It's been a chaotic two days.
Wednesday night (was that really only two days ago?) I made it south as far as Walker Ridge road east of Clear lake where I overnighted. Woke up at dawn to drive the rest of the way to check my PO box in Santa Rosa. Just a few items in the box and a note saying box was full. Would have to come back to fetch it all and also renew the box for another year. Used the wifi from the parking lot in front of the (not yet open) Coddingtown Library for a while, and made a few phone calls leaving messages. Remembered I had wanted to do a few laps at the Finley Swim Center but got there with only half hour left in the morning session, so thought I'd try the Ridgeway Pool but it looked crowded, by which time the PO was open so took care of my mail, used the main library (finally figuring out my new phone services voicemail setup) then returned to the Finley pool for the mid-day session, had my few laps.
Back to the library, intending to spend a good deal of time verifying the success of my disc crash recovery steps of a few days ago. My new Mybook disk drive was not in my "laptop bag" (big Walmart backpack.) Must have left it in the car, trying to remember where I might have hid it this time (I often separate my drives from the laptop, hiding them at the bottom of my food coolers, for example, before I "abandon" my car for a few days of hiking - this way, a vandal would be "satisfied" with taking my "replaceable" laptops leaving my irreplaceable data alone - is the rationale.) A cursory search couldn't find the Mybook. Decided to to a more thorough "cleaning", went to my storage unit and "sorted" a few nonessentials back into storage, meanwhile racking my brain when I last used the thing, it was at Callahan's the evening after my Seiad to Mt Ashland hike. I remembered I had rushed out of there shortly after the place had "closed", finishing up just in the nick of time copying my recent Camera Card contents to the Mybook. I must have left it on the table. Called them, sure enough, they had it. "I'll be back in a few weeks, could you hold it that long?" "No problem." I left my contact info with them.
Back to the library. Decided I could re-recover the data from the crashed drive (which, after doing all the CF-card recoveries first, I thought I had managed to successfully recover directly from the drive once I learned how to use the recovery utility properly.) Again, that recover process finished just in the nick of time as the library was closing (had to point to the dialog box saying "2 more minutes left, to convince the library "bouncer" to let it finish.) Trouble is, this second look at the data recovered, I'm missing a few days of images. I assume that's the same on the Mybook in Oregon. Not sure how much of that I may have recovered from the CF cards. I've since written over some of those cards again, but I may still go through the motions again of recovering data off of the individual CF cards, to see what I might be able to scrounge up.
Bummer. I may just have to re-hike those sections for which I have no picts, because, you know me: "if I didn't take (-er, don't have) pictures, I wasn't there." Anyone wan't to hike the Scott & Marble Mts with me?
Library closed, made a few more phone calls, got permission to park my car overnight at Bud's. Talked to him for a few minutes that evening, tried to troubleshoot a computer issue for him, decided to postpone it for tomorrow. Tomorrow morning he would be meeting "the group" (Mike and Steve and Dana Mae) for brunch at a new-to-me meeting location, the Croissant place on Chanate. I offered to pick up Mike, after going for another swim in the morning.
Managed to get up in time for my own breakfast, a swim, and pick him up. A bit of comedy trying to find the place (confusing the street that goes past the Admin Center with the street that goes past the JC as the one that turns into Chanate.
Meanwhile, got a few of my earlier calls returned, and found myself "booked up" with visits with family, all weekend beginning Friday afternoon. That's where I am now, at the Library on University Ave. in Berkeley, waiting for Stephen to get off work. We'll have dinner tonight, tomorrow we plan to take a good long hike, Sunday I'll visit Becca in Davis, Monday Laura & Ali in Pleasanton. I had planned to spend another day in Sonoma County, but now I think I'll just head east to the Sierra, set myself up properly for a 60 mile hike from Sonora Pass to Carson Pass, visit the CNPS "Phyto-Fan" group at Woods Lake there for the weekend, then just another 15 miles to Echo Pass, then take the bike ride down to S. Lk Tahoe, the 4 busses to Tuolumne Meadows, pick up my bear canister at the PO there and walk the 75 miles back to my car at Sonora Pass.
