The Rock at Pilot Rock

On the October 19 we (Dan, Rochelle and Daniel) made the hike to Pilot rock down by the Oregon border between Oregon and Californa.
We pick up Daniel in Medford, about 1:00PM and headed down I-5 going south.
You get off at the top off near Kalhands or if you were going sking, you go the same way, but pass by the road that goes to Mountaing ashland  sky area, and just drive on down for about three or four miles.
You will come to some dirt roads on the left and one will have a sign that say, this way to Pilot Rock.
The road goes alone for about 3 mile or so.
The Metro would not have made it down this road, but we took the Subaru, and got there with out any trouble. Lots of rock to get around, and pot hole of large size to weave around.
This is a new wilderness area, will in 2009, and so you can't drive up to the old trail head.
You now have to park at a gravel pit about 1+ miles from the old trail.
Pretty flat walking, till you get to the trail, going left up the hill and start to climb pretty good after about 300 feet and get pretty steep, till you get the the rocks and then you have climb up a gutter that goes up the hill for about 400 to 500 feet.
The top is 5200 feet, and the weather was about 60 + dergees, great veiw all around the valley.
Busy  day on the Rock, had to wait for people coming down, about 8 and then when we were on top about 9 more people come up and went down.
We spent about 1 hour on top.
The last 1/4 mile is pretty tough, have to get on all fours to work you way up the rocks.
A fun day, no climbs log this time. We climb it in 2007 and found note book with lots of story of other people who had climb and the place there were from.

Daniel and Rochelle at TH.

Looking North.

Daniel and Rochelle going UP.

Looking down, some people going down.

Rochelle using a short cut.

Rochelle side hilling.

Daniel going down.

Looking up the gutter, the top is just right there.

Oregon Sunstone?

In July I did a road trip and geo caching trip as will.
So the trip took me over to highway 395 in east Oregon.
I pick up a coup caches alone the way, heading down highway 140 to Lakeview.
My goal this day was to get to a place were the Oregon Sunstone is found.
As it happened, it is the only place, that is not a real a cache out there, but only a Earth Cache.
Just a place to find, but not a cache or log sheet to sign.
Most of the time you have do something or answer some questions.
Heading north up 395 for about 25 miles then turn right out into sage bush for another 25 miles of dirt, rock and gravel, and slow driving.
This part took about 2 hours and at times I was not

complete sure that I was heading in the right direction , but the GPS pretty much kept me thinking that I was going in the right way. LOL
I got out there about 3:30PM, and it was a hot one. Read the sign to see what I could do or not do.
As it turns out there is about 7 square mile area that the Sunstone are found, and all but 1 square mile is under a Mining clams.
The one square is held by the BLM, and is for public uses.
As you can see I found a few, this is like picking up diamond off the sand and dirt, just laying there.

The bigger ones is about 1/2" a bunch of 3/8 and lots of 1/4 inches.

Looking around there is a place in Utah that you can do the same thing, called Sunstone hill or something like that.
Here a little more info about sunstones.
A variety known as Oregon sunstone is found in Harney County, Oregon and in eastern Lake County north of Plush. Oregon sunstone contains inclusions of copper crystals. Oregon sunstones can be up to three inches wide. The copper leads to variant color within some stones, where turning one stone will result in manifold hues: the more copper within the stone, the darker the complexion.^[2]

On August 4, 1987, the Oregon State Legislature designated Oregon sunstone as its state gemstone by joint resolution.^[3]

I Spy A Hawk

On June 22 a Saturday I was working on one of the cars, not sure witch one, it was one of them.
I came out of the shop and these bird were cutting up, making all kind of nose.
There were mad at something, it seemed.
Started looking around in the lower parking area and found this hawk seating in the tree about 25 feet up in the tree,
As you can see He is a big guy, about 16 inch tall, with good feather color and watching the grape arbor?
The little birds would dive bomb at his head, and he would just at the last second he would turn his head and snap his beak at the little bird, and the little bird would weave around just in time and miss the beak.
So this went on for a coup of hours, then the hawk was just not there.
I thought the hawk had few off. but the little birds were still up set, and making lots of noses.
Walking back from the front of the house to the shop, the hawk came over the grape arbor with a snake in talents and fly away.
So the hawk had been watching the snake for the last few hours, to catch it, the snake was about 16 inch long.
In about another hours the hawk came back but only stayed about 30 minutes.
Pretty cool.
They have a nest on the back part of the property, I hear the young chicks, coup times a year.

