A Week in Mammoth

We took picturesque highway 20 from Nevada City to Interstate 80, then skirted the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe on Highway 28. About halfway down the lake, we picked up highway 50, going east until we reached the 395 which took us south to Mammoth Lakes, where we stayed a week, hiking, biking and fishing the beautiful lakes above the town.

Lake George

With the lakes freshly stocked, young rainbow trout rushed our hooks almost as soon as they hit the water at Lake George.

As the Labor Day holiday weekend approached the town of Mammoth Lakes began to swell with people. By Saturday, the hotels, campgrounds and day use areas were packed. To avoid the crowds we drove down highway 395 to Rock Creek and hiked up to the Gems, a pair of pristine lakes high in the eastern Sierras. The trail starts from Mosquito Flats at an elevation of 10,200 feet, and winds through aptly named Little Lakes Valley up to an elevation of 10,900 feet, where Upper Gem lies.

At nearly 11,000 feet elevation, the Gems are not far from the timberline.

I was surprised to see a little patch of snow in the shadows on the south side of the lake.

Still reluctant to face the crowds around Mammoth, the next day we drove down to McGee Creek Road, about 20 miles from Mammoth. Turning off the highway, we drove southwest past the pack station to the trailhead at the end of the road. From there we hiked up the trail through magnificent scenery along the creek until we arrived at the Pond, which lies at an elevation of 9,000 feet.

McGee Creek Trail starts here.

A midday moon

The beaver dam widens the creek into a pond of several acres.

The beavers lodge is located near the upper end of the pond.

The water level in the pond is about four feet higher than the creek below it. You have to admire the engineering skill of Americas largest rodent.

The North American beavers habitat once extended from Canada to the deserts of northern Mexico, but the animal was hunted almost to extinction in the 1800s. Beavers weigh an average of 44 pounds. On another note, Oregon State University, with the Beaver as its mascot is not ranked in the AP Top 25 football poll this year, much to Lisas chagrin.

Tomorrow, well head northeast through Nevada and Idaho to the West Entrance of Yellowstone NP.

The Cockpit Project Installing the Teak Decking

The synthetic teak was waiting for us when we arrived back home. The package included 8 tubes of M1 polyether adhesive, a serrated trowel and 13 precut pieces of the teak material. They had sent me a first article back in August that didnt come close to fitting properly, but we worked out the problems and they remade that part and shipped it along with the rest of the pieces. The first thing I did was check fit each one on the deck, and they all fit reasonably well. 

Once I was sure all the pieces fit, I taped off each recess, applied the adhesive and installed each piece one at a time. The finished cockpit looks a lot better than the weathered teak look that we had before. The total cost for the teak, adhesive and trowel was $1,009.00. I added two rolls of tape, some sandpaper, a carpet roller and a little acetone so the total material cost added up to about $1,040.00. It took about 20 hours spread out over a week to install all the pieces. 

I started with 3M #2050 masking tape which worked well. When I ran out of it I tried  #2090 blue tape. The lower tack allowed the M1 adhesive to penetrate between the tape and the teak which I had to sand off after it was cured. 

I applied the adhesive with a caulking gun then spread it with the trowel.

The adhesive was evenly spread across the seat, with a thick bead of it around the perimeter.

I used the carpet seam roller to press the teak into the adhesive. To get it to lay perfectly into the recess, I started rolling in the center and worked toward the edges, squeezing out any excess adhesive.

I pulled the tapes as soon as possible. The temperatures hovered near 100 degrees every day while I was doing the installation, so the adhesive started curing almost instantly. 

The finished installation looks good. The black "caulking lines" are aligned within about 1/8" from piece to piece.

Of course the project wouldnt be complete without new cockpit cushions. 

Were pretty happy with the final results and now that Plasteak has accurate digital files for the teak inserts, it should be easy for any Beneteau 423 to be fitted with synthetic teak. Feel free to call on me if you have any questions about the material or the process.

Road Trip to Yellowstone

With most of our boat projects finished, we have some time on our hands before the synthetic teak arrives, so we decided to take a road trip to Yellowstone National Park, with stops along the way to visit friends and family in Berkeley and Nevada City, then a week or so in Mammoth Lakes before heading northeast to Yellowstone. We packed bikes and backpacks in the truck and headed up Highway 101 toward Berkeley. Along the way we stopped at Pinnacles National Park long enough to check out the unique caves near the west entrance to the park. These caves are made of enormous rocks that tumbled down into steep ravines, leaving spaces between them. Some of those spaces are cavernous, others are too small to fit through. After a couple of hours we continued on to Berkeley where we met friends and family. We spent a couple of days in the area and took an afternoon putter around the Bay aboard SF Joe, our friends Grand Banks 36.

Pinnacles National Park. The "Balconies" cliffs overlook the ravine where the caves are located.