Then I'll go fetch my MyBook back in Oregon.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
"Done" with CA! Oh, except for Tuolumne to Hwy 50 - so guess what's next...
Yep, gonna burn a bunch more gas and head south to finish up that loose end (oh, and a third attempt to finish up that little 10 mile bit of lint just north of hwy 80 Donner Pass.)
Turns out the timing will be nearly perfect to also meet up with my CNPS happy camper friends heading for Woods Lake just west of Carson Pass the weekend of July 12-13, with just enough slack time to take care of some business back in Santa Rosa, and visit with family at various points in the Bay Area, before heading to the Sierra.
This morning I sent off my bear canister filled with maybe 7 days or so of food to myself General Delivery at Tuolumne Meadows. (I'll be picking that up after hiking from Sonora Pass north to Echo Summit at hwy 50, then bicycling down to South Lake Tahoe, catching four busses: two east through S.LkTahoe ultimately to Hwy 395, a 3rd to Lee Vining, and the fourth up to Tuolumne Meadows. From there I'll hike 75 miles is it? back to my car at Sonora Pass. (If this sounds familiar, it was the same plan I was going to do last year, but it was first smoked by the Hunters Fire, then at the end of the season when the YARTS bus to Tuolumne stopped running.)
So then I'll head back up here to Oregon to resume my trudge to Canada.
Also this morning still in Oregon I did a little scouting drive up Hwy 140 via Medford to Fish Lake (had a brief chat at the resort there about their PCT hiker services (cheap shower and laundry, whohoo!) and possible transit between Medford and Fish Lake (none, though I did get a phone# for a "shuttle" that runs between Medford and Klamath Falls along hwy 140 but which doesn't stop at Fish Lake. FWIW, the number is 541-883-2609 - just for my own future reference.)
A bicycle ride down Hwy 140 to Medford is feasible (insignificant intervening climbs westward) but would be very boring. Would still need to research bus connections from the "most-eastward" outskirts of Medford to Ashland, and then there are some expensive options or a hitch to get to Callahan's or the nearby trail at I5/Old Hwy99/Mt. Ashland.
From Fish Lake I then drove south on paved FS Road 37 past Howard Prairie Lake and Hyatt Reservoir to Hwy 66 at the Green Springs Inn (also near the PCT.) This turns out to be a quite feasible bicycle ride, lots of mild ups and downs but no major climbs and virtually no traffic in mostly wooded but varied landscapes. However, a bicycle ride on the steep, twisting, narrow, no-shoulder high-traffic Hwy 66 from there to Ashland would be a stressful ordeal despite it being mostly downhill.
But, there is an alternative! I can avoid having to bicycle to Ashland: I could split the piece of PCT between I5 and Hwy 66 into a few shorter day-hike loops with the bicycle (albeit on gravel roads) and probably some out&back day-hike bits. Divide & conquer! So the loops from I5 to Hwy 140 would just involve my feet, my bicycle & my car (no hitches or buses.).
The next stretch, from Hwy 140 to Crater Lake, might yet include that boring bicycle ride on 140 toward Medford, but I've yet to flesh that out.
Again, I will leave the "history" of my completed hike from Seiad to Mt Ashland to other "post-dated" posts, later. Still need to inform my CNPS camper friends I plan to drop in on them...
Turns out the timing will be nearly perfect to also meet up with my CNPS happy camper friends heading for Woods Lake just west of Carson Pass the weekend of July 12-13, with just enough slack time to take care of some business back in Santa Rosa, and visit with family at various points in the Bay Area, before heading to the Sierra.
