Yosemite Part I, Thursday July 14

We departed early for the 3 hour trip to Yosemite in Ken's luxurious Mercedes.  Ken kept up a commentary as we passed area after area, explaining geographical, social, and cultural features. The traffic was light, by California standards, as we participated in a reverse commute, moving away from population centers.  While the 3 or 4 lanes across from us were practically bumper to bumper, our side of the highway was more or less clear, and we moved smoothly through the gradually decreasing traffic.  Ken's driving, I soon learned, was precise and assertive, and we did not dawdle as we moved relentlessly eastward across the map of his dashboard navigation system.

At one point we gradually crossed an extensive wind farm in a mountainous area.  I learned that this was Altamont Pass, where the wind accelerates markedly due to a channeling effect through a gap in the mountain range.  Of course I recalled the infamous Altamont rock concert, which ended in tragedy and seemed to signal  to me an end to a magical period of peaceful, innocent music festivals.

Altamont Wind Farm-not my picture

Soon we left the Diablo range through which we had been passing, and found ourselves in a wide expanse of valley devoted to agriculture.  I  noted almond trees, grapes, corn and had walnut trees identified for me.  Towns became smaller and farther apart.  Finally we began to see mountains on the eastern and southern horizons, and as we turned southward for a time, the road once again began to climb.

After some time were at 4000'+ of altitude, and passed through yet another small town, this time called Groveland, which turned out to the be the last town before the entrance to Yosemite, still some 30 miles distant.  During that last stretch, the way climbed to a maximum of 6100', before beginning the gradual descent to the final level of the Yosemite Valley floor.

We entered the park and received a shiny map and a newsprint-type informational materials.  A quote by John Muir, the famous conservationist, founder of the Sierra Club and an early apostle of Yosemite's glory, caught my eye, and has stayed in my memory: "It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter."

Opening the map gave the first indication of the scale of the place, when I realized that our position was still more than 17 miles distant from the crown jewel of this huge national park.  I refer to Yosemite Valley itself, site of the most well known and striking of the park's attractions, and the goal of our day trip.

Yosemite is, in part, a drive-through park, and so it was for us, for the day.  There are frequent turnouts and stopping places at many of the most arresting views.  People get out, marvel for a while, snap photos with their smart phones and cameras, and drive on.  There were many people in the park this Thursday late morning, and more and more seemed to enter as the day wore on.  The number of visitors to the park in the month of July during the last few years has averaged just short of 20,000 souls per day.  Not surprisingly, then, the pull-over places were quite full.

As a passenger in a car with a huge sunroof, I had an excellent view as we drove.  Some distance from the park entrance, as the road is still descending in multiple winding arcs through and around the steep slopes, there are two or three short tunnels.  Up to this time, much of the road had been in a sheath of thick evergreens, blocking somewhat any view.  As we exited one tunnel, however, the world opened up and dropped away, and we were on the edge of a tiny line along one slope, the road we were on, looking across a yawning gulf of open space stretching down and across.  On the other side two or three planes of naked, sheer rock converged at varying angles and slopes.  The scope of the space was so immense as to cause a physically palpable effect on me.

Web capture of the first spectacular view

I asked Ken to stop so we could appreciate the chasm for a time, and he smiled and said something to the effect of "you haven't seen anything yet!"  And he soon proved to be correct.  Eventually we came to the Yosemite Valley floor, located at about 4000' of elevation, though of course, it appears as local bottom to whatever features one appreciates there.  We entered on the south side of the Valley Floor Loop, a large circuit of mostly one way travel that winds along the length of the valley first on the south side, to the end some 7.5 miles away, and then reverses direction and traverses the other side of the 1 mile wide valley on the north side.

