echo Lake.

Another neat aspect of the excursion was the boat ride across Echo Lake. To save two and a half miles each way on the hike, you can take a water taxi across Echo Lake to the trailhead. This gives you a fine boat ride across a large mountain lake past many innovative wilderness cabins lining the lakeshore. One was even on an island...talk about a wonderful, secluded spot! It would be cool to rent a cabin for a few days sometime in the summer.

This was the longest high mountain hike I've taken in several years...about 1200 feet elevation gain along with the 8 miles. It was similar to the treks I did in the Colorado Rockies 20 to 25 years ago. Very cool! Spending two nights at Tahoes elevation beforehand helped a lot, as did drinking a bottle of Fume Blanc the previous evening. Well, maybe. At any rate I had a feeling of accomplishment...it wasn't a bad effort for an old sloat!

Wanderings of the old sloat

This is the complex where I stayed on the Big Island. The sleeping bungalow pictured was on an
island in a tidal pond where you could swim. The water was heated by volcanic hot springs to about 88 degrees. A nice change from Monterey, with summer ocean temps in the 50s!

Wanderings of the old sloat

Trips this year have included Hawaii; Yosemite; and Central Oregon. As soon as I can figure out how to send pix, I will post some from these jaunts.