Levi Cole: July 2008

I recently visited my hometown of Prather California which is in Fresno county to go camping with my friends Ben and Justin. We had a great time. Though we did get turned around because of poor navigation on our part and we didn't end up staying where we originally intended, which was Edison Lake. We ended up on some Jeep trail at Kaiser Pass. The elevation was around 9,000 feet and the views were great.

Camp

As you can see from the photo we slept in hammocks, aside from Justin who was on the air mattress on the ground. This was actually my first time sleeping in a hammock while camping. Because of this I had to experiment in order to get the comfort I was hoping for. I may make a post devoted to tips on sleeping in hammocks but for now I'll add just a couple tips.

If you are going to sleep in a net style hammock like the one I was in make sure you bring something to put on the bottom of it for insulation. I found this out the first night when I couldn't warm up my back. Thankfully I had a 2 inch self inflatable pad that I put on the hammock the second night. These pads are great, I have the Therm-a-Rest® brand of these pads and I find them warm, comfortable and easy to pack. If you don't have one of these I suggest getting one even if you never plan to use a hammock while camping. I got mine from the Bass Pro Shop.

Bring a pillow. I thought I wasn't going to need one in a hammock, but I was thankful I brought my inflatable pillow.

Bring a tarp. (This can be helpful if it rains.)

Make sure you have enough rope and you have some knowledge of knots. On that note you may also want to bring something like foam, or another soft padding material for the trees you are tying it to. The bare rope on the tree will damage the bark on the tree and sometimes more than that. This opens the tree up to insects and disease. It's quite like a rope burn for us, hennessyhammock.com sells tree huggers which are special straps to prevent damage to the tree.

To continue with the trip our first order of business once camp was set up was to look around the camp site.

View from campsite

We decided we liked the spot and then needed to get water. Normally I would suggest bringing your own, but Ben just got a new water filter we all wanted to try out. I highly recommend these if you camp where there is water. As it happened we were by a creek. So I got out my collapsible 5 gallon container and we headed to the creek with the filter.

1. The Creek
2. Justin (Left) & Ben (Right)
3. Justin pumping water

The water we got from that little filter tasted great. (And none of us got sick from it) But, considering I never used a filter before, because I have brought my own water. I decided to look up how reliable they are. Turns out the Katadyn Hiker Pro Water Micro filter that we were using passes the test in filtering out all the bad stuff and leaving water that from personal experience, tastes great. You can learn more about the filter as well as purchase one from http://www.backcountry.com they run around $75.00 on that site.

You can also get them from Bass Pro Shop.

I was thankful we got the water when we did because after the hike back to camp with the water I was starting to get unusually fatigued and I had developed a headache that the Ibuprofen wouldn't take away. This could be two things, dehydration or altitude sickness. Altitude sickness can effect people at 8,000 feet or above and is not fun. Dehydration is the easier to cure. Considering I had nothing to drink but a couple of beers and a soda the previous night, I was voting for dehydration. Thankfully After a few glasses of water and some rest back at camp made the headache go away and I got my energy back. If you want more information on altitude sickness Click Here.

After my strength was back we went on a 4 to 5 mile hike. (Made sure I brought water with me.) It was on that hike where we found a natural lake and beautiful scenery.

Photos: Natural Lake about a mile from the camp site.
(The top two were taken by me, while the bottom two where taken by Ben.)

A little farther past the lake and we were treated with a great view and some Yellow-bellied Marmots.

The view

Marmots

Viewing the image in full size will allow you to see them better. In case you have not heard of these animals the short description is that they are big F###ing squirrels, if you want the longer definition I took the following article from Wikipedia.

The Yellow-bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris), also known as the Rock Chuck, is a ground squirrel in the marmot genus. It lives in the western United States and southwestern

Canada, including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. It inhabits steppes, meadows, talus fields and other open habitats, sometimes on the edge of deciduous or coniferous forests, and typically above 2000 metres (6500 ft) of elevation. Yellow-bellied Marmots usually weigh between 5 and 11 pounds (2 and 5 kg) when fully grown. They get fatter in the fall just before hibernating. A marmot's habitat is mostly grass and rocks with few trees. Their territory is about 20,000 to 30,000 square meters (about 6 acres) around a number of summer burrows.

You can read the full article at Here.

The next day we decided to head down the hill. On the way we decided to take a look at an abandon Logging town not to far off Dinkey Creek Road. While we where exploring the buildings, we found out the forestry was doing a preservation project to open the town up to the public as a museum. There was no one there that day though and it appeared that the preservation was a slow going process that started in 2001 according to a sign on the wall of the general store.

Machine Shop & Single Room Cabin

Inside One Room Cabin

Inside Another Cabin & Old Boots Outside

It was inside the old general store that we saw indications of the age of the town.

Old bottles and cans on the store shelves.

I did some research on the Pepsi can and found out it was from 1971 and originally looked like this.

It rusted because those cans were made out of steel. The Spam looking can with the brand name Temt was around in the late 1940's.

Old Freezer In The Store

The one room school house was our first clue that some of the buildings were being restored.