A Motor Bike?

I had seen this bike with a motor on it going down the road some time ago, and had wanting to get a closer look at the set-up.
So I saw it locked up and stopped to get some pictures and a closer look.

This is a Diamondback, older model, but a strong frame.

I could not tell what the motor was, could be Honda, Yamaha, or some thing else.

It is a 2 stroke that runs on mix fuel. So, gas and oil has to mixed together, like 30/1 mix.

Meaning 30 part gas to 1 part oil.
And the reason for this, is that 2 stroke do not have a oil pan to oil the bottom of the motor when it running.
Un-like you car motor it has a place to hold motor oil so the bottom of engine is lubed, with a oil pump and splashing oil.

This looks to be about 50 cc to 90 cc motor from a real motor bike, like a kids dirt bike.

 I think it would be interesting to make something like this with a weed eater motor, I have a 49 cc motor in the shop, one of these days.

The Day At Squaw Lake

On Saturday, March 23, 2013.
We took a trip up to Squaw lake, that is located above Applegate Lake. about 7 miles or so.

The picture is of Daniel at little squaw lake, it is about 10 acres in size. Not to many people out to day.

Good thing Daniel did not fall in. so had no wet and smelly Daniel for the ride home.

Here is Daniel, Rochelle and Lucy(way in the back ground) on the trail hiking alone the shore of Little Squaw lake.

We did find about 6 geocaches in the area.
And a new trail called Summit Lake TH, must lead up to some high lake. looks like about 3.5 to 4 mile one way. I think I'll come back with the mountain bike and ride this one.
And hide some caches as will.

The Last Snow of 2013

 As you can see the snow isn't much, but in was Febuary 19, 2013 a little late.
I'm glade its over, I only had to get up early 2 morning and drive roads this year.
This year we had to chain up 13 bus for the PM run in Rogue River, not to bad.
Only last 3 set of chains from being to loses.

Sure looks pretty, :)
Only came to about 3/4 inch.
Work for me the last snow.

To Miller Lake

 Miller Lake is localed just out of a little town of Applegate, up a road call Thomson creek road.
It about 12 miles to the top, were the road forks, and the left turn goes to Applegate lake and the hard right goes to Gray back mountain, a right and 7 miles will get you to Miller lake.
I was there in ?????? I was able to drive right up to the trail head and hike the 1 mile to the lake. But, the bridge washed out about 4 years ago and was not replaced. So now you cross the in the creek.

As can be seem, the barren with the painted signage, "Miller lake 4 miles" on the other side was the bridge.
 The next picture is the creek crossing, not to bad, but it is about 12 inch deep and pretty rocky.

I parked in front of the bearer and but the bike together and took my shoes off and push the bike across in the water and the temp was really good, I would have guessed about 60 degrees. The current was a little much, I put the bike on the up stream side and just leaned into it a little, the front pushed back a little, but the back wheel would swing around behind and hang there till I was out of the water.

On the other side was a large rock to seat on to air dry my feet for a few minutes.
I started out in lowest of the 27 gears I had for about the first 1/2 mile, then I was about to 2 and 3 off the bottom gears for most of the ride to the lake.
I got to the trail head in about 1:05, this some how came out to 3.33 miles, 3.5 advage speed. pretty slow.

From the TH its about 3/4 of  a mile of pretty good trail. some parts are real rock parts,

due to water washing down the trail leaving a butch of rocks on top, none much bigger than 6 inch in size.