While we were at first deep within forest on both sides of the road, the valley finally opened out and the looming granite cliffs on both sides of the valley became evident. One after another we passed mountain, after cliff, after peak, after geologic feature, all composed of sheer whitish gray granite. Each stunning structure of nature had its name and its story.  Ken pointed up, and far, far above poured a cataract of water, a river spilling through a gap in the cliff edge.  The winds were such that the torrent was atomized quickly into a mist before it fell even a tenth of the distance to the valley floor.  The flow was called Bridal Veil Falls; I have no idea why.  :)

As we wended our way further into the valley, Ken smiled and pointed to the left.  Although there was forest between our side of the loop, and the car traffic on the loop across the valley, I could clearly make out the immensity of a monolithic tower of granite far ahead.  As we neared, the sheer scale of the granite sheet became more apparent, though at our closest approach we were still at least a mile and a half from its base.  This was the second-most recognized iconic monument in the park, El Capitan, one face of which is a sheer vertical sheet of granite that rises some 3000' from the valley floor.  I was assured by my host that we would have multiple locations from which to view the gigantic feature, including the closest pass-by on our traverse of the northern side of the loop during the return to the park's entrance.

We continued our way along the valley floor.  The immediate goal was the historic Ahwhanee Lodge at the far eastern edge of the valley, built early in the park's history and maintained in its period glory to the current day.  Around every turn in the road we were greeted by new views of awesome majesty, towering structures of stone and light, shadow and space.  Approaching the lodge, above us began to become visible Yosemite's most famous feature, the immense fractured pinnacle called Half Dome.  Rearing an astonishing 5000' above the valley floor, Half Dome is visible, at least in part, from the entire eastern half of the valley floor circle drive.  We will return to Half Dome again later.

Arriving at the lodge, Ken's car was parked by a valet, and we entered the hotel.  Despite repairs or renovations which blocked off a portion of the facade of the building with plastic sheeting, the entryway and front desk were striking.  The decor was elegantly rustic with hints of American Southwest and Art Deco added as well.  Once seated for lunch, we appreciated the huge scale of the dining room, designed to seat 250 diners. Huge steel chandeliers hung from the 40' ceiling, and along the walls were half trees of at least 24" diameter serving as columns between the 30' high door/windows, each of which was crowned by stained glass detailing.

After lunch we decided to hike and asked the front desk staff their advice on a pleasant and non-demanding walk.  They advised us to try the trail through the woods to Mirror Lake, and after a brief look at the attractive grounds around the lodge, off we went on a more physical approach to experiencing Yosemite.

Westport to San Jose Wednesday July 13

Up at dawn, and the tent was soaked with a heavy dew.  The temperature cooled when the sun set, which I got to watch sitting on my chair at the cliff edge.  This morning it is in the mid 50s, I would imagine.  After brewing coffee, I considered what to make for breakfast on my neat little alcohol stove.

Before leaving Eureka, I went to Harp's for some last minute items.  I had bought several units of various canned fish products earlier at another store, and was looking or something a little more meat like.  While cruising canned goods, I got to talking to a guy who was stocking items.    He talked about how much he liked Spam, and I saw that, in a marketing move, Spam had added several flavors to the basic stuff, which I hadn't eaten since Boy Scout days.  On impulse, I picked up a can of Jalapeno Spam, God help me.

So this morning I celebrated my start on the PCH with sauteed Spam, onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos.  It was quite tasty in the morning chill, and I ate while waiting for the sun to crest the mountains to the east of the highway and dry the tent.  I was still the only person in sight stirring, and there was time to reflect on the giant RV dwellers around me.

There were three in close-ish proximity, each larger and fancier than the last.  Model names suggested adventure and outdoor activity--Trekker, Expedition, Excursion, Vagabond.  But the dwellers in these luxury machines rarely exited them during the 16 hours I was at the campsite, from late afternoon until 8:30 am when I left.  Except to walk their dogs, and each vehicle family had one or more, they were most often inside, behind curtains drawn across the vast windshields.  As I walked by a pair to go to the bathroom, I could hear the generator quietly working, and it must have been so for each, as the afternoon in the unshaded park had become warm.  So I can only assume that they cooked, ate, and used the bathroom inside their mobile houses, perhaps peeking furtively from time to time out the windows to see the awesome spectacle only yards away.  The experience of the ceaseless pounding surf below, the hot wind in the afternoon, the sunset, the cool relative quiet of this morning--how much were they getting?  Odd.

There was eventually a sunrise of sorts, as the sunlight pierced the mountains first through an opening between two peaks across from the campsite, and eventually reached the entire area.  I broke camp and was ready to go around the aforementioned 8:30.  When I started the car, the temperature was 58 degrees.  It eventually climbed to 61, and stayed around that level during the rest of the time I was on the coast highway.

