Crown Valley Day 3

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We woke up to a partly cloudy sky on our third day in Crown Valley.  After breakfast, we packed up camp and headed down the drainage from Geraldine Lakes toward the old Dude Ranch.
At one point in time, there was a trail here.  Now it’s overgrown enough that most of the time we couldn’t find any sign of where it once went.



We stored our packs in a tree near the old trail junction between the trail that once headed up to Geraldine Lakes and the trail that still gets use.  That trail heads down into Kings Canyon National Park and Tehipite Valley.  This panorama is from a bare granite ridgeline still inside the wilderness.  Tea Kettle Dome is on the left and the mountains in the middle are well within Kings Canyon National Park.

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The park boundary.

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Almost to the edge of the canyon.  Before this area burned a few years ago, you never would have guessed there is a multi-thousand-foot-deep canyon just ahead.

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A rich meadow along the way to the canyon.

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The big canyon emerges.  Tehipite Dome is just left of center.

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The benchmark at the lip of the canyon.

That’s a big, deep canyon.  I was at the top end of this canyon once in 1996.  That area is at least 25 miles upriver from our vantage point.

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A good storm came through a couple years ago and gutted out much of the canyon and the mountain streams on the other side of the canyon from our overlook.
It is hard to capture just how huge and surprising this canyon is.  Someday I’ll come back and hike through the canyon.

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Tehipite Dome.
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Returning from the National Park, we retraced our path back to our hanging packs.

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Walking through one of the many meadows in Crown Valley.

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The old Dude Ranch in Crown Valley named Johnson’s Cow Camp.  It was established in 1916 and the Johnson family still comes every summer to their land.

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Little cabins at the edge of the meadow.

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They even have a small pelton wheel electric generator to make some power.

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Ike Smit’s fake tombstone on the way out of Crown Valley.

Yes, the tomb stone is fake.  I spent the summer of 1975 at the Crown Valley Guard Station.  At the time, there was a wooden “tombstone”  along the trail a ways below the guard station heading towards Crown Valley.  I asked Clyde Johnson about it one day when he was staying at Crown Valley.  Clyde was in his 70’s and had been a teenager when his father bought Crown Valley from Rodgers (Rodgers Ridge is named after him) and the additional 5 – 40 acre parcels scattered around back there.  At the time Johnson thought he had bought a total of 3000 acres but the USFS contested the validity of a number of the land claims and most were ruled not valid.  In the 1920’s the Johnsons started a Dude ranch.  It was quite popular and had 2 or 3 Ca. governors stay there.  They had electricity form a big water wheel (located down the stream a ways from the current one), a couple cows for milk, etc,  Clyde said they put up tombstone to impress the guests as they were brought in on horseback.  In the 70’s I do not remember a name on it.

Dave Van Bossuyt’s recollections about the fake tombstone and the dude ranch that Clyde Johnson and his family used to run in Crown Valley.
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The old USFS Crown Valley Guard Station.  My father worked out of here one summer in the 1970s.

The summer of ’75 I was a trail crew foreman (2 of us were on horseback and would be in for 10 days, off for 4), wilderness ranger and fire crew.  We maintained all the trails up to the top of Crown Pass.  Many of those trails are no longer maintained, like to Mountain Meadow, from Crown Valley to Geraldine, etc.  Just as an FYI, the cabin was probably built in 1936.  New sill logs, a new floor and new countertop and sink were installed in 1973 by the trail crew.  The guys found newspaper stuffed between a couple of the logs as chinking dated 1936.  They used 12 handyman jacks, pilfered from USFS rigs in the District to raise the cabin.  Then had a big mule to skid new lodgepole logs down the hill.   

One of our main jobs in ’75, apart from trail work, was cleaning up old deer hunter camps.  We cleaned up about 25 of them.  Lots of old rust cans and bottles, plastic tarps,, etc.  From one camp to the south in the Valley below the Obelisk, we cleaned up 600 pounds of trash, demolished a large rock fireplace that had been built with probably 100 pounds of cement, a burned a large log picnic table.  It took to trips on horseback to haul all that garbage back to the Crown Valley R.S.

