Tar Creek Rescue early June 2010

I have been on a few adventures since my last post at the end of May. Now I have to catch up logging my trips here. Well, the trip to Tar creek was my most scary trip ever. I'm sure it wasn't as scary for me as it was for my little cousin who slipped and fell at the Tar creek cascades and swimming holes. He took a very high fall down in between some boulders and cracked his head pretty good and his neck was hurting. My Brother and I Immediately started gearing up with a backpack with lots of water and some food and started hiking as fast as we could to get help. It was about 90 degrees that day which made it very difficult to move fast. We couldn't get any phone signal until we got all the way back to the trail head. Finally we were with a rescue team and we could hear status on our cousin over the radio and it sounded like he was going to be fine. He received I believe 9 staples and a body full of scrapes and bruises. He was very lucky considering it looked like he fell about 10 feet or more. It was a huge learning lesson to not take the wilderness for granted especially with kids. Anyway, here are some pics of the rescue and a few others of the rest of the trip after my brother and I hike back in to retrieve our gear and meet up with the rest of our family. Special thanks to the family that hiked my cousin Tuesday and Noah's gear out of the mountains for them.

Palomar Hike May 30, 2010

My friend Chipp and I went up to Palomar Mountain and went for a hike. On the way up the mountain we noticed that spring is just starting in the higher elevations. There were lots of flowers in full bloom along the side of the road and hillsides. We drove down to Doane Pond and started over to the Weir trail. The lady bugs obviously just hatched because the air was filled with them. Millions of them! The were lady bugs on me and bumping into my head most of the day. I've never seen so many. Anyway we made our way to Pauma Creek and worked our way downstream to see some small cascades and pools along the creek. We seen some small trout feeding on bugs on the water surface at one pool. The air was still completely filled with Lady Bugs. We the backtracked to catch the trail through French Valley. We walked through vast meadows of fresh green grass and thousands of flowers blooming everywhere. We went up to French Creek and found a nice spot on the creek to have lunch and lay back in the shade. We completed the French Valley loop trail and found ourselves back at the car. We then drove up to Boucher lookout where you can look down 5000 feet over Pauma Valley, Valley Center and Escondido and beyond on a clear day but it was so hazy down ther that we couldn't see much. Anyway as we got on our way to go down the mountain a couple of dear crossed the road in front of us. Beautiful day, beautiful hike.

Mission Trails San Diego May 23, 2010

Spring is still somewhat hanging on at Mission Trails. It was my first time hiking there and I really enjoyed it. The plan was to go with my daughter Barbara and my coworker Storm and his friend but they all bailed out on me so I ended up doing the hike solo. The San Diego River flows through this area and it was still flowing pretty good. There were still some flowers in bloom but you could tell they will be baked up pretty soon in the hot sun in these lower elevations. Anyway I got some great pictures. Check em out.

Tar Creek Backpacking Trip May 9 & 10, 2010

Hey Everybody, I went on a killer backpack trip overnight to Tar Creek in the Los Padres National Forest. I went with my two brothers Rob and Wesley and my nephew Josh. This was Josh's first backpacking trip like this. He is sixteen years old. It looked like he really enjoyed it. We all had a really great time. We had the canyon completely to ourselves for two days. This was our first time there for all of us. We had to do a little route finding but we made it all the way to the main falls down toward the confluence with Sespe Creek. This Place is truly beautiful. It's one of the most unusual canyons I have been to. I have seen pictures but to visit this place was truly amazing. The water was flowing well and the waterfalls were huge. We got to swim in some of the best swimming holes around and we even did some jumping off some 10 to 20 foot tall boulders into some of the really deep pools. The wildflowers were still in near full bloom and we see quite a bit of wildlife like a water turtle and her two baby turtles, a Gopher Snake that we caught and let go, a ribbon snake, rabbits, squirrels, frogs and several kinds of birds and bats. Also ther was no moon so me and Josh stayed up late and seen one of the most star filled skies that we have seen. This was a great trip. I can't wait to go again.

Spring Wildflowers 2010

I have truly enjoyed the changing seasons over this last year. I have really noticed this spring and how beautiful the changing landscape has been over this last couple of months. Here are some snapshots that I have taken recently of this years wildflowers in bloom.