My Perfect Yosemite Moment - 8 AM Hike To Mirror Lake

The fantasy spurred this trip to Yosemite was a chance to relive the magic I remember of Yosemite as a kid.  So Monday morning I got up early, caught a shuttle to the Mirror Lake trail, then wandered up the trail, by myself.  Well, just me and my camera.  I paused a bit reading the sign that warned of Mountain Lions and that you shouldn't go alone.

It's such a beautiful trail.  My pictures don't do it justice.  But for an hour or so, I was alone in Yosemite hiking to through the quiet woods to a spot I remember vividly as a little kid.  There were warnings that by October the lake is really mostly sandy beach, but I was willing to try to find some reflection in Mirror Lake.

Here's a bit of the trail that goes through different kinds of terrain.

It's about a mile hike from where the shuttle bus lets you off.  And relatively flat.  Not like the Vernal Falls hike.

Later I thought about all the huge boulders everywhere and how it's clear that they come from the walls of granite that surround you everywhere in Yosemite.  They most come down sometime.  Fortunately, not while I was there.



And everywhere you are, if you look up, you see those massive chunks of granite towering above you. The wide angle lens takes away the closeness and sheer size of rock, but the regular lens can't catch the whole rock.

I didn't see any mountain lions, but I did see a huge pile of pretty fresh bear poo.  I'll spare you the picture, but I did check with a ranger because it was very different from the bear scat I'm used to in Alaska.

And there was enough water to get a good mirror image of the mountains of  rock above.












It was still very smoky from the Northern California fires.  Our car had ash on it each morning.

With the low water level revealing the sand, it looked a lot like a Zen garden.


And here's one of those walls above Mirror Lake.

It was a magical hike.  All alone on this beautiful trail.  I didn't see anyone until after I'd been at the lake about 20 minutes.  It was what I went to Yosemite for and was wonderful.

Been Raining, Creek's Rising, But Nothing Serious

Took advantage of a long break in the rain as well as in my lethargy to get on the bike and move my legs.  The rain's made an obvious difference on Campbell Creek.

Last time I looked, that picnic table was on gravel.  (This is near Campbell Creek park.)

I went on.



There was a bit a blue sky reflected in a puddle on the bike trail.















And when I got near the State Troopers Headquarters, I saw the only white stuff near the mountain tops was cloud.   It's September 23, and no termination dust so far.

Then up the new bike trail along Campbell Airstrip Road.  You can see a greener version of this spot about a month ago here.

I figured the bridge at the Campbell Airstrip trailhead would be a good place to turn around.  That gives me about 9 miles round trip.

Here is today's picture on top of one 11 days ago.  I wanted to compare the water levels.  If you click on the image, it will enlarge and sharpen and if you look carefully you can see differences in the water level.  But nothing like the picnic table.





Here's looking to the west from the bridge.  On this one the water level is more apparent.  The gravel bank is now an island, and there's white water along the left bank.  Again, clicking on it will enlarge it.









On the way home, I stopped on the viewing platform that just reopened a couple of weeks ago.  There's a little stream of water coming in from the east.  There's a much bigger one coming from the west (the creek flows basically east to west but has various loops.)


I'm not quite sure what I thought the many other times I've been at this spot.  Maybe it was the bright yellow/orange of the birch tree, but I focused on this little water way coming in from the left (east).  I wondered how Campbell Creek had gotten so small.


Then I looked right (west) to see the much larger flow of water.  I think I'd always thought this was a loop in the creek, but both bodies of water were flowing toward the platform and the little one essentially joined the bigger one.  Were these two different creeks?


Humility is a good trait.  All these years and I never even thought about this.






So when I got home I checked the maps.












The red is the reduced sized platform (see this post) with the boardwalk from the bike trail.  You can see clearly from the map the one from the east is the North Fork of Campbell Creek and the one from the west is the South Fork.  Unless you go out onto the platform, you never see the North Fork join the South Fork.






Below is a map of the Campbell Airstrip road a few miles east of the top map.  We still have both the north and south branches of the creek.  The bridge I took the pictures (above) from is the red rectangle going over the south fork.  The bike trail ends at the turnout for the Campbell Airstrip trailhead.  The new bike trail ends just before the bridge over the north fork of the creek.  I took that bridge picture for the post about the new bike trail.  The pics are there just to help anyone who's trying to connect the pictures and the location.

Click on image to enlarge

Late August In Anchorage: It Gets Dark Again At Night And There Are Raspberries

I took out the garbage tonight at about 10:30pm and it was dark!

It's the end of August and in 30 weeks it will be the equinox when everyone, everywhere gets the same amount of light.  Then those of us further north, get more and more darkness.

But it's also the time when I can go out into the backyard and pick raspberries every day.

There's lots to write about.  I've been trying to imagine what it's like to be in Houston these days.  We are seeing lots of pictures of roads turned into rivers and someone posted a picture of a guy catching a fish by hand in a foot of water in his living room.  But it's not like everyone in Houston has been washed out of their homes.  It's just that the media focus on the most dramatic scenes.  The Guardian reports that:

"More than 2.3 million people live in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. Tens of thousands of homes in and around Houston are semi-submerged and thousands of people have sought emergency shelter from the wind and rain. Officials estimate that 30,000 residents are likely to need shelter."