Today the sections of the highway on the coast rose higher and higher, until once again I felt visceral anxiety as I rounded the ever tighter curves on the outside, mere feet away from drops of hundreds of feet, in many places without guardrail or restraint.  Climbs and descents became more frequent as there were many elevation changes as the road wound in very tightly tortuous curves through terrain closer to, then away from the coast, over and over.  The offshore rocks became larger and more numerous.  There were intermittent crossings of rivers on bridges extremely high, and low, rivers which flowed into the sea through openings both wide and narrow.  There were flat, wide-ish bodies that signs called lagoons, and larger ones I took for bays, and these the road wound around.

These areas where bodies of water met the sea seemed calm and inviting, and I could imagine offloading the Castine to paddle, perhaps even out into the ocean.  Not this trip, though, and never with the Camry, I fear.  The Castine would no doubt act as a large airfoil on the roof of the tiny car, and I would sail off one of the highest curves, hang gliding down and down and down...

And always the highway was changing elevation, by means of hundreds of tight and winding curves over the course of the morning.  Early there was little traffic, and later, as the number of vehicles increased, the road continued to feel open, as each driver found his or her comfort place in the line up, slower ones pulling over in the frequent turn out lanes to give way to faster drivers behind.

I found myself both passing and pulling over, until after a time I was going at my desired speed, with another vehicle far before me, and none visible in my rear view mirror.  This was the way the traffic flow was supposed to work.

But nothing lasts forever, and as mid day approached, my arms began to tire from the constant wheel turning, and the vigilance necessary to maintain speed during the endless curves and cutbacks began to wear.  Traffic flow started to fall apart, as single lane road repair stops repeatedly halted lines of eight, nine, ten cars.  Then the system of finding one's comfort zone would begin, only to be interrupted before equilibrium was reached by another stop.  The result was more or less bumper to bumper, and by noon my average speed for the day was 30 mph!

And finally, what I call the museum effect began to assert itself.  One can appreciate furtive glances at the most awe inspiring scenery and vistas only so long before accommodation sets in, and even the most arresting attractiveness loses its luster.  So it became for me around 12:30, and I realized that I had had enough of the Pacific Coast Highway; it had stopped being fun.  :(  I pulled off, reprogrammed Google Maps for the fastest route to San Jose, and took off.

I must say here that the views today were among the best and most wonderful of this section of the trip.  However, I was able to make no photographs at all, concentrating on driving, and staying intact and movng.  In the interest of complete disclosure, all of the pictures in this post are taken from the web, and are representations only of what I saw and drove through, not the real thing.

The relief of moving in straight lines and at reasonable speed was immediate.  I found myself in farm country very soon, beef cattle, dairy cattle (I assumed the black and white ones in tall grass were dairy), and hay--lots of recently baled hay.  Hay baled in small rectangular bales, not the big round ones I am used to.  And these bales collected and stacked into ginormous rectangular piles, really big ones.  This I had never seen.

And then I was on the 101 (doesn't that sound like a Californian talking?), amid many, many other cars, but moving fast and more or less straight for San Fransisco.  Ahhhh, I could finally feel the miles unwinding under my butt.

Soon enough I was approaching the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.  What might have been an exhilarating experience was muddled by signs saying that no tolls were payable by cash, only by Fastpass electronic means.  I choked, not having any idea what to do, and slid off the highway by the last exit before the bridge, near the tiny, windy steep-streeted town of Sausalito.  My calls to the 511 number on the sign I had seen lost me mired in a confusion of phone tree choices, from which I was never able to reach a human.  Finally, still in considerable doubt, I re-entered the highway traffic flow, and resolved to take my chances at the toll booth.  When I reached it, with sixty zillion other cars, it was automatic and unmanned, and I rolled through at my sign-mandated 25 mph, the only car to be so slow, I think.

I later learned that out of town drivers often have a similar experience, being naive of the procedure of license plate recording, and automatic billing to the registered owner of the vehicle.  But one is able to Google pay golden gate toll and pay by credit card within 48 hours of crossing, and save some transaction fee or other.  The cost to cross the bridge for my car: $7.50.

