rowher flats saturday...12.14

[blkTJ]

gonna do rowher, not sure which way (from Boquet or up Lookout), on Saturday. I know it's easy but thought I'd let you know. If there's any interest we'll set up a meeting place. Brian.

[blkTJ]

too bad no one could make it... had a great time. Went up Lookout, down Boquet and back up Boquet. I always forget how steep and rocky those hills are. I actually didn't get stuck anywhere on the mountain for the first time. Ran into Robert all day long crusing around on the dirt bike, I guess he decided to leave the Jeep at home.

here are a few trail and poser pics.

http://groups.msn.com/myTJpics/rowhe...14.msnw?Page=1

see you all next time. Brian.

[TJRON]

Do you know where the water in Bouquet Reservoir comes from and how it gets in and out?

[Art Welch]

That's an interesting question Ron, of all the times I've been up there I never stopped to think about the fact that there is no obvious inlet or outlet. If I had to guess I'd say that the pumping station in San Francisquito canyon pumps water up there for storage and lets it back out as needed via a branch of the pipeline?

[Art Welch]

Actually I guess I'm not sure that any pumping happens in San Francisquito canyon. There are pipes and there are buildings, some of them are defunct power plants, not sure what happens there without doing some research.

[TJRON]

Art,
I was raised in San Francisquito Canyon and worked in those power plants plants for many years. My wife and I are graduates of Hart High School in 1963. Those plant are still turning out kilowatts and have a nice tour and museum at Power Plant #1 (the most north one).
Bouquet was built to store water after Saint Francis dam burst in San Francisquito Canyon in 1928.
The water comes gravity flow from Owens Valley. There is a pipline split off from the regular power plant feed just north of Power Plant #1 that serves as the inlet and outlet for the reservoir. As it is a long pipe (penstock), the water flow is turned on very slow to reach full flow. Even slower to stop as the penstock can collapse easily, like sucking on a straw.

Bouquet Reservoir has saved the canyon many times by collecting the flood run off. Bouquet Creek is the result of that water being slowly released back down the canyon (and some freebie water by the DW&P).
When I was a kid in the fifties we used to fish the reservoir (we new the caretaker) and it was full of bass. I think they blue stone it too much now for much fishing.
History lesson over.......
Ron

[Robert J. Yates]

Originally posted by TJRON
Art,
I was raised in San Francisquito Canyon and worked in those power plants plants for many years. My wife and I are graduates of Hart High School in 1963. Those plant are still turning out kilowatts and have a nice tour and museum at Power Plant #1 (the most north one).
Bouquet was built to store water after Saint Francis dam burst in San Francisquito Canyon in 1928.
The water comes gravity flow from Owens Valley. There is a pipline split off from the regular power plant feed just north of Power Plant #1 that serves as the inlet and outlet for the reservoir. As it is a long pipe (penstock), the water flow is turned on very slow to reach full flow. Even slower to stop as the penstock can collapse easily, like sucking on a straw.

Bouquet Reservoir has saved the canyon many times by collecting the flood run off. Bouquet Creek is the result of that water being slowly released back down the canyon (and some freebie water by the DW&P).
When I was a kid in the fifties we used to fish the reservoir (we new the caretaker) and it was full of bass. I think they blue stone it too much now for much fishing.
History lesson over.......
Ron

Ahhh, the water history of LA. Makes for some fascinating reading and if it wasn't all true, you would swear that somebody in Hollywood had one hell of an imagination in coming up with that movie script. Thanx Ron

[TJRON]

Robert,
Actually they weren't too far off base in the movie Chinatown with Jack Nicholson.
A good book on the Saint Francis Dam is A Man Made Disaster. The flood went all the way to the ocean through Santa Paula killing over 400 people. The lower power plant's transformers and some of the equipment was dragged back up the canyon, repaired and still in service. I worked with an old fart that survived the flood but lost his whole family. He quit the Department and sued them as he wouldn't settle for the going rate of $400 per death the city was paying. No one knows how much he got but he got his job back and always had a late model Cadillac.
It is an interesting story!

[Robert J. Yates]

Yep, ChinaTown was exactly the movie I was refering to.

