Alexey Solofnenko blog

Unlike our previous trip there, this Saturday we were prepared. I would say even over-prepared. Last time we were driving FWD Honda CRV and had to turn back few miles east from Bowman Lake. This time we were driving real 4x4 SUV, had GPS, during daylight, together with a friend on another real SUV, and, just in case, had a strong rope...

In the morning I found a relatively inexpensive gas station in Sacramento 73 miles from home. I always like to have an almost full tank before going into woods. Car's computer also told me that there is enough gasoline for 73 miles. That was not risky - for some reason the computer believes that the tank is 2 gallons less than it is actually and we already drove several times past "0 miles" when even analog gauge showed negative gasoline level. By the time I got to the gas station, the computer still reported about 20 miles left in the tank and we pumped only 20 gallons. I wonder what my car thinks about our usual way of driving... We met with Eugene and his son Gena and continued on the path.

Driving up on highway 80 was fun, except for few slow vehicles. I was surprised to see a Prius driving together with us. We turned on highway 20 and then took Bowman Lake Road. We stopped at Jordan Creek and jumped on the rocks. There was a lot of people swimming, but we did not take our swim suits. Regardless Katya swam in the creek far from the people.

At first Bowman Lake Road was fine, then it became a 1.5 lane paved road and then the pavement ended. It looked worse than the previous time we were there, but maybe I was driving slower on CRV. It was interesting to drive on a single lane road with a cliff on one side and a possibility that another car can be driving towards you. A recent fire was still smoking near the road. There is a shortage of water in California this year and Bowman Lake, being actually a reservoir, was about 15 meters lower than the maximum level. The weather was about 22 C and the water was not comfortable. It did not stop Katya from diving. Being a young man, Gene had to swim too. Then that my wife went swimming. After that me and Eugene had to go swimming too...

After a small picnic, we prepared to go further. However the road was fixed and the drive was uneventful. We went to Truckee. Eugene and Gene went home. We stayed, ate a pizza and decided to take Donner Pass Road back. We stopped on the vista. There was so much smoke in the air, Donner Lake was almost invisible. We looked at artificial railroad tunnel - a train track covered in concrete and noticed cars driving there. Obviously the tacks were removed there and we decided to go there too. We drove into two first tunnels, but they were narrow for just a single can to pass. The big tunnel was wider, but we decided not to go there yet. Maybe next time.

Instead of camping we went today to Muir Woods. Yesterday we have friends visiting us, so we could not go camping. Maybe it is better this way - the weather was quite cold - about 4°C. Just walking in Muir Woods is not for us - instead I with kids went on Sierra Trail down to Alice Eastwood Campground. When we came there I thought that again I did not bring any fire with me. Surprisingly, there was not a fully extinguished fire place with a lot of food and boxes thrown around. The food looked like it was spread by some animals, making the date of the fire a day before! I am bewildered by the way people do not follow simple rules with fires in the forest. Last autumn, we had a similar situation in a campground on NF-11N46 at US-50 highway near Kyburz. In any case, it was beneficial for us - we just put few empty paper boxes in a fire place and watched great fire. There was a water facet few meters away, so we watered it down at the end until there were no hot spots.

In the meantime, my wife parked the car near Muir Woods entrance (it was lucky to park so close to the entrance!) and met us at the campground. Then we took Fern Creek into Muir Woods. Kids are getting better with hiking. Maxim walked all the way and even had some strength left for evening tennis.

Next time We will try Bootjack Trail. Actually each time we wanted to go there, but my GPS does not show trails, so we chose one available trail after another. Now I printed a map....

That is right - plural. Last month within two weeks we went camping into different areas in Sierra. As usual there were warnings about bears and bear vaults available, but we never expected to actually see a bear. On Labor Day weekend we stayed at Silver Lake on Highway 88. At 7200 it was surprisingly warm and we swam in Silver Lake every day.

I always wanted to visit Mono Lake, so two weeks later and in a smaller group we went through Yosemite for a camping. We started late on Friday after a work and drove East. We arrived in Yosemite when it was totally dark. There was no Moon - just absolute blackness around. In the dark we passed Tioga Lake Campground and tried to find anything at Saddlebag Lake - both campgrounds there were full. Fortunately we were able to find a free place at Ellery Lake. At 9600 it was freezing and very dark. There was a sound of a small river nearby, but nothing was visible. A day before we returned our monster tent to Costco (it was just too big) and assembling the new tent required a lot of reading. Anyway, at around 1AM we went to sleep.