So my confusion, the six narrow lanes of heavy traffic, and the fog or haze or smog or whatever it was kept the bridge crossing from entering into my top ten experiences of the trip.  So be it, it was what it was.

Exiting the bridge, I passed through a tunnel or two, and was soon reminded why I don't miss living in cities too much.  Traffic.  Lots and lots and lots and lots of bumper to bumper traffic, first on steep up and down city streets, and eventually on wide, multi-laned freeways.  The 50 miles or so of distance to Cousin Ken's house in San Jose was covered in an hour or so, with a few slow downs to what seemed like crawl speed, but no actual gridlocked stops.  I had to reacquire lost skills of agressive in and out to reach from the express lane to my eventual exit, and I am proud to have done so while remaining intact.

A few intervening streets, and I found myself driving up to the three story townhouse-like building that Ken calls home.  Another leg of my trip was complete.

Ashland to the California Coast Tuesday 12 July

This morning I left Diego and Gloria's house pretty much on schedule, 8:13.  Gloria wanted a demo of hydrocollator packs and percussive massager that she had bought, so we did that after she made Diego and I a great breakfast of oatmeal plus banana for him, and plus blackberry jam for me.  I had earlier made my last cup of espresso there in the Moka pot.  The day before I had finally acquired a pint of 1/2 and 1/2 to replace all of the little single serving sealed cups that had been broached by pressure changes in the high mountains of Colorado, and had festered in the hot trunk for two weeks and more before I discovered them.  Ugh!

Once on the road, I headed north to eventually go south, through Grant's Pass toward Crescent City, on the most northern coast of California.  The ride was in and out between lovely mountains: only an eye as jaded as mine had become would fail to be moved by the scenery (How're you gonna keep em down on the farm, after they've seen the Rockies and Mt. Shasta?).

But after a time I got on Rt 101 going SW, and crossed into California, and then things got more interesting.  There were several sections of the highway through large stands of redwoods, not giants, but plenty, plenty big.  The road had been four-laned in places, but the sections through the redwoods were, and will stay, no doubt, two-laned, but excellently maintained throughout.

Characteristic Redwood Grove, photo taken from the web.

I passed a scenic highway turnoff for the Avenue of the Giants, a road I did not take, and which, after looking it up on the internet, I wish I had taken.  It is an older version of highway 101, and meanders through famous redwoods, many with names, including a drive through tree, I believe.

Then the road I stayed with climbed still higher, and I passed another grove of larger redwoods, including a spot or two where traffic slowed to 35 mph and the trees were huge, and turnoffs and tourist traps were more frequent. Near the last section of huge redwoods, I noticed one of the tourist stops/cafes advertising "the house in the tree", world famous, Ripley's believe it or not, blah blah.  I did not stop.

Finally I reached the turnoff for California Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, and though I was yet far from the coast, I knew I was approaching my goal, the beginning of the PCH down the rock strewn coast of California. Though I knew I was closer, I had no idea what to expect on this leg. And what I got was...wonderful!

Up, up, up, a curvy road, as curvy as any section of the Rockies I had experienced, but longer, longer, and nice--no edge-of-the-precipice experience.  Rather like driving through a very curvy tunnel of trees, dark and shady. The road was lovely in another way as well--literally no traffic, just one car before me who obligingly pulled over to let me by when it became evident that he was driving a little slower than I was.

I can't say enough how much fun this was.  Earlier, Del drove us on a road like this, crossing the coastal range on our outing to the sea while I stayed with him and Kay.  But then traffic both ways was heavy, and I marveled that he seemed to keep up a 50 mph + speed, which impressed (and unnerved) me.  Plus, drop offs to the steep downhill side were then much more evident as I was the passenger.

This drive was perfect--I could go as fast or as slowly as I wished, and the turns were literally infinite-seeming as my ears popped time and time again.  No one behind me riding on my butt, no one before me slowing me down.  Excellent!

Eventually the ascent was over after a couple more ear pops, and the going down started.  Still curvy as all get out, loops, cutbacks and back and forths; a couple of cars before me now, but still going at a comfortable pace.