I watched a PBS special on the water wars and they had a fair amount of the series devoted to Mulholland. The thing that got me about him was that most folks, including myself don't realize that he was not an educated or professional/stamped engineer when he oversaw the construction to the Owens Valley aquaduct system and the dam He was considered quite the hero when he finished the Owens Valley project ("There it is - take it")and then quite the villian when the dam collapsed.

[Handlebars]

My geology teacher took us on a field trip to the St. Francis dam site... He said there were about 10 different flaws with the dam site and the construction that predestined the dam to collapse. He also said the Muholland designed and built something like 7 other dams- all of which failed except for one. That is the Silverlake Reservouir which has been heavily reinforced since then.

[Bruce David]

He was the hero to LA, and a thief to the people of the Owens valley
by turning it into a dust bowl.


07-16-1998

AIR AND WATER POLLUTION - CA WATER: L.A., OWENS VALLEY REACH DEAL ON DRY LAKE


"Culminating decades of bitter conflict, the Owens Valley
and Los Angeles struck a historic deal [yesterday] to bring an
end to massive dust storms at Owens Lake by 2006," the Los
Angeles Times reports.
The parties reached a long-sought compromise in the battle
over the lake bed that Los Angeles has drained dry through water
diversion. The Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power agreed to
begin work at Owens Lake by 2001 and to set a date in 2006 for
ensuring that the air quality near the lake meets federal
standards for particulates and other pollutants.
In return, Owens Valley air pollution officials agreed to
scale back a plan they proposed that would require Los Angeles to
give back some water to squelch the frequent dust storms at the
lake, the largest single source of particle air pollution in the
US (Greenwire, 7/3/97).
"The truce in the water wars signals the first time that Los
Angeles has agreed to surrender some Owens Valley water without a
lengthy court fight." Los Angeles City Council member Ruth
Galanter called the pact a "great breakthrough," while Owens
Valley air officials "pronounced themselves thrilled with the
deal."
The plan, expected to cost Los Angeles about $120 million,
must be approved by California air officials, and it hinges on
the US EPA granting a five-year extension of Clean Air Act
requirements for particulates (Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times,
7/16).

[TJRON]

I lived in Bishop CA for a couple years and had to bone up on some of the history to protect myself from the savage locals that mostly came from somewhere else when the DW&P "stole" the water.
The truth is, the DW&P bought up the land and water rights and leased the land back to the owners for nothing and gave them what ever water they needed. The people were happy. Most left as the valley was not much good for making a living. Unfortunately the ones that stayed deposited their money in the local bank. The bank ran off with their money and the folks blamed the DW&P for swindling them. The land that was not bought by DW&P is locked up tighter than a drum and you cannot access it. The whole Owens Valley would be that way if the city didn't own it. Try going on the upper Owens River above Lake Crowley and cowboys will come down on you with guns. Try fishing on Hot Creek and the land owner will come down on you with guns.
The real shame was when the DW&P started pumping the ground water and drying up the valley.
If the pollution the greenies claim comes from Owens Dry Lake were true, you would never see a star in the whole valley.
They also blame all the dust in Las Vegas on construction. True some does come from that but we always had dust, mostly from the natural dry lakes that are every where.
I get worked up over some of this stuff as I think the DW&P, which IS THE CITY OF LA, has done some really bad things up there, but not the things the greenies want to fight about.
I think most of us know the slant that can be put on issues to serve a purpose. Especially if that pupose is to keep your job.

[Robert J. Yates]

Talk about a hijacked thread But it is getting fun.

Ron, you are correct in saying that the land was purchased for water rights by the DWP and therefore, LA does hold a valid claim to the water. Now as far as the puchases go, some of them were done by coersion, some were sold by greed and some straight up. Basically, where people are involved, you will get all sorts of business transactions and this situation certainly proves that point. Yes, the land is locked up tighter than a drum and for us folk who like to wander the eastern Sierra, that is a good thing.

But yes, there are also side effects of transporting all that water out of the valley. The Owens River is a mere shadow of itself and you cannot deny the impacts downstream, particularly on the dry lake bed.

Bruce, you put up an interesting article but one that is outdated. The pilot project has been implemented and has shown the design to reduce dust. The sticking point is that neither the County nor the DPW nor the Sierra Club can agree on the size of the pump required to implement the full plan so the project is now stopped and back in court. Sad.

