High Sierra Topix

Normally by this time of year, we would have done at least one or two backpacking trips into the Sierra. And this year, with the lower snow levels, we had plans to really hit the mountains early and often.

But those plans have been put on hold.About two months ago we were idly scanning the real estate ads for Tuolumne County...and the next thing you know, we found ourselves buying a cabin up by Twain Harte. It's a nice location, with easy access to both Yosemite some of our favorite wilderness areas, like Emigrant, Hoover, and Carson-Iceberg. The price was right, even if the cabin needed a lot of work.

And what the heck, it was just a cabin, so how complicated could it be, right?

Well, it was a lot more complicated than we would have guesses. And after working through some ridiculous details with the fine public servants at Freddie Mac, we finally closed escrow about a week ago.

Of course, that meant that we couldn't leave town until we closed escrow, which was supposed to happen "any day" for over two weeks. And now there are a million things that we want to do up there...and so our last two weekends have been spent tearing off old plywood, ripping out old carpet, cleaning, connecting the water, electricity, septic and gas, and refinishing the woodwork.

It is a good time to buy! I have mixed feelings about cabins. After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that I do not have the "cabin" mentality, not that I think it is a bad idea for everyone. Everytime I try to think of where I would buy a cabin, I think of 100 places and cannot even narrow it down to 10! If I were to buy a "cabin" I think it would be a RV - a cabin on wheels, for those of us who never can decide where we want to live! I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from your cabin. You are a thoughtful person, so I suspect the cabin fits nicely into your lifestyle.

I have an RV -- specifically a 26 foot trailer. We decide the general area we want to go, disperse camp by setting up the trailer in the woods somplace, then go exploring and enjoying ourselves. We have not had any problems with theft while the rig is set up out in the woods and we are gone.

The bed of the pickup hauls the mountain bikes and canoe. And we have a real bed, refrigerator, and hot shower to awaiting our return to base camp. Hike all day or a quick overnight, mountain bike the next, then paddle.

Downside: RVs do not appreciate in value like real estate, only go down in value. And you do not use the words "MPG" and "towing an RV" in the same sentence. The trailer is under 300 sq feet of living space with the slide extended and outside awning erected (compared with ?? sq ft in your cabin.) 300 sq ft is awful small when stuck inside all day for inclement weather.

The new national forest MVUM rules have restricted the availability of dispersed camping in an RV, but there are still plenty of places to camp. The RV community calls dispersed camping 'boondocking'.

Ha!

Right now you have a lot more amenities that we do! We have electricity and a phone---but the main water line leaks (that gets fixed this week) the septic system needs repair (also this week) and we have yet to connect the gas.

But yes, once this is up and running, we'll have a very nice home base near the areas we love to backpack...