Back to Recently
Sequoia National Forest   June 22-July 7, 2017
On the side of Bald Mountain when the Schaeffer Fire was only about a day old
The temperatures in Ridgecrest had been in the 110-115 range and I wanted out of the heat. My closest escape is about 60 miles away at around 8000' in elevation. a 6000 foot gain from Ridgecrest should be 20 degrees cooler. it was more like 30 degrees. Out of the frying pan and into the woods. (Almost into the fire)
Mt Florence and the headwaters of the Little Kern River	The Kaweah's and the Grand Arroyo
Domelands with distant Owen's  and Jenkin's Peaks (The eastern edge of the Sierra near Ridgecrest)
Sun striking Stegosaurs Fin in Domelands	The South Fork of the Kern at Kennedy Meadows
I went down to Kernville on a milk run (literally). The Fairview store at McNally's was closed so I ended up doing a 90 mile round trip down to the Kern River and Lake Isabella. The river is running very strong and I imagine someone will die in it over the coming 4th of July weekend. The white water rafting people are very happy for a great season.
Coming back up from Ridgecrest on Wednesday was a bit smoky
Powell Meadows tank wasn't flowing. Somebody must have just turned it on because it was still filling	12,000' Olancha Peak was devoid of snow on the southwest flank.
Thursday I checked out the area I usually camp around over towards Granite Knob.. The Monache Jeep trail was open and people were camped in the Granite Knob area. The area was out of the smoke from the fire at the time, unlike my camp, but I decided not to move.
Big fat bees in the mountains
I see two creatures faces, one looking each way on the road to Powell Meadows	The Schaeffer fire from Beach Ridge on  Friday June 30th (lightning started it last Saturday)
Bald Mountain with smoke to it'sright
The Schaeffer Fire Sunday July 1st
Saturday June 24th it rained on my camp for an hour or more during lightning storms. A lightning strike ignited a fire near Schaeffer Mountain on the southwest ridge of Rattlesnake Creek about 6 miles from my camp. It is in the footprint of the 2002 McNally fire and is just being monitored. Periodically my camp gets inundated with smoke an ash but not too severely. By Sunday they had men in the field. I saw bunches of forest service firefighting trucks coming back past my camp towards Black rock Station
They have turned the Bitter creek Trailhead area into a heliport. Opened Troy Meadows Overflow and made it a one way loop in the road and out the campsites. The campsites are sleeping areas for the fire fighters. First time I've seen the area open in over 5 years so I drove to the end of the road and hiked a little up Mahogany Creek. There is a semi trailer parked at the gate on this end of beach Ridge Road.
Monache Meadows
The road that used to allow you to ford the South fork of The Kern River washed away with the heavy spring runoff. The river was too deep even if you could reach it. The crossing to the north was still usable and people were collected on the other side of the river. There was only one fisherman just a few minutes before. (A polarizing filter was used to remove the sky's reflection and enable seeing the river bottom more clearly. The water is not brown the river bottom is.)
Water was overflowing from Powell Meadows tank	Blackrock Station has become base camp for the fire
Schaeffer fire on Monday July 3rd
4th of July
Back to Recently