When the road finally reached the coast, I arrived at the small town called Crescent City; apparently a normal small town like many I had driven through.  But then I got past the business zone, and downtown, and there was at the sea!  I pulled over after a few minutes into a commercial marina, with many pleasure boats, but mostly working fishing boats.  The wonderful sea tang hit me and filled me with pleasure, the same, yet different from the Atlantic smells of my youth.  There was a sweet, salty overtone I took to be seaweed, maybe the kelp I think is ubiquitous here on the Pacific.

View from the Crescent City Marina, Lighthouse far, far in the distance

After appreciating a lovely lighthouse, I climbed back in the car and continued, and after a short while, I came upon...the beach!  And Crescent City at that moment earned its name, as the beach stretched away in the direction I had come in a long curve, ending in the lighthouse I had seen from the marina, and which I could again hear emitting regular intermittent and surprisingly non-sonorous bursts of sound.

Though I had seen the ocean back during my stay with Kay and Del, when we drove the the coast, it was just that, a sight.  We overlooked the Pacific from tall cliffs, with no physical access to the water. Not today, though.  I walked out over the soft dark sand, cool in the 61 degree morning.  There were three distinct tide lines, each marked by organic debris, crab parts, and full dead crabs, mostly, very few shells.  The tide line closest to the water had many small crustaceans, with a shape and a size reminiscent of cicadas at home.  As I neared the water the sand became first moistly packed, and then hard and saturated.  Chaotic lines of rollers were coming in, not at all the surfer-friendly organization of TVs southern beaches.  The water was surprisingly warm, in spite of warnings I have received about cold Pacific water.  But then all I put in my water were my feet; perhaps had I immersed more body parts, it might have seemed colder.

On the way back to the car, I noted and picked up two items.  One was a tiny flawed sand dollar, something I am intimately familiar with from my youth.  The other was a piece of sea-worn redwood bark, unfamiliar but recognizable.  As I entered the car, I realized I was ready to start my Pacific Coast Highway experience at that moment.  I was ready!

As the road left the sea, as it continued to do from time to time, it climbed until, again on the coast, I found myself high on rocky bluffs above the water, which was crashing against rock after boulder after monolith.  They were large and craggy rocks that had split away from the cliff line long ago, and which formed an intermittent and porous barrier between the cliff edge and the sea.  I hoped nothing would crack and fall off while I was driving over it.

The road continued to leave the coast from time to time, at first to wind higher through pine and redwood groves, then to skirt small bays and lagoons that looked oh-so-tempting to paddle in.

Each time I would return to the sea, I was on classic PCH, road high up cut into mountains that dropped to cliffs high over rocky bluffs and outcroppings.  Beautiful!  Ten miles down the way, I came to the area called Westport,, and a public campground at the cliffedge over the sea.

$23 for a tent site, by far the most striking site thus far on the trip.  Car unpacked, tent pitched, beer drunk, chair at cliffedge, I cooked Ramen and veggies and sat down to write.

Only big RVs near me, and these several picnic tables away in either direction.  Though several cars cruised by, both sites to the right and left have remained vacant.  large black birds (ravens?) soar by at the cliffedge.  The sound of the surf is continous and moderately loud, 30-40 feet below my tent.

There is no cell service and no electricity, so I turn off the phone to conserve energy.  First time I have noticed being out of cell touch during the trip thus far, though I am sure I have passed through many such areas while driving.  At 6:45 pm, and the sun is still far above the horizon.  It is quite warm as there is no shade, but I expect the temperature to become cool as soon as the sun goes down.

From the Dugway to Glen Canyon, Sunday, June 19

After climbing the Moki Dugway, I found myself on the top of a mesa heading north towards UT 95. As my fingers gradually loosened their death grip on the steering wheel, I appreciated the increased vegetation on either side of the road.  Larger, though still stunted trees alternated with a dense brushy ground cover, and after a half hour or so, I arrived at the junction of UT 95, where I once again turned west.

