Camping on the Mokelumne

L

lambertiana

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Every year I give up my spartan camping ways and go with car camping with my wife's family. We go to the Mokelumne River near Lake Tahoe. The first two pictures of camp show how much junk they bring camping:
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We were in a nice spot by the river. The dendrologist in me must report that it was a nice mixed stand of ponderosa pine, douglas fir, and incense cedar, with a smattering of California black oak, dogwood, alder, and bigleaf maple. The trees were decent sized for the elevation (3400'), with the mature trees reaching about 150'.

Here is a view of the river right by camp
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One of the first things I did was take my narra-handled Laconico for its first real use, making my first ever figure four trap. It turned out relatively well for a first attempt. I had Ray grind it with a thin edge, and it cuts wood really well.
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Here are a couple more views along the river
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We were camping right by the confluence of Moore Creek with the Mokelumne River, and here are a couple views on Moore Creek
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I took this picture of my Nessmuk Trio for the trip
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For the geologists out there, right above our camp was Garnet Hill. It is mostly a granodiorite body of the Sierra batholith, but at the very top is a roof pendant consisting of a thin layer of gneiss and schist. And in this layer is a significant amount of garnet; there are some boulders with a solid layer of interlocking garnet crystals up to several inches thick. Unfortunately, if you try to chip them off, they break up into small fragments. But if you look around you can find some smaller rocks with good crystals on them. Here is what I found this time, with a standard 4" stockman for scale
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And here is Calaveras Dome, which is a little further up the canyon
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And a nice little creek coming down the other side of the canyon
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We actually had bear trouble for the first time in the 17 consecutive years that we have camped there. I always found it surprising that there wasn't any bear problems because there were a lot of people camping all up and down the river with plenty of food left laying around. We only lost a couple of food items. And the mosquitos were really bad this year.

The trip was cut short due to circumstances beyond my control, otherwise I would still be up there for one more night. But it was nice while it lasted.
 
Beautiful place. And of course a Laconico is always good to see too...thanks for sharing.
 
It's nice to get out- even if it's with people who don't enjoy the outdoors quite the same way you do. :)
 
Great pics as always.. That big Calaveras dome just beggin to be climbed, from the more flat side on the right ...


Sasha
 
:DWow that is a lot stuff in your camp! It looks like everyone's having fun though. Great pics as always.
 
Low impact camping at its finest.

So how did the Dutch oven cooking work out? Did you tray any of the recipes?
 
You are making me stir crazy. I need a dose of the sierras asap! Fantastic pics, thanks for sharing.
 
I offered to make a couple different dutch oven dinners, but they weren't interested. Filipinos have different ideas of what passes for camp food. Of course, if I were to make a fish stew, they might like that idea. The only thing I ended up making with the dutch oven was peach cobbler, which turned out a little too wet because the bear made off with the tapioca that I was going to use as a thickener. It still tasted good, and I planted the idea in their heads that they should get a styrofoam cooler with a block of dry ice so they can bring ice cream next time to go with the peach cobbler.

As far as low impact camping is concerned, this was a very light year. Normally we have almost twice the number of people, with more than twice the amount of junk.
 
awesome pics as usual John...:eek: that is a gorgeaous area... love the knife shots, i really dig that knife that Ray made...:)

i have done a little climbing over at Calaveras Dome before... it's a great spot..
 
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