The high country in the central Sierras of California holds a special place in my heart. We drove up to the end of the road to peer out into the mountains that I love.
Many of my favorite mountains in one picture.
Camp El-O-Win
Last weekend was an uncharacteristically laid back affair. Instead of a crazy adventure, I went up to Fresno to visit with my grandparents. While there, I also took a quick detour up to the mountains to visit Camp El-O-Win, an old Girl Scout camp now being transformed into a separate non-profit organization. This was the camp where my parents first met on a blind date. My father was a forest ranger and my mother was a camp councilor.
This is the creek side of the dining hall. My grandfather was sitting out there watching the fire. We made hobo packs in the coals.
Looking upstream on Dinkey Creek.
And downstream toward the old camp footbridge site. In the near future the bridge will be rebuilt.
The infirmary. My grandparents stayed in the room downstairs.
Looking down the side of the dining hall.
The second story door leads to the room where my parents first met.
In the camp kitchen.
Our hobo pack assembly area.
The main dining area. The garage doors were installed a number of years ago to turn the building into a mountain lion shelter. (I kid you not!) In the event that a mountain lion is spotted in or around the camp, a horn is sounded and all of the campers come running to this building. The doors are shut and thus the kids can scream their hearts out while the lion stalks back and forth outside. I don’t think it’s ever been used in practice for this purpose.
One of the camp units that is currently in use.
Some cabins on the bottom side of the camp.
Old Native American grinding holes. Acorns would be ground with stones in these holes to make acorn flower.
The site of the original road bridge across Dinkey Creek. The bridge was removed sometime between the teens and the 40s. Most likely the metal went into one of the war efforts.
Bits of metal still poke up from the rocks.
On the far side of the creek. These are board floor tents that are currently not in use. Until the foot bridge gets replaced this side of the camp is too hard to access to be used by campers.
The camp water tank.
The spring box sitting up on a hillside filled with oak trees.
A rather large mountain lion track near the camp tank. It was a few days old.
As I was driving back down out of the mountains I nearly ran into a herd of cows grazing in a meadow. The cows think they own the place!