What a harrowing week I’ve had!   I’m leaving the forest in about 2 weeks, so I thought I better get to all the hikes I’ve been putting off.   This week I decided to go all the way up to Sonora Pass and hike the Pacific Crest Trail. The elevation is about 9600 feet so I asked around to see which direction was more level and was told to take the North route.   The first open parking space was next to the trail head, so off I went.   It was a gradual but steady uphill climb and I could see forever, including parts of the trail above me.   I saw this huge rock formation ahead but I thought the trail must pass by it and go up another way.   Not so much I was soon to discover.   After about a mile of trudging uphill, I got to the formation and was surprised to see my path kept going up.   It seemed pretty dangerous, so I turned around and went back down.   I got about a quarter mile away, and turned around to look at the trail again.   It rea...

I’ve spent the last two weeks doing manual labor and it sure is hard!   We found a meadow that someone on an ATV tore up doing donuts.   It’s so stupid that with the thousands of miles of trails, people feel the need to go off the trails and tear up meadows and campgrounds.   Last week we had to build a wooden fence to protect Long Barn meadow.   That involved using an auger that had a mind of its own.   It’s easy enough to use the auger, until you hit rocks.   Rocks make the drill stop turning and the top, which you are holding, begin to spin.   In other words, the drill stops and the auger handles are ripped out of your hands.   There is a rubber safety bar that is supposed to stop everything from spinning.   In theory it sounds great, but in practice, if the handles don’t rip your arms out of your sockets, the bar will break your legs.   OK, that may a bit dramatic, but I do have bruises on my legs where the rubber bar beat me up. ...

I decided to come down out of the forest and spend a few days in Monterey. I brought my bathing suit, sun tan lotion and beach towels. Too bad I didn’t check the weather forecast, it’s cold and overcast. No worries, there's still plenty to do. I went to the Monterey Aquarium where they had really cool jellyfish and seahorse exhibits. I posted some pictures, I’m surprised at how good they came out using my cell phone. The next day I went to Fisherman’s Warf and took a whale watching cruise. It was pretty cold, but I had a great view sitting in front of the boat. We saw both blue whales and humpback whales. They were huge, but we only saw a tiny portion of them as they came up for air. We didn’t get the spectacular views of them breaching because they didn’t do any acrobatics. The most we saw were a few tail flips, but it was still pretty cool. The ride out and back were fine, but just sitting in the swaying boat brought on some queasiness, so I spent most of the time laying back aga...

It’s been a really interesting week, complete with a near death experience.   Josh is my OHV boss and riding partner.   He is a really cool guy, prior (forest) firefighter and a little bit crazy.     We get along well and have a great time.   Together we patrol the ATV trails and campgrounds.   Most of the time we’re on the ATV’s but one day we patrolled in the Forest Service F350 truck.   I’ll start with that little adventure.   One of the things we are responsible for is making sure the trails are well marked and maintained.   Our mission on this day was to check some signs and to follow up on a report that someone had driven across a meadow. There are hundreds of miles of trails in this forest, but for some reason, the public seems determined to break down gates on closed roads and to ride where they aren’t supposed, like a beautiful meadow.   Sure enough, a week after they had gone through, their tracks were still there, spoiling the...

We had an all forest work day to kick off the beginning of the season.   We didn’t get started until late because while we were all together, management took the opportunity to get in some mandatory training.   The admin section was responsible for the food and the rest of us were split up into two teams.   My team consisted of Recreation (where I work), one of the fire teams and the California Conservation Corp or C’s.   If you will recall, the C’s are the kids who tent camped next to me for a few weeks and bathed in the river.   They have moved further upcountry and this is the first time I’ve seen them.   Our job was to move some fire rings in a campground, rebuild a wooden fence, paint the bathroom and cut down some hazard trees.     We didn’t get there till about 10:30.   It took about an hour to move all the logs and equipment a mile down the trail.   We had to use a chain saw to cut each log from the old fence, then replace them w...

I haven’t been blogging much because there just hasn’t been much to write about.   On my days off, I’ve been doing   a lot of biking instead of hiking because I’m trying to stay off my foot.   There is something very wrong with the bottom of my left foot and the podiatrist has no idea what it is.   I got an MRI last week, but I don’t see him for another 2 weeks.   It’s not Planter Fasciitis or fallen arches, since I already have both.   This is a new issue, lucky me.   There is a band that runs down the outside of the foot, that’s most likely where the problem is.   What’s throwing my doctor off is that the pain reduces when I walk 10-15 steps.   The MRI results say there is a ganglion cyst, among other things.   I didn’t understand the rest of the findings, but I’m sure Dr. Google will help me out until I get to the real Dr.   Anyway, the point is that I haven’t been able to hike and I’m not happy about it!   This is not a bik...

What a fun week! On Monday 3 of us were scheduled for a first aid class. We thought it was in the class room on our compound, so we sat around the office until the last minute. Turns out, we were supposed to be in Sonora, 45 minutes away. Since we were so late, the only seats open were right in front. At least were first for all the practice blocks. I got to meet several other forest service workers, so it wasn’t too bad. Even though I’ve done first aid and buddy care classes for the Air Force for 28 years, I actually learned some new stuff this time. Instead of sucking chest wounds and impaled objects, this class covered what to do if someone has an epileptic seizure or diabetic coma. On Tuesday we finally got to take the ATV class. It was so much fun! We went to a clearing way out in the middle of nowhere and did different drills like riding figure 8 patterns around cones, (harder then it sounds, those things are hard to do sharp turns on), driving over logs, up and down hills...