Kilometers and Pearl come to visit! (Nov. 8)

In one lengthy day we had a luxurious omeletey breakfast, hiked around Red Rock Canyon, off-roaded to find "Burro" Schmidt's tunnel (some detours were had accidentally), and clambered throughout fossil falls.

Much jumping photos were taken.

Flying high on the red rocks.

We three hat-wearing adventurers...

The walls in "Burro" Schmidt's cabin were lined with... uhhh... garbage. But nifty garbage from the 1920's through the 1950's!

Jumping over Saltdale on the other side of Burro Schmidt's tunnel.

Roaming up, over, under and through the water-carved rocks at Fossil Falls.

End of Year Adventures

Ahhhh, exams being over and fun needing to be had, the geology club (and their fearless empire-building leader) set out on epic adventure of "nerds in the wilderness".

Day 1 was a gorgeous day in the desert, and considering the date was December 12th, we were surprised by the warmth. The clouds were neat looking too.

The plan was to take Mesquite Canyon up into Red Rock Canyon State Park to get to Burro Schmidt's Tunnel, a different route than I usually go. We had 3 vehicles, countless cameras, a Middle East Feast, water, tow strap, emergency contact, energy, rock hammers and a bottle of dilute hydrochloric acid.

Some things were quite different: puddles of water, signs (usually when I go I don't see any signs... so this is an improvement I guess?), the original cabin was boarded up - so no one can get in anymore...

The mummified rat and separated soy sauce also seemed to be "new" - or at least uncovered - the 2nd and 3rd built cabins on the site seem to be undergoing "renovations" of a sort. Of the sort that involves removing scads of mattresses and other garbage, but leaving behind old soy sauce and dessicated rodents.

Other things, like the tremendous views, remained the same - breathtaking as ever.

After visiting Burro Schmidt's tunnel for the zillionth time, I suggested we visit the Bickel Camp, which I had actually never stopped at before. An old time prospector who overlapped in time partially with our old friend Schmidt, he was slightly less nutty and actually mined gold and sold it, rather than digging a tunnel from nowhere to nowhere.

Gas can collection that I was intrigued by.

"Interesting"

56 years of canned beans.

Walt himself. Quite beardy. The remainder of the day was spent trying to not get stuck in the middle of the desert, which had a surprisingly wet sandy floor that day, which was remarkably difficult for our token 2 wheel drive truck to cross. Also, the "roads" would randomly be punctuated by a cliff or ravine or massive rock or fence or something inconvenient for even Snaggletooth (the Geomobile Jeep) to navigate.

The next part of the end of year geo club adventure series (day 2) was a garnet hunt in the moutains between us and LA. This was appropriate because garrrnets are the pirate ore (yarrr). We hiked up a mountain in a cloud.

It gave pretty spectacular, spooky, fairytale-like scenery.

So did the trees.

And then it actually snowed - which, for some, was their first ever snowfall. For me, it was like "huh, it's snowing... in southern California"

Once garnet hunting was deemed a success (and garnets were found), we continued on with the non-denominational end-of-year pirate-themed geology winter party - with a dino bounce house. For me, my first time in a bounce house - YAY! Thanks to one of the geo club students (El Presidente) who actually owns it (well, her family does).

After we bounced ourselves silly and legless we retreated to dinner, which included the traditional pirate feast of "fish loaf" (a fish baked into a loaf - kalakukko - traditional recipe). Captain Bear Beard actually undertook this task (and built the elephant pinata) - and went to the extent of shaping the loaf like a fish too. It was excellent. No fish heads were included on the inside. Nor was there bacon, as one of our young pirates does not eat meat. Yarrr.

Logically there were brachiosaur and elephant cookies to be decorated & eaten (thanks Lulu for the brachiosaur cookie/pancake cutter - still comes in handy). Along with loads of other treats.

The evening culminated with games (Apples to Apples & Cranium), and a white elephant gift exchange and white elephant pirate pinata (obviously). It was necessary to use the "double eye patch" blind fold method and eventually finish it off with swords. All in all it would have been tricky to squeeze anything else in, this was one of the best multi-themed adventure-parties I have ever done. Much laughter was involved.

Another snippet of odd California history

What remains now of 1 extremely OCD man, 1 one-armed man, and 1 long-lived and very strange woman are these barbed-wire bound and vandalized shacks in more or less the middle of nowhere. The tunnel that took "Burro" Schmidt 32 or 38 years (depending on your source) to dig out through solid granite, by hand, solo, that leads nowhere (see view of cliff edge looking down on salt flat playa below) was certainly worth rumbling over to see. It's unreal how people lived and what they did out here in the early 1900's - and all of these people who lived up here on this mountain (not simultaneously) completely missed out on the California Gold Rush too. Read about Burro Schmidt, Mike Lee, and Tonie Seger - I highly recommend it.

Leaving "Burro" Schmidt's tunnel (Nov. 8)

This Weekend's Lesson in Southern California History

Amongst a trip to LA to visit family, I made a commitment to find and photograph the "famous" Beale's Cut (that no one I've talked to so far has heard of before me). I bought the Ridge Route book, because I am fascinated with this sort of history.

In 1862 General Beale completed this cut [by hand], providing a route through the San Bernadinos that effectively connected northern and southern California. The following year it was deepened to its maximum of 90 feet! This definitely ranks up there with Burro Schmidt's tunnel in terms of engineering feats. However, Schmidt has Beale beat in terms of uselessness and randomness. Or perhaps, Beale has Schmidt beat in terms of usefulness?

Looking north up Beale's Cut, earliest known photo. Taken from here.

By 1910, traffic had significantly changed... from the horses and carriages that scrambled up and over the cut in the late 1800s to motor vehicles (the allegedly had to drive up the cut in reverse so that fuel reached the engine), to cargo trucks in the early 1900s. As a result, the Newhall Tunnel was constructed for truck traffic nearby, actually tunneling through the mountains, and the Cut was essentially abandonned. Traffic though (again, depending on which source you read) still used it until the original construction of Ridge Route in 1915.

Depending on which source you read, the cut collapsed sometime in the late 1930's, losing 2/3 of its depth. Below is the photo that I took with my phone (why oh why did I forget my camera???), at approximately the same angle as the B&W photo above. It's obviously overgrown.


The Cut was used for backdrops (either superimposed or actually filmed there) for Westerns. There is also apparently a famous (but superimposed) photo of some Western star jumping on a horse across the cut. Look it up on google if you want.

This is an aerial photo looking south with the Cut in the middle. Hwy 14 is to the left.

Cool stuff I say. Cool stuff.

Engineers: welcome to the middle of nowhere

I took the engineer's club up to see Burro Schmidt's tunnel on Saturday. Since the last caretaker, Tonie Seeger, died - the route isn't super well maintained. We had to follow sparsely arranged signs, examples above.

Of course I made them jump. It is difficult to coordinate a group. Especially if they don't understand what they're doing.

I had to get the other profs to help me show them how!

You know you're in the middle of the high desert when...