My wife and I spent the summer of ’73 as wilderness rangers covering Dinkey Lakes, Red Mnt basin, Bench Valley, Black Cap basin and Crown.  I was the paid seasonal, Melinda and unpaid volunteer.  My instructions for the summer were to hike every trail, talk to everyone we met and give them a wilderness permit if they did not have one, and fish every lake since the district did not know much about the fish back there then.  We talked to 1000 people, hiked all the trails, and fished 59 lakes.  I was by myself in 1974 as Melinda was running the Dinkey Creek Campground.  I would go in for a 5 or 10 day tour.  I talked to 1500 people that year.  I could hit Red Mnt basin, bench Valley and black Cap in a 5 day tour using xcountry routes to jump from basin to basin.
  
In 40 years or better of hiking in the backcountry, I think I know of and have used every cross country route. 

BTW, I assume you have probably seen the original guard station built in 1917 a ways up the hill from the current one.  It is a small cabin that is in bad shape after a big red fir fell on it a number of years ago.  

Dave Van Bossuyt’s recollections of the second guard station build in Crown Valley and other aspects of when he and my mom used to work in the wilderness.
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The cabin smelled strongly of something in the weasel family.  Maybe a fisher or martin has made this cabin its home.  No one has stayed in the cabin in several years.

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Exposing the old, forgotten spring that once supplied the cabin with clean, cold running water.  We filled up our bottles here.

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The original guard station cabin was further up the hill.  This cabin was crushed by a falling tree several years ago.

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All setup in camp on the ridge above the cabin.


Crown Valley Day 2



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The sun rose early and through a layer of clouds.



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Some pretty late spring wildflowers.

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We decided to hike over to the Obelisk.  I have long heard about this granite dome looking over Tehipite Valley from my parents.  It is an interesting, seldom climbed dome on the boundary between the wilderness area in the National Forest and the National Park.  The knob of the Obelisk can be seen in the distance in this photo.



IMG_0162Some pretty alpine columbines.

STA_0163 - STG_0169The Obelisk gets closer.  The little hanging basin on one side of the Obelisk is a lush and rich area that is very seldom visited.  At one point in time, people used to hunt back in here.  It’s probably been twenty years since someone hunted deer or bear in the area.




IMG_0172Pretty flowers abound!

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IMG_0174Up on top of a basalt outcrop above Geraldine Lakes.


STA_0178 - STR_0195Panorama from the top.  Crown Rock is over to the left.

IMG_0196Looking back toward the Middle Fork of the Kings.



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IMG_0211The tree in the notch that we had climbed to the day before.

IMG_0212The top of the basalt ridge was strangely flat.

IMG_0213Looking toward Tea Kettle Dome.

IMG_0215The Obelisk draws near!

IMG_0216Interesting basalt.

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IMG_0219It’s been a few decades since my dad was here last.



STA_0225 - STM_0237Down in the basin near the Obelisk.

IMG_0238We went through a lush meadow that during a normal year would be full of water.  There were only a few trickles this year because of the drought.




IMG_0243It’s hard to get a sense of scale of how big the Obelisk is.  Standing next to it, the monolith of granite soars hundreds of feet into the air.  On the far side, the dropoff is probably over a thousand feet.  This is the shorter side that people usually climb.

IMG_0244On the boundary with the park.



IMG_0246Looking out toward Tehipite Valley.


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Big rock!

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It’s a huge, impressive rock that is hard to put into perspective.  Maybe someday I’ll come back and climb to the top.




IMG_0284One of the longer faces of the Obelisk.

IMG_0285Mud Lake down in the bottom of the little hanging basin on the shoulder of the Obelisk.

STA_0286 - STE_0290It’s a pretty little basin that almost no one visits anymore.

STA_0291 - STH_0298Looking out toward Tea Kettle Dome and the high country.



IMG_0301A better view of how massive the Obelisk is.

IMG_0305Lots of pretty lupine.