I did push the bike up the trail about 1/2 mile and hide it, and walked into the lake.
I use the mark a spot on the GPS so I could find the bike later, if I need it. More about that later.

The Lake is about 7 acres in size as can be seen from the pictures, and it is all snow melt coming off the peak that is about 800 feet above the lake. There is a stream about 2 feet wide pouring into the lake, in the third picture from the top you can

just see the stream pouring.
The was a natural lake, but was a little smaller, so a 20 foot dam was build out of dirt and added a shoot for the over flow form  a year around creek. I believe it was used for irrigation around 1910 to 1930s and some mining.
There is a cache here, "Is it Miller Time" there was another cache about mile away, on the other side of the lake, up on the peak.
So I went up the trail above the lake and found that it was going in the wrong way so I cut over the ridge back to the bike I had marked on the GPS. For some reason the GPS lead me to another trail that looked just like the one I hike up the trail to the lake, and there was no bike at the spot? So I know that the real trail was down the hill, closer to the creek, so I walk on down there and guess what I found my bike after about 15 minutes of looking around. As it turn out, what ever happened, the bike was about 400 feet from wear it should have been. The ride down the hill was pretty quit, took about 25 minutes to get to the car. So I got 7.5 miles in 1 hour and 25 minutes

The Wreck

In December last year, this bus was hit, in its on lane, and hit pretty hard.

The good thing is everyone walked away.

 The bus was traveling about 25 mph going into a left hand curve and the car, a small 4 door, coming from the other direction and slid out of his lane into the buses lane, don't know how fast the car was going ? 

This happened so fast, I do not think the driver had any time to steer away or applie the brakes. I watch a inside camera shot of the the accident, and it happed very fast. But that being said. The driver was up out of his seat and moving to the back to get the kids out almost befor it stopped moving. The bus was empted out in about 1 minutes. In most cases the driver seat there in shock, and only starts moving after there hear the kids in the back.

The car was pushed all the way back to the front axle of the bus, with the windshield just showing, and front doors pin shut, the driver had to climb out the roof hatch to get out of the car, driver was check out at hospital and Ok.  

The kids, most went on to school on another big bus and a two kids were check out and went to school later. The driver was ready to do the PM route but the boss sent him home, and he did the route the next morning.

At the point of contact between the bus and car, the bus carried the car about 60 feet before coming to a complete stop, the bus stay in its lane, just went straght.

The interesting point is when a air brakes system breaks a line or just loses the air in the system the rear brake set-up or go to full lock-up, this can take 15 to 30 seconds to happen.

What I'm leading up to, the car, when it went under the front of the bus, it cut the bottem of the foot brake valve into 4 pieces, so the driver could not uses the brakes even if he wanted to, thank to air brake system.
Now if this was a hydraulic brake system, the bus would have just kept rolling till the car was mashed up enough to stop the bus. The bus save the car drivers life, by stopping on its own. 

Now if this would have been a log truck or other big truck, the car would have been completely run over before stopping.

New High Number

It happened on Saturday Januay 19,  I found my 2500th cache.  Only took a little over 9 years and 9 months to do. Been pretty slow this past year, not going out to many times to cache. But here it is, the cache is called "Copper" named after a road near by the cache.  I had been at 2495 for about six months, so I got out there and did it. This is the GC number to the cache, if you click on the GC number it will take you to the cache page.

GC2JTFG I did find 8 other cache that same day, it was a good day caching, I would like to plan a road trip this summer and do more caching in a different part of Oregon and Califoria, I have to work on that.

 

Snow December 2012

As you can see, we did have little snow on December 18. It did buld up to about 3 or more inches and then melted a little.  Then the temp dropped and the snow lasted about 2 weeks.    But as of today the temp has been running abour 25 to 35 degrees for about 3 week and just will not warm up, I wish it would cloud up and rain, that way the temp would come up to the 40 any ways. We have had a much longer spell of cold, then we normal get, but this is all good, it can kill some of the bad bugs the lay in the top soil till the weather warms up and come back to life and eat every thing.

