A great mini winter break vacation the week before Christmas to sunny San Diego! Laura, Zephyr and I explored the San Diego Zoo, Wildlife Park, USS Midway and spent an afternoon sifting for tourmaline at the Oceanview Mine, near Temecula. We ate great food, saw a few friends and had a blast at the San Diego Zoo and Safari Parks.  Traffic wasn't too terrible either!

Garry Hayes' class field trip across the Coast Range to visit the San Andreas Fault System... revived after a 3 year hiatus. We saw some great things at our stops along San Luis Reservoir, Hollister, DeRose Winery and Pinnacles National Park. The link above wil show you all the pics and locations. 

The first post-Covid shutdown family gathering! Not having seen each other for three years was like stepping out of a time warp to see kids growing and my generation become a bit more, um, senior. 

Check out our epic adventures to Mt St Helens, Olympic National Park and.... the Tillamook Air Museum among other stops. I'll likely make a few Twitter Threads about the places we visited, but here are a few highlights in photos. There are 450+ in the entire photo album :-). 

Mount St Helens as seen from the Truman Trailhead area.

View from Hurricane Hill in Olympic National Park

Imbricated River Cobbles, Elwha River.

Ghost Forest submerged after great Cascadia Quake. 

Meanwhile, back at the WC Lodge, staff were determined to get their current guests back to Juneau and get us to the lodge should the flights not be able to depart once again. In years past this would have been accomplished by WCL renting a sight-seeing catamaran for the 3hr, 90mile trip up Chatham Strait. However, due to COVID, many of the catamaran options were understaffed or undergoing maintenance which prevented WCL from procuring their services. WCL solution was to cram the guests onto the 6 fastest fishing boats in the fleet and make the run themselves while hoping for calm seas. Those boats left at 8am and were headed to Juneau. We expected we'd have to take those boats back too, but, just when the odds seemed impossible, the clouds opened and we were able to FLY out of Juneau and make it to Angoon within 35 minutes of take-off.  We landed in a sunny oasis of perfect weather and glassy waters on what should have been Day 2 of our fishing. Since the fishing boats and captains were still in Juneau, we could do nothing but enjoy the weather and sun by exploring the shoreline and kayaking. After 30hrs of being stuck in an airplane hangar the fresh air and clear skies were a great way to forget that half of our fishing days were gone. ​

When we did get to go fishing, Captain Kevin was great as always. We caught our four halibut in relative short order the first day, but salmon were tough to find. The silvers just weren't in yet, a remnant of the drought years three and four years ago. Our second and last day of fishing had us brave rough seas. We missed our halibut limit due to throwing back some smaller keepers that we thought would get bigger as the day progressed. But alas, seas sickness and fatigue overtook half the crew (Colin & Charlie) and our day ended with a paultry catch. In the end we each ended up taking home 35lbs of processed fish. Usually our three day trips surpasses 100lbs each. But, oh, the memories. 

My best friend, Steve, and I were able carve out a quick weekend from our schedules to hike Stoney Ridge Lake in early July. I had not previously been a fan of Desolation Wilderness hikes, but it was close to home for Steve and the forest service had implemented a new permitting system to keep the number of visitors manageable.

The trailhead begins at Meeks Bay (Tahoe) and climbs 1600' over 6.7 miles to the camp sites near the small dam at Stoney Ridge Lake. The trail was gloriously shaded in most areas and both our ascent and descent to and from the lake took about 3hrs and 20 minutes at a leisurely pace. The highlight of the trip for me was our "layover" day exploration that took us past Rubicon Lake on trail, then steeply off trail to the saddle near Jakes Peak. The views of Lake Tahoe from amongst the white bark pines and atop a hefty fault were quite euphoric. The hike to the saddle and back was 7.5 miles with a 1450' elevation gain. (See interactive map below).

​Fishing at Stoney Ridge Lake was rough, and we didn't invest as much time as we needed into landing the 20"+ rainbows and browns we saw cruising the shores in the evening and early morning. I had one large brown nail the tail of a plastic swimming worm on a jig head about 20' in front of me. I watched & reacted to  the aggressive strike by trying to set the hook but ended up yanking the bait out of its mouth.

As a side note, the mosquitos were thick, but not the worst. One camp played a bluetooth boombox until 11pm the first night, but they were the only other folks at the lake... until Saturday. New backpackers decided to claim spots uncomfortably close to our little piece of paradise, but since we were gone when they came into camp, we just dealt with it by leaving as planned early the next morning.

I'd rate this as a nice Desolation Hike: 8/10.

Click to interact with model I scanned using iphone lidar. 

Drag the images to look around. 

The photo journal above links to photos of the first MJC Geology Field Study since the 2020 pandemic shutdown, led by the incomparable Garry Hayes!

​This amazing 4-day trip took 18 students, 3 vans and the Hollisters in our Subaru to explore the Sonora Pass corridor, the areas near Mammoth and finally up and over Tioga Pass. It was an awesome trip based out of YCCD's Baker Station near Kennedy Meadows along SR 108. Laura and I tagged-along as volunteer speakers and were thankful to have met so many cool students on the trip. 

Check out the link to the photo journal for all the photos, specific locations and some explanations of the geology.  

• Day 1 - Knights Ferry, Donnell Vista & Columns of the Giants
• Day 2 - Convict Lake, Sherwin Glaciation, Hot Creek, Horseshoe Lake, Mammoth Fissure
• Day 3 - Sonora Pass, West Walker Ghost Forest, Conway Summit, Mono Lake, Bodie
• Day 4 - Panum Crater, South Tufa, Tioga Pass and Home!​

Scroll past the group photo to find 360 streetviews of Panum Crater and several 3D Models. 

My mom wanted to celebrate her 72nd b-day by taking an adventure to find wildflowers while Laura was stuck at home attending a science curriculum PD via Zoom (total bummer!). We knew in advance that the lack of rain since January 1st was likely to have a major impact on the bloom's vibrancy. We figured the usual haunts like Railroad Flat along the Merced River and the Merced River Canyon near Briceburg would be our best bet. As expected there were only several hillsides lightly carpeted by poppies and many of the hills were barely hanging on to any greenery. It's been a rough wet-season to be sure. We checked out the newts at Railroad Flat and then headed to Yosemite Valley where a sunny and slightly breezy 68F greeted us. After throwing rocks in the river under the backdrop of Yosemite Falls, we headed home. Upon our exit we were stopped in our tracks at Valley View by an amazing rainbow adorning the plunging spray of Bridalveil Falls. Hope you enjoy the pics!