High Sierra Topix

Tom_H wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 10:44 pm I used to hike in Stanislaus/Toyabe-Emigrant/Hoover a lot. Here is a map I made years ago to ponder various loops I could create.

TH approaches are purple.
Main Trails are red.
XC is green.
Use Trail and Abandoned Trail are black.
Some of the shortcut connectors are yellow.

I am far too old ever to go back, so am revealing a couple of my secret spots.

https://caltopo.com/m/0G41

Tom, that is priceless! Thanks!

Wandering Daisy wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 10:29 am It is said that cats are curious. That can also be said of cows! I ended up with several cows in my camp many times. Actually, if Bearzy would scare off some cows that would be good. I have been faced with cows, deer, bears and moose curiously inspecting my tent, their snouts right at the tent door when I got out in the morning. Deer are the most persistent, particularly in Yosemite. I must say that looking right at bear snot, up close, was a bit anxiety provoking.

Mountain goats can be mighty annoying too--not that we have them in California. The Olympics were at one time overrun with them, where they were artificially introduced. One day I hung my rinsed-out laundry to dry, and returned to camp to find goats calmly chewing through my socks. Apparently, I did not rinse all the salt out of them. Backpackers there were also advised to only pee on rocks, since the goats will excavate wherever else your salty effluent goes. The camps of ignorant people rapidly get roto-tilled by the goats. I witnessed the same thing in Idaho's Seven Devils wilderness once.

Since those days the Forest Service has killed or moved more than 500 of them. Not sure how many may be left in the Olympics, but I think the plan is to get them out of there--where apparently natural predators could not keep them in check, and where the goats were eradicating certain native plants. I think many of them wound up in the North Cascades, which is in their natural range.

kpeter wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:21 pm Tom, that is priceless! Thanks!

You're welcome! It mainly shows trails already on the map, but it helped me visualize where I had already been and still wanted to go. I have one like that of Desolation as well.