Posts Tagged: California

I spent the summer of 2011 working for the U.S. National Park Service in Yosemite. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I was doing legal work—public land use and government contracts. My job was usually a 9-5 day during the week, but my schedule was flexible and the days were long, so I had plenty of time to explore the park. The Park Service set me up a two-bedroom house in the employee village below Yosemite Falls.

State Route 1 runs along the Pacific Coast for most of California’s length, winding steeply and sharply along some of the world’s most spectacular shores. But about forty miles north of Mendocino, the highway takes an abrupt turn east and joins Highway 101 further inland. The highway leaves the coast because that part of California is so rugged that the highway’s planners simply couldn’t build a road there. Known as the Lost Coast, the area boasts some of the most incredible coastline in the world, with steep cliffs and hills dropping straight into the ocean.

About thirty miles south of Lake Tahoe and thirty miles north of Yosemite, the Carson Iceberg Wilderness is a little known gem in California’s high country. Just beyond Bear Valley on Highway 4, the wilderness is past the point at which the road is maintained in winter, making access impossible after the first heavy snows of winter. I led an introductory backpacking trip to Carson Iceberg just before the beginning of the winter season.

Fourteen thousand, one hundred, and sixty-two foot Mount Shasta is a dormant volcano that rises in solitary drama in the far north of California. A few years ago, I attempted the climb with my father. We were turned back by low snow, poor conditions, and severe dehydration. Over Memorial Day weekend I tried again with a group of friends from school.

We drove to Mount Shasta on Friday afternoon. That night, we camped at Bunny Flat, the trailhead for the popular Avalanche Gulch route at 6950′. Unusually for May, Bunny Flat was still covered in snow. That was a good sign—everything we’d seen and heard suggested that climbing conditions were significantly better than the last time I’d attempted the peak. We pitched a tent on a flat snow patch south of the road, and some of us slept outside on an exposed dirt patch beneath the stars.

At 9,983′, Pyramid Peak is the highest point in California’s Desolation Wilderness. Since it is only about a three hour drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, Desolation Wilderness is the most heavily-used wilderness area in the United States. Thus exploring Desolation during the winter months has a number of advantages—not only do the snow-covered peaks make for spectacular vistas, but most of the visitors that swarm the area during the summer are kept away by colder temperatures and feet of snow.