UT 95, also called the Bicentennial Highway, turned out to be yet another of neighbor Mike's gifts, a road I never otherwise would have known from any other, but which provided visual feasts one after another.  It wound through more and more impressive scenery, including rock outcroppings near the road and in the distance, and isolated huge structures left standing after surrounding rock eroded away, which I learned are called temples.  There were long uphill pulls and curving switchback descents, and finally the road entered the area on the map noted as Glen Canyon.  Down and down winding through natural and man made cuts in the rocks, frequently opening up into broad vistas of larger open areas between walls of red stone.  Canyons, I suppose they were, walled by the buttes and bluffs I had been seeing all along, but now I was in them, between them, and could feel the mass of the giant stones, and then the thrill when the view opened up again.

At the bottom, what finally turned out to be the bottom, was an endless chasm, a profoundly deep slash in the earth stretching from right to left, spanned by an impossibly slender bridge that was simply... beautiful.  A sign told me that it was the Colorado River, and Mike's atlas that it was the beginning of Lake Powell.  No way I could get any picture as I was speeding by, so I have stolen a good one from the web.

Bridge in Glen Canyon spanning the Colorado River and Lake Powell

The water was in no way as high as in the picture.  I have learned that things are very dry there now, and that the water level is very low.

The ascent began right after the bridge, and about halfway up there was a scenic overlook I could not resist stopping at.  It was located a good quarter mile off the road, so there was no suggestion of what the view might be as I exited the highway.  Well, it was a high vantage over the widening waterway where the Colorado began to swell into Lake Powell, though it was somewhat...dry.  Water was indeed visible far to the south, but I got the feeling that the large flats I could see downstream of the bridge were at times filled with water.  Today, not so much.

The panorama I shot from the overlook is below.  For one thing, the pano process produces considerable distortion; the curved cliff edge was quite straight.  

The bridge from the previous web pic is visible in my picture, but only under a large amount of magnification.  Below is that section, it comes from about 1/4 of the way in from the left side of the pano, and just about a little bit down from the horizon at that point. I wish I knew how to include an arrow in the photo, but I don't: sorry.

Hopefully you can see the bridge that I crossed earlier.  The larger green section to the right is usually covered with water, making the lake's headwaters much larger in area than they were the day I took the photo.

At this overlook, I met a couple from Holland who had rented a car and were visiting National Parks. We both were impressed with the view and the experience of driving UT95.  He said he and his wife had traversed it just by chance, and that it had been mentioned in none of the guidebooks they were employing during their trip.  I told them that the sights I had been seeing just by driving certain roads had been as good as I could imagine seeing in a crowded and costly National Park.

I have learned since that Lake Powell continues down to a dam, and then below that the Colorado River continues through the Grand Canyon and eventually into Lake Mead.  And further that the area several miles to the south of the water you can see on the right side of the pano in the middle is a very popular fishing and boating site.  I am considering perhaps trying to see that location on the way home.

So, first the city of Bluff, then the Moki Dugway, then Glen Canyon, and later in the day, on to Capitol Reef, which I will talk about in another post.  Sunday had been, and was continuing to be, quite a day.

On the road again

I loaded up the Camry and left Magalia around 8am yesterday, Thursday.  It seemed strange to leave Kay and Del’s, where I had been accepted as a family member for 16 days.  I felt as if I were leaving home. But it was time to move on, this time toward southern Oregon, and Diego, my former fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, and Gloria, his charming wife.

I drove generally west at first, leaving the foothills of the Sierras.  After a time, I entered the wide valley where agriculture was everywhere.  As I turned north, I looked back towards the east, and took what may have been my last glimpse of the lovely mountain range where I had spent the last two weeks.  On smaller roads at first I soon entered the flow toward Interstate 5, the heavily traveled artery that traverses central California north to south, and continues north through Oregon and Washington.

I had been repeatedly told of the wonderful experience in store for me, as I drove farther north in California, where I would cross Shasta Lake and see what had been described as the imposing Mount Shasta.  The first thing I was aware of as I approached Shasta Lake, was a chain of mountains before me, seeming to run from the northeast to the southwest.  Soon I was crossing Shasta Lake, where I was able to pull off at a rest stop and appreciate a small part of the lake ringed by evergreen covered mountains.  I found myself wondering which of the local peaks was Shasta, as none seemed more prepossessing than another.  I resolved to look things up when I was next in the vicinity of an internet connection.