Ron, about the dust. Having driven through there on numerous ocassion and gotten quite a noseful - I would say that IMO, the problem there is a bit more than the ocassional dust storm off a dry lake bed. I have literally driven through there were nothing could be seen due to the dust coming off that lake bed. Also, given the EPA analysis of the arsenic levels, it would seem to me that something does in fact, need to be done. Ridgecrest has some of the worst particulate pollution in the entire country.

But is LA the bad guy in all of this? IMO, that is only one slant to teh story as Ron says. Was Mulholland a good guy - depends I guess on whether you wanted water for your housing development in the SF Valley or if you lived under one of his dams

But we digress, Ron, have you ever been up 9 Mile Canyon Road and into Monache Meadows? I'm looking to head up that way over Memorial Weekend to get some fishing done. Time to use my Jeep for something besides the infliction of damage to the rocks resulting from contact with my Jeep

[Bruce David]

I hear ya on the two sides thing.

I was just passing on what I heard when I lived in Bishop for 6 months.(late 70's)
The people I lived with had a bread route and we delivered to every one store,
one gas station, and a post office, town down the valley to Ridgecrest.
I just remember the negative sentiment regarding the 'flat landers'
and 'their' water.

I don't care how you slice it, that valley is a dust bowl.

Now that it stopped raining, I can turn the sprinklers off without getting wet.

[Handlebars]

Originally posted by Robert J. Yates
Talk about a hijacked thread But it is getting fun.

I was thinking the same thing! My apologies to Brian. But this is what I like the most about jeeping- getting out in the sticks and finding history where it lays instead of sitting on the couch watching Discovery Channel or California's Gold and thinking that I am educated and worldly.

Robert- some fishing/jeeping trip fodder: Try the Long Valley Caldera, just before the turnoff for Mammoth Lakes. That is the home of many, many hot springs, including Hot Creek:


Much of the valley is owned by DWP and it is laced with dirt roads. Some really good fly fishing is found on Hot Creek just below that hot spring. There is one of those private fishing ranches upstream but it is public catch and release below the spring. There are also at least a dozen more springs scattered around the valley, most of which have been developed for (free) public use. Some of them get quite a bit of traffic but others are quite peaceful.



I spent a week camping near many of those springs after finishing my John Muir Trail hike, relaxing and fattening back up. That was heaven- free camping, hot baths every day and several trips into Mammoth Lakes to pick up some more tasty treats from Schatt's Bakery. Hmmmmm....

[blkTJ]

Originally posted by Handlebars
I was thinking the same thing! My apologies to Brian. But this is what I like the most about jeeping- getting out in the sticks and finding history where it lays instead of sitting on the couch watching Discovery Channel or California's Gold and thinking that I am educated and worldly.

no apology needed, I agree 100%.

[Robert J. Yates]

Originally posted by Handlebars
I was thinking the same thing! My apologies to Brian. But this is what I like the most about jeeping- getting out in the sticks and finding history where it lays instead of sitting on the couch watching Discovery Channel or California's Gold and thinking that I am educated and worldly.

Robert- some fishing/jeeping trip fodder: Try the Long Valley Caldera, just before the turnoff for Mammoth Lakes. That is the home of many, many hot springs, including Hot Creek:

Much of the valley is owned by DWP and it is laced with dirt roads. Some really good fly fishing is found on Hot Creek just below that hot spring. There is one of those private fishing ranches upstream but it is public catch and release below the spring. There are also at least a dozen more springs scattered around the valley, most of which have been developed for (free) public use. Some of them get quite a bit of traffic but others are quite peaceful.

I spent a week camping near many of those springs after finishing my John Muir Trail hike, relaxing and fattening back up. That was heaven- free camping, hot baths every day and several trips into Mammoth Lakes to pick up some more tasty treats from Schatt's Bakery. Hmmmmm....

Heh, I've been to those hot springs but not for trout fishing

As for fishing up there, while I have been all over alot of those dirt roads, I am not a catch and release guy. I am opposed to hooking fish for fun only to drop them back into the water. Even with barbless hooks, I believe it greatly increases the chance for injury to the fish. I only take what I can eat which is usually way under the limit. I prefer to hike along a creek until I find a spot where I want to drop a line. If I only pull out one fish all day, that is fine with me as I am more into the ritual than the thrill of hooking something, although fresh trout in my campfire frying pan with a little butter and lemon is truely one of life's great and simple pleasures

And as far s bakeries goes, Shatts is the shiat Poor sounding name but great for filling up your belly before a day of skiing or fishing/hiking.