Next morning brought the full beauty of the place. The change was so surprising - big mountains around us, a lake few steps away, a small river. It was very cold at night - a half gallon of water we left on top of a bear vault was 100% frozen. Nastya from another tent told that something (maybe a bear) was touching her tent at night, but we just laughed. When the sun came up, it became very warm and we drove down to visit Bodie and Mono Lake. Unfortunately I did not charge my camera and the battery died soon. When we came back Marina with Maxim went to walk around, Eugene went to his tent to relax, and Nastya and me were preparing a dinner (actually I was just trying to keep the fire hot). And there came the first bear. It was a black bear, not very tall - more like a very big dog. He went to our neighbors campground (the neighbors left in the morning, maybe because of our commotion). I did not know what to do and I just said quietly "Nastya - bear". At first, nobody reacted, then I said again "Bear" and Eugene jumped out of his tent. The bear walked 10 meters past us and went further. Now I realized that Marina with Maxim were there and I went on a slightly parallel path to warn them. I found them quickly, they were not on the bear's path and we returned together to the campground. That night we made big fire and I had to drive down to Lee Vining to buy two more bundles of fire wood. About a kilometer down, it was much warmer there.

After we went to sleep, at around 3AM, I saw that Eugene and Nastya are walking with lights outside of their tent. I remember thinking that they decided to go home and my car is blocking them, so I would have to go outside too. In the morning they told me more about a bear visiting them that night (unlike our tent, their tent was close to a path) and how they together went to a restroom prepared to defend from any bear nearby. This time we believed the story and while we were making a breakfast, another bear, this time a brown bear, walked few meters from us. This time everybody saw it. When we were driving back, there were a lot of people watching at something from the road and the campground manager was driving on her bike with a serious face. I guess the bear found something that was not stored properly. We did not see anything out of the car, so we might never know what happened.

We draw back through Yosemite - the same way we went up. There was a big line before a single ticket booth, but we did not have to pay (a ticket is valid for a week) and we were able to pass around the line quickly. We visited Yosemite valley. After the freezing nights in the mountains, it was strange to see people swimming in the river. Unfortunately there was very little water in Bridal Waterfall and almost none in the Yosemite falls. We still walked around, climbed few rocks and went home.

Incidentally I have gotten a time to update my blog. This weekend we went to Lake Tahoe. As usual, on the way we turned right on NF-11N46 and looked for mushrooms. It was humid and warm, but something was wrong - there were no mushrooms at all - not even poisonous ones. The nearby camping was still active, but people would not take death-cups and toadstools. I am still puzzled. Maybe it was too early for that area - the rains just passed. Last year we came too late - the only survived mushrooms were deep under the leaves. But the year before we found a lot of Boletus luteus.

Then we went to Emerald Bay. Near the destination we saw snow just at the road. It was surprising - the weather was still warm. This time we decided to go in a different direction - to Eagle Falls first. It was a lot of fun, but the most fun was climbing down to the lake. With Maxim near me we started the descent - from rock to rock, from ledge to ledge... Few times we slided on our butts. At the bottom we looked up and saw how far we traveled. Kids liked it very much. Then we went to Viking Holm. Unfortunately we were too late to go inside and it was the last day Viking Holm was open this season. It is going to be a tradition - we have never visited it. When we came up our car was the only one on the parking lot. It was getting dark and we went home.

I have finally uploaded all photos (well, almost - there are still few on the card in the camera). After some cleaning and uploading I freed 4GB on my laptop. Now I need to think about better backup facility on my server - just copying data from one hard drive to another will not protect against a total system failure. I guess, I will need to buy Blue Ray disks once they are reasonably priced.

On a side note, it takes more than 30 minutes to update my super album with JAlbum - it reprocesses all photos even if they nor any settings were not changed. Soon I will have to upgrade my computer or write a replacement for JAlbum to perform a fast incremental batch generation. Of cause the second variant is much more interesting.

