Kamlichee Ridge Draconius Go and Pokemon Go

A lot of roads are washed out and the mountains have snow and the days are short.  Time to hike close to home.  Today I made my second trip up Kamilchee Ridge starting near the Lake Isabella boat ramp.  I think the hike was 7 miles, but I’m not sure since my GPS is broken and I had to use my phone for navigation.

The view at the top is good but it was cloudy and rain was falling so I did not stay long.  I went up the power line mostly.  On the way down I took a different route.  In one spot all my maps show a road going through, but the road does not go through, it dead ends.   It does not even look like the road ever when through there.  

 There is a trail that connects  two roads together though, it was even flagged.

 I found that most tree farms have trails that make all the roads connect.  I think they are motorcycle trails.   A dead end road in a mature tree farm,  is almost never a reason to have to back track because there will nearly always be a trail at the end of the road.

I had both Draconius Go and Pokémon Go loaded for the entire hike.  I did not find as many Draconius Go stops (Pillars of Abundance)  as I had hoped and I ran out of eggs to hatch on the summit. 

In both games you hatch eggs by walking and you collect fresh eggs at stops.  Pokémon go has no stops in wild areas so I always just run out of eggs on my hikes and then turn the game off or walk my buddy pokemon.

Draconius go has pillars almost everywhere, but there was only one stop on the way up.  Draconius go is much more fun to play when hiking.

I waited at that one pillar stop for 15 minutes so I could spin it 3 times but no eggs dropped.  On the way back down I stopped for lunch and coffee at the Draconius Go stop and still no eggs were dropping. 

So I enchanted the pillar/ stop to drop only eggs.  With three spins I refilled my egg bag and was ready to go.  I did not want to walk three miles and not get any egg hatching credit! 

Now I feel like I have to go back at least a few times to visit my enchanted pillar.  I found a bunch of Chanterelles in the area on the way down.  I was surprised that they were in such good shape with all of the rain we have had this past few weeks. 

Hike started at ten am and ended at about 4pm.  

7.5 miles with 1,100 feet elevation gain (Cir)

dirt in my image sensor and too tired to fix it in post

Nice natural decommissioned road unlike the USFS monstrosities

Old roads are fun to hike on when the USFS has not tilled them up

Lunch on the way back down

Ramen minus the flavor pack (msg gives me migraines)
 Plus hot sauce, peanut butter, dried peas
salt and dehydrated hamburger.

Turkey Burn 2017, Dayton Peak

Turkey burn day!  The weather forecast was foul and I wanted to sleep in, so a close to home hike seemed ideal.  The road to Staircase is washed out, so I knew that would make the usual nearby trails even more crowded.

Dayton Peak is an okay tree farm hike.  The Peak has a great view when it's not all socked in with fog.  Most of the time when I do this hike it is winter time and the view is not there.  The best part about this hike is how close it is to home.  I don't have to wear out my car driving to the trail head.  Also there is plenty of solitude to be found on a weekday anyway.  During the week in the summer I think this would be a miserable hike with all the active logging operations.




 I reached level 40 in Pokemon go and am getting bored with the stale game play and lack of good updates.  With every update Pokemon go seems to get worse.  Now I am playing Draconius go too.  I can still get walking credit and catch things in Pokemon go by using my go plus in the background while playing Draconius go.

Draconuis go is a lot more fun to play when hiking, it has buildings and spawns spread out randomly instead of just in the cities.  On this hike I had lots of fun brushcrashing to a portal, finding a Mother of Dragons and hatching a 10hour egg.  I found two overlapping pillars of abundance (think pokestop) on the summit where I have my lunch.  All I could do in Pokemon go was hatch all of my eggs by walking and then I was done.  No pokestops anywhere on my trails so no way to fill up with eggs.  I did catch one Nindoran male at the summit though.


So this is not the most exciting hike and it's not the most beautiful hike but with a little help from Draconius go I had a blast today.  Dayton Peak is also quite clean considering how close it is to Shelton.  I find that all the close in hikes are clogged with garbage and toxic wastes dumps such as Goose Lake and the C street landfill.  But this hike does not seem so nasty.  Still with it being close to Shelton I expect there must be a toxic waste sight of some sort in the area and I pack in all of my own water from home.

