Rocky Basin Lakes 7 Day Backpack in the Southern Sierra Mountains

One thing I learned on this trip is I need to pay more attention to my route planning when it comes to ascents and descents. I showed Gary the map of where I planned our route and he looked at it and said...looks good but we probably should go in reverse order, that would save us from going up hill all this way and on the way back would be a lot easier since we probably won’t find water in any of these creeks since everything is so dry right now...dry in June in the Sierras?? Yep, pretty damn dry, water was scarce enough that we had to plan our days to make sure we had water. And it turns out Gary was right (as always) and 2 days were dry until we made camp at the end of the day.

We started at the Schaeffer Meadow trail in Monache Meadow and did a figure 8 loop going up to Rocky Basin Lakes and back. Water was available enough thru Templeton and Ramshaw Meadows but dry on the trail to Rocky Basin Lakes from Tunnel Meadows. It was also dry from Rocky Basin Lakes all the way down Johnson Creek to Salt Lick Meadow, where Johnson Creek splits and the trail crosses the creek there is good water. The trail up from Salt Lick is a bit tricky to follow for a few miles from lots of downed trees as there doesn’t seem to be much trail maintenance happening. Luckily Gary was smart enough to make sure we came *down* the Johnson Creek trail and not up like I had planned.

Here is the southern portion of our figure 8 route


Here is the northern portion


Caltopo gave me a profile of our route. I did not track the trip but instead drew it up on Caltopo as close as possible to the marked trails. While it was off in a few places it is amazing how accurate it is on the GPS, I did bring a GPS and pretty much used it only to amuse myself and for a few areas where we lost the trail big time.


This trip I took 3 Cameras, a 4x5 sheet film cigar box pinhole camera I made recently, my waist belt holstered Canon S95 point ‘n shoot and a recently acquired Fuji GA645W medium format film camera. The pinhole camera stayed in the truck and I only took a few pictures with it when we were car camping. I have been using B/W film on almost all my trips for the last year or so and it is kinda growing on me. I have recently started doing prints with an enlarger in the darkroom and that has been a lot of fun, learning how to Dodge & Burn with my hands and pieces of cardboard. I am really happy with the film photos from this trip, I used Ilford HP5 Plus 400 and developed it in Formulary PMK Pyro.

I originally had some really long lenses, a tripod and my Fuji X-E1 in my pack thinking it would be good for wildlife but the weight of a 600mm lens, it's carry case and a tripod was more weight than I wanted to carry so it stayed home. Turns out it would have been great to have as we saw 2 bears, deer, marmots, coyotes and many birds all close enough to fill a 600mm lens frame. Ended up having to use the Canon S95 to zoom in on the distance wildlife so the pictures are not that great.

On the road into Blackrock just before the Monache Trail this sign was worked into a Bigfoot Crossing, I thought it was kinda cool


Here is where we started the trip down in Monache Meadow


There were many great meadow views and the first day we had lots of puffy big white clouds but that didn't last any longer than one day. Here is Schaeffer Meadow with Templeton Mtn in the distance


In no particular other order here are some other photos from the trip, B/W is medium format Ilford HP5 Plus film, color is noted as either digital from the Canon S95 or Vevlvia 50 film although I think the difference between the Velvia 50 and the digital is somewhat obvious.

Gary at the Snow Survey Cabin in Little Whitney Meadow


Snow Survey Cabin Horse Shoe Station




Dragon Outhouse


Trail Cross Roads


Lower Salmon Creek Falls


Rocky Basin Lakes - #25A Filter and Polarizer


Rocky Basin Lakes Evening Shadows


At the top of Red Hill you can look down thru Ramshaw Meadows and see Olancha Peak off in the distance. Olancha & Kern Peaks are prominent landscape features in the southern Sierra range


According to the topo map this is Rocky Basin Lake WL 10802T, the west'ish most lake of the bunch


There are many burned out trees in the Sierras and many have some stunning colors and patterns, here is one I tried to be artsy with but probably failed at since it really is not in my blood to be artsy


Handing the camera over to Gary you get a rarely seen photograph of yours truly in a uniquely split tree trunk


One of the teachers where I work did a project with cigar boxes and had a few left over so I built a 4x5 sheet film pinhole camera out of one of them and took it on the trip with us but only for car camping. We stopped at Sherman Pass and it was a cloudy, windy and just about to be rainy day. I set up the pinhole camera and guessed at a 1.5 minute long exposure, here is the result...not bad for a small hole in a box


Here is another I took on the last morning of our trip in Monache Meadow before we drove off


The last day of our trip I put a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 slide film in the Fuji GA645W camera. I was skeptical of how it would turn out and I knew it wouldn't be cheap to get just one roll developed but my curiosity won my wallet over. I have to say, looking at the color slide film on a light table with a loupe is just amazing, the transparencies are razor sharp and almost 3D like with amazing colors. The scanned B/W negatives and transparency photographs really do not do justice to the actual film photographs, the film is just so sharp and beautiful to look at that the scanned images are almost painful to show you....but I am gonna do it anyway....