This morning I sent off my bear canister filled with maybe 7 days or so of food to myself General Delivery at Tuolumne Meadows. (I'll be picking that up after hiking from Sonora Pass north to Echo Summit at hwy 50, then bicycling down to South Lake Tahoe, catching four busses: two east through S.LkTahoe ultimately to Hwy 395, a 3rd to Lee Vining, and the fourth up to Tuolumne Meadows. From there I'll hike 75 miles is it? back to my car at Sonora Pass. (If this sounds familiar, it was the same plan I was going to do last year, but it was first smoked by the Hunters Fire, then at the end of the season when the YARTS bus to Tuolumne stopped running.)
So then I'll head back up here to Oregon to resume my trudge to Canada.
Also this morning still in Oregon I did a little scouting drive up Hwy 140 via Medford to Fish Lake (had a brief chat at the resort there about their PCT hiker services (cheap shower and laundry, whohoo!) and possible transit between Medford and Fish Lake (none, though I did get a phone# for a "shuttle" that runs between Medford and Klamath Falls along hwy 140 but which doesn't stop at Fish Lake. FWIW, the number is 541-883-2609 - just for my own future reference.)
A bicycle ride down Hwy 140 to Medford is feasible (insignificant intervening climbs westward) but would be very boring. Would still need to research bus connections from the "most-eastward" outskirts of Medford to Ashland, and then there are some expensive options or a hitch to get to Callahan's or the nearby trail at I5/Old Hwy99/Mt. Ashland.
From Fish Lake I then drove south on paved FS Road 37 past Howard Prairie Lake and Hyatt Reservoir to Hwy 66 at the Green Springs Inn (also near the PCT.) This turns out to be a quite feasible bicycle ride, lots of mild ups and downs but no major climbs and virtually no traffic in mostly wooded but varied landscapes. However, a bicycle ride on the steep, twisting, narrow, no-shoulder high-traffic Hwy 66 from there to Ashland would be a stressful ordeal despite it being mostly downhill.
But, there is an alternative! I can avoid having to bicycle to Ashland: I could split the piece of PCT between I5 and Hwy 66 into a few shorter day-hike loops with the bicycle (albeit on gravel roads) and probably some out&back day-hike bits. Divide & conquer! So the loops from I5 to Hwy 140 would just involve my feet, my bicycle & my car (no hitches or buses.).
The next stretch, from Hwy 140 to Crater Lake, might yet include that boring bicycle ride on 140 toward Medford, but I've yet to flesh that out.
Again, I will leave the "history" of my completed hike from Seiad to Mt Ashland to other "post-dated" posts, later. Still need to inform my CNPS camper friends I plan to drop in on them...
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Day Hike PCT SOBO from I-5 back up to Mt Ashland Canpground after bicycling down from CG
The Mt Ashland Campground has become my "base camp" in this area. Spectacular view of Mt Shasta and the entire Shasta Valley/Siskiyou summit area, just a few hundred yards of gravel road away from the top of the paved road from I5 to the Mt Ashland Ski area, and two "well maintained" pit toilets to boot. No piped water, though there are nearby springs. There seemed to be two other semi-resident campers using the facility as well. I camped here when I first scouted out the area a few weeks back, again the night before I left my car there to bicycle back down into California to Seiad, and then yesterday evening after four days of hiking back to my car, and tonight after again bicycling down to I5 to finish off this section of PCT with a day-hike back up the hill (though it felt like the purpose of the hike back up the hill was for the thrill of doing that bicycle coast down that smooth road for a second time.)
Left my car in the morning about 9am, a half hour bicycle ride, made it back up the hill by 3PM, just a pleasant morning walk, it felt like.
Promptly drove back down to fetch my bicycle, headed on to Ashland, intending to do one or more of: grocery shopping to fill up my bear canister to send off to Tuolumne, scout out a possible overnight layover along the bottom end of the "alternative PCT route" from Mt Ashland directly into the town of Ashland along some gravel roads, locate the Ashland library and hostel described in Yogi's PCT guide, and maybe then take a drive north to scout out bicyclie-loop-back feasibility to/from the PCT trailhead in the Fish Lake area along Hwy 140 NE of Medford. This would be the north end of my next logical PCT segment. North of there would be Mt Mcloughlin and Crater lake. the trail past Mt Mcloughlin was still "snowed in" last I heard about two weeks ago, but south of there is low-elevation.