The trail to the caves crosses over a dry creek bed. Unfortunately we saw many signs of Californias severe drought along the way,

Entrance to one of the caves. 

In some areas the caves were pitch dark and we were fortunate to have brought along a flashlight. In this area, light filtered down between the enormous boulders that make up the caves.

Lisa checked her camera after bouncing it on the rocks as we scrambled through the caves.

On Monday, August 18th we drove northeast toward the town of Grass Valley where we spent an afternoon and evening checking out the town and visiting a couple of our favorite wine tasting rooms. At the Sierra Starr winery, we were invited to visit their vineyard, which is located in the hills just out of town, where they were taking the first harvest of sauvignon blanc grapes. So the next day we drove up to the vineyard and spent a couple of hours with a merry group of volunteers harvesting these tasty grapes.

Rustic and quaint, Sierra Starr is a small, family run vineyard with about 25 acres of land under cultivation.

Phil Starr runs the vineyard while his wife, Anne manages the tasting room. But when harvest time comes, everyone picks grapes.

Its hot, sticky work, but for a few hours it was fun to pick the grapes and learn about the rudiments of viticulture.

Lisas first bunch of grapes.

The colors of the grapes were amazing.

Picking grapes is hard work. I wouldnt want to do it for a living.

Son Jack Starr is the chief winemaker. After the grapes are crushed and cleaned they go into the stainless steel tanks where they are inoculated with yeast and allowed to ferment. 

The next day we drove through the town of Nevada City and up into the hills along Banner Lava Cap road to visit family, hike, bike and relax. We spent an afternoon riding our mountain bikes through a beautiful forest of pine and oak along an old aqueduct. Another day we went tubing on the Yuba river, enjoying perfect weather and lovely scenery.

We hiked down to the river from the road and were greeted with the sight of the beautiful old Bridgeport Bridge. It was completed in 1862  and is a fine example of a truss and arch covered bridge. It is the longest bridge of its type in the world, so I guess it beats all the bridges in Madison County!

Bridgeport Bridge is the longest single span covered bridge in the world. 

The bridge has fallen into disrepair and is no longer usable. Fortunately the governor of California has allocated some money in the state budget to repair and restore the bridge so there is hope that it will survive. 

It was fun to navigate our inner tubes among the rocks and float down the gentle rapids of the river.  

After three days in hills above Nevada City, we headed to Mammoth Lakes where well stay a week or so, hiking, biking and fly fishing. 

Five Days in Yellowstone

It was a long drive from Mammoth to Twin Falls. We took the "road less traveled" through Ely and Wells, Nevada. There is a lot of open space in central Nevada and we enjoyed the solitude of the open road in one of the more remote parts of this country. We arrived in Twin Falls a little before sunset and had a nice dinner not far from the spectacular Snake River gorge. The next morning we were on the road early and arrived in West Yellowstone, MT in the early afternoon. This became our base of operations for next five days, from which we made day trips into the National Park.

We had planned to arrive in Yellowstone a couple of days after Labor day, thinking that with kids back in school, the park would be fairly uncrowded. Apparently a million other people had the same idea. The place was packed from dawn to dark. In several places, the very large parking lots were maxed out, with cars backed up on the roads. It would have been easy to let the crowds ruin our time there, but we made the best of it, and did the tourist things along with the rest of the tourists, but also found lots of outlying places where the crowds and tour buses didnt go. The weather was near perfect every day and the hiking was excellent. We fished the Madison River and caught only a single brown trout. There were fishermen in drift boats, in waders and lining the banks at nearly every likely looking spot on the Madison, Firehole, Yellowstone and Gibbon rivers so we didnt fish much at all. I could bore you with dozens of photos of geysers and other fantastic Yellowstone attractions, but they look just like all the others youve already seen or taken.

After five days of beautiful scenery in Yellowstone, we drove south to Jackson, Wyoming and spent a few days in Grand Teton National Park. The crowds were much smaller and we did a couple of wonderful hikes. In the evenings we watched elk and moose, bears and coyotes in the meadows and along the banks of the Snake river and Moose Creek.

When it was finally time to head home, we decided to take Highway 189 out of Jackson and pick up I-15 south out of Salt Lake City, which would take us back to our hometown in southern California. On the way out of Jackson, the news on the radio was that I-15 had been flooded out just north of Las Vegas, so we changed course and took I-80 west to Winnemucca then south to Bishop and down Highway 395 toward home.

We arrived home a couple of nights ago to find Finisterra wearing a thick coat of grime but otherwise in good shape. Now were back at work getting her ready for her next adventure.

Yellowstone:

People visit Yellowstone in all kinds of vehicles but none as cool as this one. Notice the econobox parked next to it.

Peregrine falcon

Bull Elk