I then began to see signs for Shasta City, and as I continued north, out of the haze loomed a monolith that dominated the northern horizon.  It was to the mountains surrounding the lake as a tall redwood is to a table-top Christmas tree, and I wryly smiled at my previous innocent misconception.  And yet Shasta still lay many miles distant.

As I approached, the peak loomed larger and larger above me, filling a large proportion of my windshield’s view area.  Snow-covered down at least a third of its height, it was a single sharp crag, widening into a complex of anglularity below.  The road continued winding through the mountains that I had been traversing since the lake, and my concentration was demanded by the curves and the inclines and declines, and the traffic; but still I stole glance after glance at the mountain.  I have no idea how it compared in size to the various peaks of the Rockies I had seen and driven through, but in its singular isolation, free of any other object of competing scale, it seemed much more magnificent than any peak I have yet experienced.

And as I drew near, it continued to become larger and larger.   Soon, as I passed the city bearing its name, Shasta dominated a complete quadrant of my visual field.  No photograph could have begun to convey the awesome sensation of approaching and perceiving that upthrust portion of the planet.  But I have to include something, so here is an attractive photo I have taken from the internet.

Mt Shasta from a road that is not the road I was on.

The rest of the drive into Oregon was through hills gradually decreasing in height, and then as I neared the border, once again through rising hills leading to Mt Siskiyou, which appeared to straddle the border.  The drive was steep and thrilling with many curves and lots of truck and car traffic on two lanes on each side, and required continual attention, due primarily to the high speed everyone was maintaining.

Ashland was the first town of any size I came to, and from there I began to leave the mountains behind as I entered into a flatter area where Medford, a larger town, was located in a valley between two small lines of foothills.  Central Point, where Diego’s home is located, is a small town just to the northwest of Medford, far enough up the western line of mountains to afford a great view.  As I drove up the long driveway that serves his house and several others, I wondered how I would know which belonged to whom.  But as I neared the first, there was Diego, out front waiting for me.  After he guided me into a parking space, and I exited the car and we shared a long hug.  It had been fifteen years or more, but our last meeting could have been yesterday.  I was home once again.

Safe and Sound in Northern California

After a night at a nondescript motel room in Fallon, NV, it was only a six hour drive to arrive at Kay and Del's house in Magalia on Tuesday in the early afternoon.  It was another lovely itinerary, much of it on two lane blacktop through mountainous terrain clothed in dense tall pine and spruce.  The Feather River paralleled the road for many miles, with rapids with intermittent small dams furnishing hydroelectric power to the area.

Magalia is a small suburb (11K) of larger Paradise (28K).  It is three main roads paralleling a ridge top, with cross streets with a certain amount of height differential, nestled between enough trees to give a middle-of-the-forest feel to things. Even though K&D's luxurious home is on one of the main drives, it feels secluded and rural.

The view from the deck as I type

I feel as though I am home with family at this time, and plans are being laid for dinner parties, barbecue, and a trip to the coast next week with Bud and Yanna, lifelong friends of my hosts that I have heard about for 20 years but never yet met.  Later this morning I will go with Kay to her yoga class.

It has been five years or more since Kay and Del stayed at the lake cabin for a month, shopping land in Arkansas.  It was a brutally hot summer then, and they decided to move their search to more temperate climes.  And thus they ended up here, not too far from Kay's earlier stomping grounds.

I will work hard to try to post something each day, some further details of the trip, and brief mentions of goings on here.  So far it has been eating Kay's good cooking, drinking wine they stomp and ferment themselves, walking with Del in the forest public areas alongside a sparking mountain stream, drinking wine, playing dominos, and catching up.  Not too exciting to report, but wonderfully satisfying to experience.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (oops, Gods)

How old does one have to be to get that reference, I wonder.  Probably most of my audience.

So, after I passed the Valley of the Gods, there was a little stretch of road called UT highway 261.  It looked to be a short little hop up to UT highway 95.  I was looking forward to some more neat scenery.  What I got was the Moki Dugway.  Key the heavy ominous music here, please.

It turns out that, little did I know, I was headed for what has been called the most dangerous drive in America by some, and the most beautiful, exciting drive by others.  The first suggestion that something unusual was in store was a sign suggesting that the next three miles was steep (10% grade), unpaved, with extremely sharp curves and switchbacks.  And that large trucks, vehicles towing trailers, and RV's were cautioned against continuing.