Ended up doing the grocery shopping, then driving up the alternative PCT route, having to drive longer than hoped to find a spot to overnight, by which time it was late enough to call it a day. Decided to try out my new cell phone plan: Net10 $50/mo ATT option. (I had already activated that a week or so ago but hadn't had an occasion to use it yet. But I guess I was in a radio "hole", so I decided to try for better reception further up the hill, and ended up back at my "base" camp.
I did manage to make some calls from there, announcing to some family members my decision to come back to the Bay Area by this weekend, hoping to arrange some times to visit.
So, I guess that solidified my plans, which I'd considered fluid until then - not sure whetehr I would try to squeeze in another PCT section first before "meeting up" with my CNPS friends camping at Woods Lake the second weekend of July, before finishing off my Tuolumne to Hwy50 "gap", or maybe just "abandoning" all that (for now) and continuing on north.
Left my car in the morning about 9am, a half hour bicycle ride, made it back up the hill by 3PM, just a pleasant morning walk, it felt like.
Promptly drove back down to fetch my bicycle, headed on to Ashland, intending to do one or more of: grocery shopping to fill up my bear canister to send off to Tuolumne, scout out a possible overnight layover along the bottom end of the "alternative PCT route" from Mt Ashland directly into the town of Ashland along some gravel roads, locate the Ashland library and hostel described in Yogi's PCT guide, and maybe then take a drive north to scout out bicyclie-loop-back feasibility to/from the PCT trailhead in the Fish Lake area along Hwy 140 NE of Medford. This would be the north end of my next logical PCT segment. North of there would be Mt Mcloughlin and Crater lake. the trail past Mt Mcloughlin was still "snowed in" last I heard about two weeks ago, but south of there is low-elevation.
Ended up doing the grocery shopping, then driving up the alternative PCT route, having to drive longer than hoped to find a spot to overnight, by which time it was late enough to call it a day. Decided to try out my new cell phone plan: Net10 $50/mo ATT option. (I had already activated that a week or so ago but hadn't had an occasion to use it yet. But I guess I was in a radio "hole", so I decided to try for better reception further up the hill, and ended up back at my "base" camp.
I did manage to make some calls from there, announcing to some family members my decision to come back to the Bay Area by this weekend, hoping to arrange some times to visit.
So, I guess that solidified my plans, which I'd considered fluid until then - not sure whetehr I would try to squeeze in another PCT section first before "meeting up" with my CNPS friends camping at Woods Lake the second weekend of July, before finishing off my Tuolumne to Hwy50 "gap", or maybe just "abandoning" all that (for now) and continuing on north.
Monday, June 23, 2014
PCT Seiad to Mt Ashland day 4 of 4
...title-ony - was an abandoned draft - tobe fleshed out from photos ...
Friday, June 20, 2014
Breakfast at the Seiad Cafe, then northwards
Leaving my bicycle here again, expect to take four days for the 55 miles back to car at Mt Ashland.
Yesterday's bike ride from there started off as smoothly as hoped, with probably even a slight tailwind speeding me up on the few level to slightly uphill bits on I5, and for about the first hour along the Klamath River. I was actually thinking I might have time to begin hiking that afternoon.
But I did get started at 9am, about an hour later than hoped, and a southwest wind started ramping up, and soon I found myself having to pedal downhill fully crunched down. In the third-lowest gear at best.
I found myself having to take breaks along the river due to exhaustion, on one of these I took a long snooze, pleasant enough in the warm breeze. I had brought along almost 4 liters water, and food, and used all of it. Finally got to Seiad about 6pm.