My calculation says that 30,000 people is 1.3% of Houstonians.  I'm not hearing much about the other 98.7%.

And it feels like we're in a constant bombard of craziness from, it's not clear.  Trump supporters?  Russian bots?  Right wing propaganda mills?  A combination?  So many counter attacks to take the attention off of Trump, to try to put anti-trumpets on the defensive.  To let them pass unanswered leaves some people vulnerable to believing the nonsense.  Things like "where was Obama during Katrina?"  (He was representing the state of Illinois in the US Senate.)  But to have to keep answering everything takes our eyes off the really important and damaging destruction of the Trump administration.  Like dismantling the State Department.  Is that part of his instructions from Putin?

Netflix has the Manchurian Candidate.  If you've never seen it, you should.  If you have, it's time to see it again.

I haven't had a chance to write about my short jury duty call.  I got called for a jury, along with 59 other potential jurors.  Jury selection took two days and 30 potential jurors, including a current state legislator.  Eventually they got 14 (two alternates), and I was never more than an observer of the jury selection.  The legislator didn't make it onto the jury either.

Remember the number above - 1.3%.  The media want sensational stuff to get your eyeballs for their sponsors.  And that's true for all the news, not just Harvey.  Remember, for every person who gets shot on any given day, over 300 million people didn't see or hear any gunshots.  But those stories aren't as interesting.  So don't let the news get you down.  Just turn it off and go for a walk or a run or a bike ride.  Get into a park or a garden or the woods or by the ocean or other natural waterway.  Take advantages of what you do have and be kind and loving to those who don't have.

Nice To Be Back Online - ACS, The Good And The Not So Good

There was no internet yesterday morning when I got up.  The wifi worked, but there was not internet.

I called ACS (Alaska Communications) and B had me unplug and plug and reset and nothing worked.  

• That's all I can do, I'll set up a problem ticket (or whatever he called it) and they'll check it from here. If they can't fix it, someone will come to your house?
• Today?
• Probably not, we're really busy now.  

Not today (it was Friday) didn't sound good, but I'm supposed to be a resilient person.  I can go to the library to use the internet.  And less time online is good.  

After a couple of hours I called in.  The voicemail actually identified that I had a problem ticket and sent me to S.  She explained that I was on the list, but that they were busy.  

Had they done the internal check or not?  Yes, and someone had to come to the house.  Today?  Probably not.  Do they come over the weekend?  I don't think so.  

Much better if you click to enlarge and focus

After I explained that I'd been waiting around and no one had called to tell me the status, she apologized.  

So I went to the library, sat in the parking lot and checked my email and put up yesterday's post.   Visited a friend, walked to the bridge from the Prospect Heights trailhead,  went to dinner at Thai Kitchen, and went to a Reflection service at Temple Beth Sholom where we heard from a number of speakers - someone from the FBI, from the governor's office, a Presbyterian pastor, a local assembly member (Forrest Dunbar), and a Muslim doctor, all reflecting on Charlottesville and Anchorage.  There was some food and discussion.  A positive and encouraging way to move forward.  

So this morning, when I was doing some yoga stretching - I should be doing these several times a week, but even once every ten days or so is better than nothing - there was a knock on the door.  The ACS man wanted to check the connection.  He was there maybe 20 minutes before he knocked again.  He checked the modem and decided we needed a new one.  He got it all set up, called in to reset the modem name and password, and I was back, connected to the new modem.

But no connection to the internet.  D was good.  I had told him I was told no one worked on the weekend and he smiled and said, us old guys still do.  But it wouldn't work.  He said he would have to go back to the office and fix it from there.  A bunch of calls later, tweaking this and that, and I'm now back on line.  

Since I wasn't expecting any help until at least Monday, I'm happy to be reconnected.  Everyone was polite enough, they just didn't know much.  But D wasn't going to let go of my case until things were working again,  

So now I've got a bunch of things to do that I have been pushed to the side while the internet connection got fixed.  But it did get fixed.  

Here's a picture of a monk's hood from yesterday's hike - one of my favorite Alaskan flowers  Such a beautiful shape and color.  

  

Anchorage Garden Tour Was Sunday - Fun and Inspiring As Always

The Anchorage Garden Club no longer has big tour articles in the ADN.  I assumed it was because
the crowds were getting too big, but I'm not sure.  Now you have to check the Garden Club website to find the details.  It always seems to be at the last weekend of July, so I checked with google.

There were only six gardens this year - two near each other in east Anchorage, two near by in Oceanview, and two Lutheran Church community gardens.

Some highlights:

Oceanview delphiniums and still blooming peonies.










Alaska railroad engine runs through this same garden.

Lutheran Church of Hope has a community garden that's growing food for the food banks.  There's lots of food growing here.  It's surrounded by a six or seven foot fence to keep the moose out.