Here is the sunrise in Strawberry Meadows (Fuji Velvia 50)


The Schaeffer Meadow Trail Sign, I have a B/W version in the beginning of this TR for a comparison (Fuji Velvia 50)


Here is Gary on the boulders overlooking the Kern River near Strawberry Meadows, this was my most favorite place in the whole trip, I could spend days there. The colors of the film photographs to me have a kind of visual appeal I just don't get in the digital photographs..not sure how to really define it though, maybe just nostalgia, childhood memories of waiting for Thrifty's to develop my film..not sure but I do like it. (Fuji Velvia 50)


Brown Cow Camp, it was pretty run down, it has not been used in awhile (Fuji Velvia 50)


Kern River in Strawberry Meadows (Fuji Velvia 50)




Here is a west view of Strawberry Meadows with Kern Peak way off in the far distance and a Marmot perched on the boulder in front of me (Fuji Velvia 50)


Kern River flowing south down towards Monache


The rest of the photos here are from the Canon S95 digital camera, a fine little 8oz camera.

Small yellow flowers like this bloomed for 2-3 days before all dying off


We had several Marmots check us out at various parts of the trip






We also saw 2 definite bears grazing in the meadows and 2 more we believe at sundown but it was getting dark so we could not be certain.

Looks like bear tracks


Looks like bear crap


Must be bears....






The last bear we saw was about 1/4 mile away from where we setup camp so we were extra careful about hanging our food really high


We crossed paths with deer a few times also


We spent quite a few hours hanging out by the Kern River watching the Golden Trout swim by and every now and then there would be some pretty cool reflections


Gary and I share the same cultural and historical interests and we are always looking for signs of the past in our backcountry excursions. The Sierras were also home to Native Americans and evidence of their habitation can be found if you look close enough







This was another great backpack trip with Gary and I hope you enjoy the photographs as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Total Balloons this trip - 3 (1 mylar + 2 latex) Sorry, no photos



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Carrizo Gorge / Mason Valley / Red Hill - ABDSP

I have a pretty long list of places I keep telling myself I will stop and check out "one of these days" and this week I knocked out a few of them. First stop was Carrizo Gorge, among other reasons for the visit I wanted to get some pictures of the pictographs with my good camera. ABDSP is really stepping up the efforts in Carrizo Gorge, they have recently added many new big, thick wooden posts and signs blocking access to the Rockhouse Canyon road, many self made side trails/roads and also at the end of the road itself. These are all for the better, people have been driving off the road in too many places damaging many parts of the gorge. Tamarisk removal is also obvious, the road is almost void of brush scraping your vehicle.

According to Stellarium, this photo shows the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Orion, Sirius, Pleiades star cluster (M45) and more. Sombrero Peak is in the far distance just to the right of the tree, False Sombrero can also be seen further to the right - Carrizo Gorge


Teddy Bear Cholla Wildflower - Carrizo Gorge


Pictographs in Carrizo Gorge



To learn more about pictographs in Anza Borrego Desert State Park pick up a copy of Manfred Knaak's book The Forgotten Artist: Indians of Anza-Borrego and Their Rock Art

You can find more books about Rock Art in California on Amazon

Three coyotes walked up to my campsite near dusk while I was reading, I broke one of my own rules by not having my camera with me so the next best thing is the prints they left (starting in the bottom right corner going to the top left). You can see how close they came up to me. They really had no fear or concern about me, we made eye contact and then they calmly continued on their way - Carrizo Gorge


Mason Valley is one of those places I drive by all the time and have wanted to go check out. I spent almost all day wandering around the valley and still did not see everything I wanted, I did not get over to check out the old mines for example. Technically Mason Valley (where I went) is private property owned by the Butterfield Ranch and BLM land. When I was out on the trail I had the opportunity to meet the owner of the Buterfield Ranch and help her with horses and some riders with her. I really liked the area. All the photos from Mason Valley can be seen here

Some great old vehicles and farm equipment at the Butterfield Ranch







Out in Mason Valley there is an old rockhouse built into the hills that I believe early ranchers used.


This is a dugout in the corner of the house that was probably used for storage or a dry shelter when raining


This is looking out the front door into the valley


This must be where the stove or fireplace must have been, you can see the steel exhaust vent pipe above and it channels out to the chimney outside


This is a small dam next to the rockhouse, it was used to block a small stream nearby


Indians definitely favored Mason Valley, there are some great morteros in some interesting rock


Somebody must know why animals love to leave their crap in holes in the rocks


I found several cupule boulders in the valley


There was pottery in the area also, including this very thick, large piece


Here is a very interesting rock wall that hugged the edges of a wash, it was much, much longer than what the photo shows


There were many wildflower blooms in the valley, you can see more wildflowers here
Desert Apricot - Mason Valley


Beavertail Cactus - Mason Valley



Making my way back home I stopped to climb Red Hill. I swear I have told myself a million times I would stop and climb it real quick before going home..well that was today.

From the S2 highway looking at Red Hill in the distance


As I neared the summit the terrain turned to mostly volcanic boulders and required using my hands to get up


Here we go again, scat in a nice hole in the rocks near the summit


On the summit of Red Hill looking towards Ocotillo. If the Ocotillo Wind Energy Project succeeds this view will be of 150+ 450' tall Wind Generators


The last entry in the register was over a month old


Some beautiful blooms were on the sides of Red Hill
Ocotillo - Red Hill


Beavertail Cactus - Red Hill


Gorgeous Ocotillo blooms were everywhere - Red Hill



Happy Sweet Sixteen little darling...total mylar balloons this trip - 6


Sunrise Powerlink laydown area in Ocotillo. This is what is left now that they have finished and gone. It will take thousands of years for the "Restoration" to return back to the way it was before SDG&E raped the land...way to go SDG&E!