Retrieved my pack, took a shower, sorted myself out a bit and had a long political conversation with the campground owner. Went to sleep befor sundown. Woke up late. Hash browns and eggs in front of me. Better gulp them down and get on the trail. Will again regret my late start.
Will be hiking in my Teva sandals rather than hiking boots, which have forced me to take frequent breaks to cool off my feet. I'm gambling the trail won't be too cobbly.
Yesterday's bike ride from there started off as smoothly as hoped, with probably even a slight tailwind speeding me up on the few level to slightly uphill bits on I5, and for about the first hour along the Klamath River. I was actually thinking I might have time to begin hiking that afternoon.
But I did get started at 9am, about an hour later than hoped, and a southwest wind started ramping up, and soon I found myself having to pedal downhill fully crunched down. In the third-lowest gear at best.
I found myself having to take breaks along the river due to exhaustion, on one of these I took a long snooze, pleasant enough in the warm breeze. I had brought along almost 4 liters water, and food, and used all of it. Finally got to Seiad about 6pm.
Retrieved my pack, took a shower, sorted myself out a bit and had a long political conversation with the campground owner. Went to sleep befor sundown. Woke up late. Hash browns and eggs in front of me. Better gulp them down and get on the trail. Will again regret my late start.
Will be hiking in my Teva sandals rather than hiking boots, which have forced me to take frequent breaks to cool off my feet. I'm gambling the trail won't be too cobbly.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Apparent Success recovering Disk drive with half hour to spare
So with the recovery program on my crashed drive says it has 25 minutes to go (started three hours ago) and I took a good look at what it's putting on my new MyBook driver, and it does indeed look like my original file structure is back and my tracklogs and picture files seem to be in place!
I suppose in retrospect I could have applied the recovery program ("Recuva") to the crashed drive earlier today and been on my way a lot sooner, but I thought I had unsuccessfully tried that last night. A few circumstances have changed in the mean time: I downloaded a new version of the utility (probably irrelevant.) And, after "practicing" and "learning:" how it realy worked (and changed a few settings as a result...) while recovering the CF cards that I had decided was a priority to allow myself at least to get back on the trail able to continue taking picts, I now managed to apply it properly to the crashed drive.
The amazing thing is that I squezed by doing this just in the nic of time. And got a few other things done while the process crawled along in the background.
Alas there are still things to do that could continue to keep me off the trail, but I'll put those off, and do hope to be on my bicycle on I5 coasting down back into CA tomorrow. Question still remains where exactly I want to park my car. I'm inclined to choose the Mt Ashland Campground, which is just a short way after Road 20 turns from pavement to gravel (which happens right after the ski area.) This would reduce the risk of damaging my bicycle tires before hitting I5 etc., and also minimizes the amt of uphill. It's still about a 60 mile bicycle ride overall, but about 90% downhill, with 16 miles of it at a 4% to 6% grade on I5! It should be a thrill!
I suppose in retrospect I could have applied the recovery program ("Recuva") to the crashed drive earlier today and been on my way a lot sooner, but I thought I had unsuccessfully tried that last night. A few circumstances have changed in the mean time: I downloaded a new version of the utility (probably irrelevant.) And, after "practicing" and "learning:" how it realy worked (and changed a few settings as a result...) while recovering the CF cards that I had decided was a priority to allow myself at least to get back on the trail able to continue taking picts, I now managed to apply it properly to the crashed drive.
The amazing thing is that I squezed by doing this just in the nic of time. And got a few other things done while the process crawled along in the background.
Alas there are still things to do that could continue to keep me off the trail, but I'll put those off, and do hope to be on my bicycle on I5 coasting down back into CA tomorrow. Question still remains where exactly I want to park my car. I'm inclined to choose the Mt Ashland Campground, which is just a short way after Road 20 turns from pavement to gravel (which happens right after the ski area.) This would reduce the risk of damaging my bicycle tires before hitting I5 etc., and also minimizes the amt of uphill. It's still about a 60 mile bicycle ride overall, but about 90% downhill, with 16 miles of it at a 4% to 6% grade on I5! It should be a thrill!
