Finally home

Well, the fires continue to wreak havoc. While we weren’t going to head home for 3 more days, we were thrown out of Twin Lakes Campground. Apparently, all National Forest managed lands were being closed at 5 PM today because of all the fires in California. So, some scrambled calls got us a place to park tonight, in Ridgecrest. The Woman did her homework on Google and learned that there was another National Natural Landmark not terribly far from there.

Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark contains over 500 tufa spires, some rising well over 100 feet above the bed of the Searles Dry Lake Basin. The pinnacles themselves are composed primarily of calcium carbonate, also known as Tufa. The Trona Pinnacles were designated a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1968 to preserve one of North America’s most outstanding examples of tufa tower formation.

Next stop is Vegas – back to the oppressive heat!

Talk to you soon.

Dang fires!

We got totally lucky with this call. Had we gone to South Lake Tahoe, we would have been caught up the middle of the mandatory evacuation mess that occurred due to the Caldor fire. Who knows how long it would have taken for us to get out in all the crazy traffic? I would rather be chilling in my lawn chair, looking at Mammoth Mountain and the Inyo National Forest, which is not burning.

We got to celebrate our anniversary in Mammoth California. We headed up to Mammoth Ski Resort and road the gondola to the top. The views from the top were breathtaking, a nice way to spend our anniversary. For our anniversary dinner, we considered heading to the Mammoth Brewery, but we decided to just have a nice quiet dinner in the coach.

On the way back from our gondola adventure we stumbled across the Mammoth Earthquake Fault. Geologists believe this feature was not caused by a single earthquake, but was rather a system of fractures formed by a series of strong earthquakes in the Inyo Craters and Inyo Domes centuries ago. It was a short hike, but an impressive reward.

The Woman had discovered that the PCT ran right though Mammoth, however, the only access points were within Devils Postpile National Monument. We had been here long ago with the kids, but since we had been there before, the implanted a shuttle system that we weren’t interested in using. Being turned away at the entrance station, we were pretty bummed out.

However, a local suggested that the entrance station wasn’t manned until 7 AM. So, we headed out early and managed to find the two areas within the Monument where the PCT was accessible. The Woman had some unexpected energy, and we managed to take on over 6 miles of the Trail we had never done before. All in all, it was a great revisit of the Monument.

Talk to you soon.

Fun stop

We learned that our Harvest Host membership included the Shasta Brewing Company in the town with the best name ever – and totally appropriate for California – Weed! We spent the night at the brewery, and made sure to take advantage of their product in the onsite alehouse. As you can see, I couldn’t resist the logo shirt.

Nearby was a National Natural Landmark that we had never been to before, so we couldn’t resist a visit. Although they were open for tours, we didn’t feel comfortable venturing inside. Besides, they didn’t allow dogs, and Kona had joined us on today’s adventures, so we just checked out the area.

The Woman found where the Pacific Crest Trail passed nearby and, of course, we had to head there. We found a couple of things we had not discovered before. The signage indicated that the PCT here was crossing over private land, and that because of this, you were required to stay on the trail. In addition, we found a PCT Hiker Log – two of them actually. The Woman knew of these, and we spent a few minutes checking out who had signed the log most recently.

Talk to you soon.