Mountain Home is My Mountain Home
The trip we took last weekend to Porterville (city motto: "Where?") wasn't just an excuse to write a travelog of driving across California's midsection; it was a means to an end. In this case, the end was enjoying the great outdoors of the southern Sierra Nevada.
After arriving late at our hotel on Friday night we slept in a bit on Saturday morning. That's one of the things that's different now from how I use to take vacations. Fifteen years ago I'd go "wall to wall" on vacations: rush out of town after work at 5:30pm, adventure every day from 0630 to sundown, and get home at 10:30pm the night before returning to work. Now it's like, "I'm'a enjoy this time off while doing some fun stuff without killing myself." Anyway, after a late breakfast/early lunch we headed up into the mountains to Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest [link].
Mountain Home is at around 6,000' elevation. As we climbed out of the Central Valley where temps were headed to the uppers 90s for the day we wondered if we'd see snow at that elevation. Ha! Not a drift to be found, not even in areas of deep shade. It's likely that exceptionally dry winter we've had.
In the forest we hiked to a couple of waterfalls. The first is Hidden Falls, located in a small gorge not terribly well hidden as it's next to a campsite. We scrambled about 25' down into the gorge and hopped across a few rocks to take this picture from amid Galena Creek:
The second falls we visited were about 3 miles downstream. The trail started out easy to follow but after it crossed the creek it became rough. I think that's because a lot of people turned back, not wanting to get their feet wet crossing the 25' wide creek.
Crossing on this massive log didn't keep me from getting my feet wet, as it doesn't actually span the whole width of the creek. But it always looks great in pictures to cross on a fallen tree.
After another easy mile or so in relative solitude (those stream crossings keep the riffraff out) we reached Galena Falls. Here the main creek pours into a narrow, deep pool while a side creek makes a surprising cascade over the rocky side wall.
By the way, what makes this a demonstration forest? I looked up this explanation at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and, after parsing it carefully, found that my cynical hypothesis was right: it's to experiment with managing trees as a crop. Plant 'em, grow 'em, log 'em, repeat.
Next on this trip: Hiking Dome Rock
After arriving late at our hotel on Friday night we slept in a bit on Saturday morning. That's one of the things that's different now from how I use to take vacations. Fifteen years ago I'd go "wall to wall" on vacations: rush out of town after work at 5:30pm, adventure every day from 0630 to sundown, and get home at 10:30pm the night before returning to work. Now it's like, "I'm'a enjoy this time off while doing some fun stuff without killing myself." Anyway, after a late breakfast/early lunch we headed up into the mountains to Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest [link].
Mountain Home is at around 6,000' elevation. As we climbed out of the Central Valley where temps were headed to the uppers 90s for the day we wondered if we'd see snow at that elevation. Ha! Not a drift to be found, not even in areas of deep shade. It's likely that exceptionally dry winter we've had.
In the forest we hiked to a couple of waterfalls. The first is Hidden Falls, located in a small gorge not terribly well hidden as it's next to a campsite. We scrambled about 25' down into the gorge and hopped across a few rocks to take this picture from amid Galena Creek:
The second falls we visited were about 3 miles downstream. The trail started out easy to follow but after it crossed the creek it became rough. I think that's because a lot of people turned back, not wanting to get their feet wet crossing the 25' wide creek.
Crossing on this massive log didn't keep me from getting my feet wet, as it doesn't actually span the whole width of the creek. But it always looks great in pictures to cross on a fallen tree.
After another easy mile or so in relative solitude (those stream crossings keep the riffraff out) we reached Galena Falls. Here the main creek pours into a narrow, deep pool while a side creek makes a surprising cascade over the rocky side wall.
By the way, what makes this a demonstration forest? I looked up this explanation at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and, after parsing it carefully, found that my cynical hypothesis was right: it's to experiment with managing trees as a crop. Plant 'em, grow 'em, log 'em, repeat.
Next on this trip: Hiking Dome Rock