Sessile full day at Callahan's Restaurant recovering my files
It's a welcoming, pleasant place, Callahan's Lodge & Restaurant near Mt Ashland, where I showed up early this morning, greeted by Brandon at the front desk, again (he gave me a very enthusiastic spiel about what services they offered PCT hikers the other day when I first scouted out the place.) This time, I asked whether there might be a table with power outlet I might be able to use with my laptop for a few hours, explaining my crashed disk situation. "Why of course, and stay as long as you need" was his response, and it turned out that every single table had a power outlet. The cook and waitress hadn't showed up yet, as I had arrived a half hour before it opened. But he provided me coffee, and when the waitress arrived, I had the "hiker's special" breakfast of eggs and bacon and all-you-can eat pancakes. It took me two hours to finish the first three 10inch pancakes provided. With all the coffee I could drink. Another few hours later, the crew changed and I had a late afternoon lunch of a very tasty smoked salmon BLT. Later still, I had a peppermint tea, while the classical guitar pieces playing in the background was replaced with a live singer-guitarist. A few other PCT hikers had come and gone in the morning, and midday the outside porch filled with families and other small groups. Now a bit of mild chatter is coming from a few tables inside.
All this time I've been backing up and "recovering" every possible scrap of data from my CF cards and now, finally, working on the USB hard drive in question. This all is going to my new MyBook 4TB backup drive. While waiting for this copy& recovery to crawl along in the background, I've also been able to do a bit of other housekeeping on my smartphone, in particular solving the problem that caused a half-day delay in my ability to have access to my phone's sd-card while android scanned the card for errors, confirming that the cause was the thousands of map tiles I my main app, BCNav (Back Country Navigator) had stored on the "raw" file system in the card. The BCNav developer had pretty much acknowledged the problem and had provided an alternative way to download map tiles into "packages". After I had deleted the entire "raw" filesystem map tile hierarchy for the old maps I had already passed through, and then downloaded new maps for my upcoming sections into named packages", I am now able to shut off my phone to change batteries etc, and have the app up and running quickly after rebooting my phone. Yay!
I won't have time today to review exactly what I've recovered off my CF cards (and still working on the USB drive that crashed,) but I'm fairly sure I've now done everything I could possibly do, given that it's still just sealing the barn door shut after the escape has happened. Very grateful to the folk at Callahans for allowing me to accomplish this.
"More hot water?" I've been asked. "yeah sure!" I'm making the best of it.
All this time I've been backing up and "recovering" every possible scrap of data from my CF cards and now, finally, working on the USB hard drive in question. This all is going to my new MyBook 4TB backup drive. While waiting for this copy& recovery to crawl along in the background, I've also been able to do a bit of other housekeeping on my smartphone, in particular solving the problem that caused a half-day delay in my ability to have access to my phone's sd-card while android scanned the card for errors, confirming that the cause was the thousands of map tiles I my main app, BCNav (Back Country Navigator) had stored on the "raw" file system in the card. The BCNav developer had pretty much acknowledged the problem and had provided an alternative way to download map tiles into "packages". After I had deleted the entire "raw" filesystem map tile hierarchy for the old maps I had already passed through, and then downloaded new maps for my upcoming sections into named packages", I am now able to shut off my phone to change batteries etc, and have the app up and running quickly after rebooting my phone. Yay!
I won't have time today to review exactly what I've recovered off my CF cards (and still working on the USB drive that crashed,) but I'm fairly sure I've now done everything I could possibly do, given that it's still just sealing the barn door shut after the escape has happened. Very grateful to the folk at Callahans for allowing me to accomplish this.
"More hot water?" I've been asked. "yeah sure!" I'm making the best of it.
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