I wasn't nervous yet.  I should have been.

Traffic where I was was thin, I had met only a few cars coming my way, and they seemed to be just fine.  There was no one in sight behind me.  I was approaching a huge wall of reddish stone, the edge of a bluff, or butte, or mesa, or whatever, about a zillion feet high.  I couldn't see where the road was going to go.  Usually as a road crosses a range of something, hills, mountains, you see the depression or cut where it is going to go.  I could see nothing like that.  I wondered if the road were going into a tunnel.

Nope.  The pavement ended at what seemed to be 100 yards or so from the stone walls, and abruptly turned about 110 degrees right.  And I started what was to be the second scariest part of my trip.  Though I couldn't see it from the ground, the road went up and across that high bluff face, back and forth and around, a washerboard surface gravel road, wide enough for two vehicles in most places, a bit narrower than that in a couple of places.  No guardrails, no center line, no nothing, except the infinite-seeming upward sloping road.

Last night I looked this road up, and learned its name, that the bluff face is 1100 feet high, that the road climbs that distance in slightly less than 3 miles.  That it was built in the 50s for huge uranium hauling trucks to carry cargo down to the town of Mexican Hat, where there was an enrichment facility or refinery.

But all I knew then was that I had entered some twilight zone, where the slightest wrong move would send me tumbling down to my death.  Not too different from the road from Ourey to Silverton, that I haven't told you about yet, except not quite as scary as that one.  Maybe because there was a little mound of dirt at the edge of the road that kept me from seeing the very edge of the dropoff, maybe because I had already had the experience once, maybe because I wasn't always on the outside, as the twists and turns put me on the inside as often as the outside.

The stated speed limit was 15, there were lots of times when I was going 5 mph.  As I climbed, I could see vehicles before me, and perhaps 5 or 6 passed me going down on my traverse of the Dugway, which probably lasted no longer than 15 or 20 minutes, but which seemed like much longer. There were pull over places, most of which had a car or two, and people standing around looking out over the Valley of the Gods in the desert below.  But I wasn't going to stop for anything.

Except at one point I rounded a tight curve and found the road ahead really narrow, and a van was heading down.  I stopped then, and backed up around the curve to where the road was wider, so the guy could come down and get around me.  I think that spot was probably the narrowest, and of course then I was on the outside, and I gave great thanks that no one else was coming down as I crossed that part.

Finally I got to a much wider place, with a big turnout, and a waist high hurricane fence around the edge.  I stopped then, and got out, and looked around.  The desert stretched out below, filled to the east with the many tall monuments of the VotG, which seemed now like little statues or sand castles. Toward the west the bluff face, which turned out to be the edge of a mesa, I learned later, stretched out in a huge concave curve for miles and miles.  I took a picture, but like so many pictures I have taken, show nothing of the grandeur or scope or depth of the scene.

Sweeping panorama from the top of the Dugway

Detail from the center of the pano.  The blacktop road I came in on is visible; the smaller dirt road to the left traverses the Valley of the Gods.

Detail from the left of the pano.  The structures making up the Valley of the Gods are visible behind the lighter outcropping of the mesa edge we just came up across, and continue on into the vanishing background.

In my looking around on the internet last night, I found lots of youtube videos about this stretch of road, and many photos.  Excerpts from a few reality type travel channel shows as well.  Statements about how the ride south (down) was better, because you could see everything out in front of you (I had already decided I was glad I had been going up, for a similar reason). Comments from people seem split between people who loved it and people who it scared.  Color me in both camps.

At the pullout there was a van with a guy and a girl and we mutually exclaimed.  They were locals, showing visitors from AZ the sights.  The visitors never got out of the van, while I was there.  He told me about the uranium mining trucks, and that now I was at the top. That really relieved me, as I had thought that I faced a similar ride down, not knowing that I was on a mesa, and not just climbing over some two-sided feature.

The rest of the short ride on that highway was a pleasure, as my fingers' death grip on the wheel gradually relaxed.  I was on the way the one of the most beautiful parts of my drive, and I didn't even know it yet.