And the water comes from a fire hydrant.  I asked about this arrangement and I was told the church was required to put it in when they expanded.  It's on their property, they paid to put it in, and they get the water bill.  And I know I have a few readers who find mechanical pictures far more interesting than the flowers and vegetables.

This was a beautiful and unexpected garden in east Anchorage.  Behind the trees in the back is a fork of the Chester Creek system.

I think this is a spirea.  If you click on the picture it will enlarge and focus better.

Central Lutheran Church started creating a rain garden on the edge of their parking lot, which drains down toward the garden.  The first section is being planted with iris and ferns.  Then there's a berm.  That first section is to filter out any toxic residues from the parking lot.  To the left of the picture they are starting to plant edibles.  They are testing the soil to be sure that the filter system works.  I think it's important that people begin recognizing how much nature acts as a natural infrastructure to clean water and air and move water around.  An older post on E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life, talks about the enormous economic value of the natural infrastructure.

And finally, a peony, still gorgeous in middle age.

I might add that all the gardeners who opened their homes were as helpful as others have been in the past.  Two were even giving away some gotten plants and seeds.

A Good Alaska Day - Winner Creek Tram

Drove down to Girdwood with my daughter and granddaughter in the car.

A stop along the way to check out the Dall sheep above the highway.

In the other direction were the mudflats of Turnagain Arm. (I didn't do any editing of the shot below.)

The Winner Creek trail includes a tram across the river.  Here's looking at the next people in line pulling the ropes that got us across the gap.

Someone said there aren't too many of these left in the U.S.  And as I was looking up whether there are others, I kept getting sent back to just this one.  I did find this 360˚ view of the tram which gives you a much better view than mine.  (And for Jeremy, I found this video of Tram D201 hand wired with nine original tram tubes.)

And here's a view of Winner Creek from the tram.  The tram was much more primitive when we first pulled our way across, I don't know how many years ago.

From the tram it's a short (really short, sign says .2 miles) walk to the bridge over the Winner Creek gorge.  Here's a picture long down creek from the bridge.

And here's looking up the other side where the wide creek is forced into the narrow gorge.  Again, from the bridge.

Here it is from a little trail going up the creek a ways.

And since silent, still photos simply cannot do this experience justice, I took a bit of video from this spot to give you a better sense of the glory of this spot, one of my favorites in Alaska.  (Which means, of course, in the world.)




And then you can look on down below to see where it goes after the end of the video.

Here's a closer view of one of the rock walls above the water.

Then we took the tram back.  It's Independence Day holiday and people have found out about the tram.  There were 30 people waiting to get back across.  The tram holds two people (we took my granddaughter, but she's a wee thing).  It gets hand pulled across the gorge, then hand pulled back.  So it was a bit of a wait.

Late lunch at the Bake Shop and dessert at The Ice Cream Shop at what can only be called a strip mall where the Alyeska road meets the Seward Highway.  Good day with good friends.

Morning Visit To Japanese Tea Garden

We did an early morning visit with our grandson to the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park.  A wonderful time to visit - early morning sunshine and hardly any other people.  And the koi and the various bridges over the water and the pagodas all kept the youngen's attention.

Warmer Weather and Lots of Snow Brings Breakup to Anchorage

Breakup in Anchorage is when the temperatures start getting into the 40s or more and the snow and ice that are left thaw into puddles and small lakes.  Breakups in recent years have tended to mild and quick, unlike 20 years ago and more when there were deep puddles everywhere.

This year we had a cold, sunny March with lots of snow sublimating.  Then a foot of snow at the end of March.  Now it's hitting high 40˚s F during the day and all that snow means lots of homeless water.


This isn't too big a puddle, but the picture shows the snow that's left still.

Here's the driveway of a church parking lot.  We had to walk in the street to get around this puddle.  We used to wear 'breakup boots' this time of year, but we've had such mild breakups that I didn't even think about it when we went for this walk a couple evenings ago.

Here's a driveway that hasn't completely thawed yet.

 And here's a stretch of sidewalk/biketrail that's on the south side of the street, so it doesn't get much sun and it's still partly frozen.







I finally decided I could wait to get my bike out no longer, even if I did get wet.

Here's a parking lot lake.  (The car was out of the deepest part by the time I got the camera out.)

I went through the Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary where breakup is still in the future, though the snow was soft and deep.  If you got off the narrow padded down snow in the middle of the path, your foot would sink a foot.  I walked the bike.
















Here's the hidden sanctuary still looking very winter.

As I look at this picture I'm realizing that this is the part that has a boardwalk.  There was no sign of boardwalk.

Here's a bit of bike trail that was deep enough to make us detour the other evening.  But on bike it was fine, I have a back fender, but I still went through it slowly.  I also pulled out  The Cloudspotter's Guide to check on those cloud above the trees.

"Of all the common clouds, Cirrus must be the most beautiful.  Their name comes from the Latin for a lock of hair, for they are the delicate white wisps of ice that appear high in the heavens. . .
Cirrus are the highest of the common clouds and are composed entirely of ice crystals, typically forming above 24,000ft in temperate regions of the world."

Since Anchorage is not in a temperate region [yet], I don't know how high these might be.