Yesterday I finally decided to replace front break pads on my old Prizm. They had been creaking for some time and I just got enough of it. So I went and bought replacement break pads, then came home, jacked the car, removed a wheel.... and found out that I do not have a 17 socket at home - I left it in my 4x4 that is currently in a body shop because a women did not noticed that my car stopped and rammed it from behind). Fortunately I called a friend with experience and he brought the necessary tools (including a tool for pulling apart the pads). The most difficult part was unscrewing bolts holding the breaks. If you decide to replace the break pads yourself, prepare a socket driver with a long arm or a tube to extend it. Everything else was relatively simple. There are some tricks like opening a lid from break fluid container, turning the wheels after removing tires, using old heat guards to protect new pads from scratching while pulling them apart, if they are still too close to put them over break disks... At the end there is a final trick - the break fluid pressure will be low, so do not forget to pump it a little after turning the engine on by repeatedly pressing and depressing break pedal, otherwise the very first trip after that will result in disaster.

This time we decided to go to Calistoga. By the way there we stopped at Mumm winery. There are always many people there, but we never visited it before. Now we know the reason - they produce sparkling wines. It was too early to drink, so we went further... and stopped in Clos Pegase. So much for not drinking... We also never went there, but my mother from Russia recognized it immediately. Surprisenly this is the most photographed place in Napa Valley. Who knew... We took a tour and found a place where Dick Cheney hid from the world enjoying wine and music.

Then we walked in Calistoga and went to the Petrified Forest. Always print their coupon, before going there. Old faithful geyser site also provides a similar coupon.

It was getting dark, so we did not even take our camera, but my mother made few photos. Eventually I will clean them up and put on our web site.

The road back was very strange. There was a big traffic jam going back to Calistoga, so we went West to Santa Rosa. Accidentally we took Porter Creek Road and arrived to US-101. There was a traffic jam there too, so we turned left on CA-12. It was fine for a while, but then it stopped. We tried Arnold Drive, but it stopped dead too. I exited the car and walked ahead to see what is going on. It looked like the traffic was moving just because some cars were making a u-turn and going back. After walking much faster than the traffic I proposed to go back to Santa Rosa too. US-101 was fine now and there were no problem on CA-37 too. I still do not know what happened. Maybe a small accident on US-101 caused people to panic and seek other highways. I guess I may never know.

This is that time of year when there is autumn in the mountains. Unlike Bay Area, where after a long dry summer, everything is starting to turn green, the mountains are preparing for winter. Like last year we went to Tahoe just before snow. As usually, we stopped in Placerville, walked on Main street, visited shops, children ate a cake in cafe.

We stopped in a camp on forest road 11N46. Last time we found a lot of mushrooms there. Unfortunately, this time we were too late - freezing temperatures at night closed mushroom season. I still found three good mushrooms hidden under pine needles.

We continued to Lake Tahoe. We usually do not go into South Lake Tahoe directly, but turn left on 89 to Kiva Beach or Emerald Bay. Kiva Beach was closed for winter, so we drove on Jameson Beach Road and stopped there. We walked on the beach into Pope Estate. All buildings were closed too. It was calm and quiet. Few people were going by. Summer season has ended and Winter not started. I like this time of year.

Today we went to the place where Water Palace used to be in San Francisco. Because of the air show, the traffic was horrid and for the first time we saw many cars driving on the right shoulder on I-880 to Bay Bridge off ramp. Even police ignored that. There is first time for everything...

We like places with history, where our imagination roam freely and secrets can be found behind any rock. Water Palace is not that ancient, but it is still interesting. There used to be several pools filled with ocean water. The Palace was destroyed in a fire. I do not know why people would lost interest in it, so it was not rebuilt. It seems strange. The same happened with Saltair. Children had their interest too - there are a lot of places for climbing. We divided - I with Maxim went down to the ocean to watch crabs and other near ocean life. Marina and Katya climbed up. When Maxim and me started our ascent, we found that the road was closed with a fence because of hazard conditions. There was no fence near the water, so we did not feel any guilt to exit the area over the fence. On the top terrace Marina and Katya were talking with some guy. Apparently he invited Katya to take a part in a short movie. Katya was very excited. Lets hope it will come true.

After some delay I uploaded new photos:
new trip to Napa
Alexey Vasiliev house warming party
San Francisco
Sacramento