Maybe we need to organize a little (and I do mean little) JeepBBS trip. Michael Elliott and I are planning on heading up to Monache around Memorial weekend to do some fishing/hiking and maybe a little touring in the Jeeps. As long as it doesn't get out of hand will all kinds of people and rigs, I don't have a problem with people tagging along. Just as long as folks know its not a trip to simply go Jeeping but a trip where use of a Jeep will benefit ones' ability to access a special place.

[TJRON]

Umm....... Shatt's Squaw Bread. Again, the good old days. I didn't much like to eat fish back then so I used to trade the natural grown brown trouts I would catch to the lady next door for smoked stockers. A couple cold ones or some wine with the smoked trout and bread when I got off evening shift was a real treat and is still a pleasant memory.

Robert, I have a real hard time getting enthused about going to that side of the Sierras. Too many flatlanders mucking things up. Don't forget to flush the toilets twice when you're there, LA needs the water!
Actually I will probably be on an excursion with some locals back up to the north rim of the Grand Canyon that weekend. Yous guys have fun!

[Robert J. Yates]

Flatlanders LOL Ron, sounds like us So Cal guys have a new nickname

Don't forget that I am also interested in getting into the canyon with you. I think we ran out of time this fall but this next year is going to be light on the rock crawling and heavy on the exploring for me.

[TJRON]

Robert,
A group from here just came back from up there. I've been sharing trail info with the pres. of the small club. They took a trail I recommended that is suppose to go to the bottom of the canyon. It didn't. They did explore another area I was interested in and gave me the scoop on what trails were and wern't there. These folks are as nuts about this area as I am. This is their fourth trip. It's habit forming, exploring that far away where hardly any one goes.
BTW, May would be a great time to go. Can you get some time off before your Sierra trip?

[Handlebars]

The North Rim isn't quite as far away as it used to be and I'd love to go exploring there. The more remote the better, whether by Jeep or by my own two feet.

[TJRON]

Originally posted by Handlebars
The North Rim isn't quite as far away as it used to be and I'd love to go exploring there. The more remote the better, whether by Jeep or by my own two feet.

It's still just as far, just easier to get to...

You bet you can go. I would be glad to have you!

[blkTJ]

If you wouldn't mind one more... I've always wanted to see the canyon from that side. I guess I'll watch for more info as time grows closer. Brian.

[Robert J. Yates]

Ron,
How would a time frame around mid April, say about Easter be for weather there? My take is that it would be pretty darn nice and not to hot. I'm also thinking that is about as long as I could hold out without taking any serious vacation time here at work anyways without strangling anybody

[TJRON]

You're right, April should provide good weather and all the mud should be pretty much dried up.
I'll be going to Moab on/or a couple days before the 27th. I think Stu is too and I'm hoping we might get him interested in this trip.
How about maybe the second week of April or there abouts? I think we should be thinking about camping at least two nights. We could stay for more nights. Any one that wants to leave after two or even one night could take the easy excellent dirt road 60 mikes back to town while others forge into new territory.
One of the neat things about this area is there is the scenic (not to be missed IMO) routes in and out or the dirt freeway from a semi-central area.
What ya think?

[Handlebars]

I'm packed and ready to go! It's been 2 months since my last vacation.

Will this be a 3-day weekend sort of trip? Should we start a new thread to see of others are interested?

[Tumbleweed]

I am not packed but I am sure getting itchy feet. Sure sounds tempting.

[TJRON]

Robert and I have been talking about this trip for some time so I wouldn't want to throw an open invite out until we come up with a suitable date.
I'm surprised so many are interested!

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by TJRON
Robert and I have been talking about this trip for some time so I wouldn't want to throw an open invite out until we come up with a suitable date.
I'm surprised so many are interested!

Why? You don't smell that bad.

[TJRON]

I'd love to see Mr & Mrs Johnson join us on this adventure! Jeep Kat could do all the driving and Blaine could be her trail flunky!