IMG_0307Goodbye Obelisk.  Until next time.

IMG_0308An old hunter’s camp used to be here.  No one has stayed at this camp in probably 30 or 40 years.



IMG_0310Heading up through the tall plants.

IMG_0311Back at Lower Geraldine Lake.  The clouds started to roll in.  We figured we might get a little weather although it never came.

IMG_0312A whole boatload of old cans near where we camped.



IMG_0317Looking back toward Mount Goddard, 11998′, and a few other peaks in areas where I hiked as a child.

Crown Valley Day 1

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My dad and I decided to hike into Crown Valley where he worked for a summer back in the 70s at the US Forest Service guard station.  We went in for a few days to check out his old patrol area.

 

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Lots of flowers and mosquitoes on the way from the trailhead up to the ridge guarding the entrance to Crown Valley.

 

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Crown Rock, the namesake of the valley.

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Looking south into Crown Valley.  The Obelisk is poking up right in the middle of the frame.

 

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My dad hiking along the base of Fin Ridge toward Geraldine Lakes.

 

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Looking out toward the Middle Fork of the Kings River.

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Lots of interesting geology out here.

IMG_9978Walking through a meadow down the drainage from Geraldine Lakes.

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Lower Geraldine Lake.

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We hiked up above Lower Geraldine Lake to check out the old mining prospect hole that was made in the 30s.

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Looking down the shaft that a couple prospectors sunk over a summer.

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Lots of small rock from the blasting.

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Looking up toward where the miners used to camp under a big rock.

 

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Part of an old shovel.  The prospectors left their gear here figuring that they would come back the next summer.  The money must have run out because they never did get their gear.

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Looking into the little cave where the miners camped for a summer.

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The little hearth and griddle where they cooked and stayed warm.  They even built in a chimney.

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My dad sitting in the little alcove.

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Looking out from where the miners camped.

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We decided to hike around a bit more.

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Lots of interesting geology.  There is a metamorphic intrusion into the granite here.  Lots of nutrients in the soil here make for lush meadows where big trophy bucks and plenty of does like to hang out.

 

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Walking through the deep, lush understory.

 

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Plenty of wildflowers.

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We found a spring here in the rocks with plenty of cold, flowing water.

 

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Back down at Lower Geraldine Lake where we setup camp.

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Looking down the drainage into Crown Valley.  The big mountains in the background tower above places that I hiked before.  What a beautiful view with all of this lovely white granite.

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Those mountains are up in Crown Basin and Black Cap Basin, if I have my geography correct.

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We hiked up to Upper Geraldine Lake after lunch to check it out.  This is a higher lake that is more alpine than where we pitched our tent at Lower Geraldine Lake.

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What a pretty lake and circ.

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A beautiful old weathered stump on the hill on the right side of the lake.

 

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Looking down the drainage.

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Looking out into the high country in the Middle Fork of the Kings.

 

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We hiked up to the notch between the drainage of the Geraldine Lakes and the Kings River (and Kings Canyon National Park).  This is looking out toward the park.

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A panorama showing Upper Geraldine Lake on the left and Kings Canyon on the right with the ridgeline in the middle.

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My dad looking out toward Kings Canyon.  We are on the flank of Spanish Peak.  Supposedly there’s an old lost Spanish gold mine down below us.  No one has ever found any signs of it although many have tried.  Since we were here, a fire came up out of the canyon and has burned over this whole area.  Maybe someone will find the old mine now that all the brush and thick timber have been burned out.

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The road into the park.

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This might be Mount Goddard.

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The big tree in the notch between the Geraldine drainage and Kings River.  I hope the tree survived the fire.

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We decided to try to contour around the ridge toward the Obelisk in the next drainage over.

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The tree standing guard in the notch.

 

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We had trouble getting over to the far ridgeline.  With the sun hanging low, we took a few photos and got ready to head down toward our camp.

 

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The moon rising in the east.

 

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Back down and Lower Geraldine Lake with Fin Ridge standing over the lake to the left.

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Alpenglow on the mountains around the lake.  Time for bed!