I really want to get a Sawyer S3 filter  to filter out all the toxins and herbicides, so I can safely drink tree farm water.  Its on my Christmas list if you want to send me one.

I packed to turkey sandwiches but only ate one on the trail.  I did not have coffee at the top in the cold and wind.  I had a coffee break in the woods near two overlapping pillars of abundance.

Two trucks drove past, I hid both times. I always hide when I see or hear a car.  Better safe than sorry.

9 miles with 750 feet elevation gain.

The trail head

A no calorie supper.  Pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert
Grandma said that nothing has any calories in it on holidays and on your birthday.
I'm sure that grandma was right, but just to be safe I always do a turkey burn.

This hand warmer was missing the metal piece that activates it.

A logging road.  Not to pretty, but better than the city and plenty of room for stretching the legs out.

Lunch Lake

Big Creek Trail Slated for Logging. Oh no!

Got out an hiked in spite of a terrible weather forcast.  I was tired and not really feeling it at first but trying to keep a good attitude.

Keeping my good attitude was a struggle when I found out that the first mile of the trail shortly after the brige is slated for logging.  So dissapointed that they will log my go to winter trail.  Is there a way to fight this?

Made it up to a bench on the lower Ellinor trail.  It was nice to get up into the snow and out of the rain.

Sage does not handle the cold well.  She started shaking really hard at lunch time, so I gave her my coat to wear over her dog coat.

This is a terrible year for mushrooms.  I have not found any Matsutake at all and every few King Boletes and Chanterelles.  Big Creek is not a good mushroom trail anyway.  I'm talking about all my spots combined this year.


7.5 miles with 2,500 feet elevation gain.

Mount Lincoln Way Trail

Decided to head up to Big Log without the dog.  Dog’s are not allowed in the National Park.  Kind of dreaded my decision the night before.  Such a long boring hike in a tunnel and I knew I would be tired and hurting at the end.  So why do it?  It felt nostalgic.  I kept thinking of the one winter my mother came to visit for Christmas and the hike I did while she was visiting.  4 stream in the snow and I lost the trail not knowing it crossed the stream.   My mother is dead now and the visit did not end on a good note, so mixed feelings, but mostly just wish she was still alive.

A song from Rudolph and the Island of the misfit toys came on my radio just as I reached staircase.  The movie was playing a lot in my home during that Christmas visit from my mother.

I’ve been wanting to go up the Mount Lincoln way trail for a while but never was in good enough shape to deal with the elevation gain last year.  But now my iron stores are up and I can tackle the hills again.  Still the snow level was low.  Was beginning to think I might need snowshoes just to make to big log.

Hit the trail at 9am, that is a respectably early start for me.  The snow was melting, should I go up the Mount Lincoln way trail instead?  I read that the views were good and it was a wonderful sunny  day.  I made up my mind to change my mind.

The trail was very easy to follow at first, even in the snow.  Views opened up pretty quickly too thanks to the Beaver Fire.  These view s will not last though as the trees grow back.  I made it up to 2,000 feet before I lost the trail.  I had a little family of deer breaking the trail for me but then I lost their tracks.

Just before the going was about to get rough I took a long coffee break.  During my break trees kept throwing snowballs at me.  I was lucky that they did not knock over my coffee.

Trees throwing snowballs at me

I was pretty sure that there was a switch back where I lost the trail but the way was just not clear and for whatever reason I was starting to feel a bit spooked.  Perhaps my coffee break at a view point was to blame. 

The views were great, the sun was out and I had  lots of fun in the snow.  My feet stayed perfectly dry in my La Sportiva boots.  Gortex boots do keep my feet dry if they are well made and don’t leak.  My Solomon brand Gore-Tex boots and shoes were all leaky and horrible.

I will go back this summer maybe and see how high I can get up that trail before it becomes too technical.  Need to hurry and get up there a few times before the trees grow back and the views are gone.  Always nice to find a “new” trail in such an old place.     

I would have gone up that trail a long time ago if I had known it was so easy to follow.

7 miles with 1,500 feet elevation gain.

coffee break

Lost the trail near here

log hidden under snow is the trail