Rock Creek and Yosemite July 3 thru 9

Wow! Seven days Camping and exploring in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. What a great adventure this was. Here was our trip crew: My girlfriend Linda, My daughter Barbara 12, My niece Kaitlyn 10, and me Aaron. We drove up to the eastern Sierras to Toms Place and headed up Rock Creek Canyon. We lucked out and got a first come campsite fairly secluded and near the raging Rock Creek. The first Afternoon there after setting up camp we went for a hike up Rock Creek.Then after dinner at our camp we drove up to Rock Creek Lake itself and got a little preview of the magnificent wilderness that we were planning on hiking into the next day.





later that night we enjoyed a good dinner with a nice fire, roasted marshmallows and later gazed at a moonless sky so full of stars and so clear that we could see the milky way. The next day was our first hike up the Little Lakes Valley all the way up to Gem lake.

We hiked up to almost 11,000 feet. After one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on it was time to drive down to Crowley Lake and see the firework show. It was very different to see a grand firework show basically in the middle of nowhere in the high desert over the lake. I was awesome.
Before heading up to Yosemite we stopped at Mono Lake.


Then we spent 5 more days in Yosemite hiking and swimming.

Late June Hike on Daley Ranch

I got out today and hiked 7 1/2 miles at Daley Ranch Wilderness area today. I purposely climbed some hills today and pushed myself a little bit. It was a beautiful day in the woods. I was trying to warm up for some more major hikes planned in early July to the Eastern Sierras and Yosemite.

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.