 

 

 

Daniel Back From His Mission

Here is Daniel on November 28, 2012 at the airport in Medford Oregon.

If you look really close, you can tell that He is really happy to be home. LOL

He spent two years in the San Fernando Caifornia Mission.

He was at 7 address,
Santa Clarita
Sylmar
Suagus
Canyon Country
Saugus
West Hills
Woodland Hills

Daniel really loved his mission and really did not want to come home, He would have stay and did his missionary thing with is big smile.

That being said, He is also glad to be moving on in life and so He is making the change to being a normal member of the church, find a nice girl, that I'm ok , LOL.

And is planning to go to school real soon, just not sure were and when, and subject of study has be selected so now the wheels are in motion.
We love having Him at the house, He is some much fun to have aroud.
The top picture is Paul F. and Daniel, Daniel's best friend from high school.

The Highest Peak In Josephine County

Looking from a near by peak out.

I hiked in October 12, 2012

Looking at Mt. Shasta in Ca.

That high peak happens to be Grayback Mountain at 7055 feet.
For being the highest, you really can't see it all that much.
The view to the left is look in the the Medford area I think.

Looking back down into Williams area.

 This view(above) is look at Mount Shasta, whitch is over the border in Calfornai.

 Left not sure, but could be in the Grants Pass, area.

On a peak near by, looking at GrayBack.

This shot is of Grayback, it self, I did not get there as you can guess, because I run out of time.

 It was about half a mile or so, but there is no trail so I had to cut crosss countery to get there, maybe about 30 to 40 minutes to do this.
I had planned to come in from the other side on the next trip.
Hope I get back before the snow flys. The snow came down to 3000 feet two weeks later, and stayed there for about 4 weeks. I did hide a cache on this peak, put it will have to wait tobe list next year when I go back to place the other 2 caches, it should under about 6 foot of snow.

Looking from Sugar Loaf at the back side of Grayback.

Looking  Mt. Mclought

The trail start near the rocks and goes across rock field all the way over to Oregon Cave area.

 Left looking up from the trail to Grayback peak.

Sign to every place.

 Signs pointing out place to go, I went right to Windy Gap and Surger Loaf peak.
Behind the sign and up the hill is the Grayback.

The cablen down the trail.

 Left.
I had read the cabien had burn down, so I did not go over that way, but from area shot, you can see the roof ??



Below, different trail I passed along the way.

Trail marker, also the fork in the trail.

Caben some place down there.

Found That Missing Bolt

This is a bad place to store a missing bolt. Ha Ha
I bought this Metro a few months back and the guy said that the water pump started leak so He installed a new one and drove it around the block and then it started making this noisey and would hardly run to get back.
Must have work on it for a few months, changing the timing belt around to different spot on the gears, and messing with distributor cap, and bought a different fuel injection unit and I'm sure a lot of other things that I don't know about.
So, the story gose like this, this Guy had to take the top of the air cleaner off to get to the water pump, and must have set some of the water pump bolts in the lower half of the of the air filter housing.
And then you know what happened next.
One of the bolts was missing, I sure he thought some one was playing tricks with Him, or one of the kids must have took it and thow it away, and now He had to get another one.
Will here it is.
It run so bad, that it was not ran to long and did  not do any damage.
The only thing is you can't get to it with out removing the head.


So, I now have it all back together and it runs much better now, I drove it about 15 miles last week.
This is my new project car, 1994  4 door Geo Metro, the color is red, not my favorit color, so some time down the road I'm going have to paint it, maybe sliver or California Gold.

Caching on Mt. Elijah

 

The hike to Mt. Elijah was good little hike.

 

Look down on Bigelow Lakes mostly pond lills.

I did this hike on November 10, with Blazerfan, we did the hike in about 1 hour.
It was a little cool, being that it is over 5000 feet at the top.
Blazerfan let me be the First To Find the geo cache.



Look from the top down from the top.

This Mt. Elijah at the top left.
And Bigelow is down below on the right.