School House

Notice the wood looks new, and the stove looks much to clean for 20 years or so of weather.

Kitchen with wood burning grill.

One of the most interesting things about the town that is still standing was the tepee incinerator. I later learned that is was the reason the town shut down. Apparently they made this type of incinerator illegal so as apposed to spending the money to fix the problem the Owner of the operation shut it down.

Incinerator

Inside The Incinerator (The disco ball pattern is from bullet holes.)

And how would you like to open your door at home and see this view.

While search for information on the town I came across this article in the Fresno Bee (Fresno's news paper)

Pine logging camp

History of the once-vibrant camp is shared

By Guy Keeler / The Fresno Bee

10/04/07 18:09:07

DINKEY CREEK -- A soft breeze sweeps through mountains once filled with the clatter of machinery and the deafening scream of saw blades tearing into thick logs.

Although this section of the Sierra National Forest has been quiet for nearly 30 years, Patrick Emmert and Thomas Catchpole are eager to talk about the noisy old days when the Pine Logging Camp was producing lumber here to build homes in the central San Joaquin Valley and beyond.

"This place is a unique feature of the mountains," says Emmert, a forester for Sierra Forest Products and secretary of the Central Sierra Historical Society. "It's a sawmill town in the woods that has a human story."

Emmert and Catchpole, a retired forester who worked as a part-time scaler at the sawmill from 1976 until it closed in 1979, want to keep the logging camp's story alive so future generations can appreciate its role in Central California history.

Both men will be on hand to share their knowledge of the camp today during the Central Sierra Historical Society's Pine Logging Picnic, a fundraiser to acquaint visitors with the site and stir up interest in preserving it.

A significant amount of work already has been done to preserve the camp's remaining buildings. Many were damaged by weather or vandals over the years, but in 2002 and 2003, Emmert coordinated restoration work to clean, stabilize and repair the structures.

"We still need to do more work on the buildings," he says. "We'd also like to put up some interpretive displays and signs to tell people about the buildings."

Emmert says additional improvements, including construction of public restrooms and a parking lot, may come in the future as the U.S. Forest Service moves ahead with plans to turn the camp's old truck garage into a fire station.

The Pine Logging Company was organized in 1933 by Robert Grimmett and James Rohrbaugh. Initial logging operations were conducted in Mariposa County and other mountain areas but were moved to the Shaver Lake area when Grimmett bought 3,500 acres of timber from Southern California Edison.

A site near Dinkey Creek, about 10 miles east of Shaver Lake, was selected for the camp. Workers began clearing the area in 1936, and the sawmill went into production the next year.

Equipment and living conditions were primitive in the early years, Catchpole says.

"They used two-person saws to clear the trees," he says. "Chain saws were not developed until after World War II."

Catchpole says the first building was a structure to house a diesel generator, which supplied the sawmill and camp with electricity.

"The sawmill would start operations as soon as the road opened in the spring, which was usually in March or April," Emmert says. "Then it would keep going until snow closed the road in the fall."

Logs were cut into boards at the mill, and the lumber was hauled by truck to a yard in Fresno. After the boards were dried and finished, they were shipped to lumberyards throughout the central San Joaquin Valley and as far away as Los Angeles.

Workers and their families lived at the camp while the sawmill was in operation, and several buildings were constructed to meet their needs. Emmert says the tiny community, which numbered 150-200 people, grew to include 41 houses, 14 bachelor barracks, shower houses, a cookhouse, office buildings, a general store and a one-room schoolhouse.

The school, which served children up through the eighth grade, had an enrollment of 20-30 students.

"The camp had a company store where you could buy basic supplies," Catchpole says. "Single men lived in cabins, and the families were in homes. The buildings were rustic and made with plank construc- tion."

And Emmert adds: "The schoolhouse was used for church services on Sunday and movies on Saturday night. These were things to keep the community happy."

The sawmill was built on stilts to provide plenty of room for sawdust to fall out of the way, Catchpole says, recalling the time he spent there as a scaler. His job was to determine the number of board feet in a log by measuring its diameter and length.

"I only remember two logs from the time I worked there," he says. "One had a nest of meat bees [yellow jackets], and when it went through the saw, we all got stung. The other log looked good at both ends but was rotten in the middle. I had to change the book and make the log a cull," a log that's unusable.

Sawdust and wood scraps were carried by conveyor belt to a metal tepee burner, a huge, conical furnace where the fire temperature reached 2,000 degrees.

"The fire was hot enough to melt rocks," Catchpole says. "You can still see the clinkers in the soil."

The sawmill is gone, as are most of the houses where families lived. But enough buildings remain to give visitors an idea of what life was like during the camp's heyday.

The bachelor cabins, simple square buildings with room for one or two men, are stark reminders of the camp's spartan living conditions.

"If you were single, all you needed was a place to sleep," Emmert says.

In the cookhouse, where many workers ate their meals, visitors can still see marks on the wood floors left by the spikes in the boots the men wore.

"You can tell where the tables were from the marks," Catchpole says.

A cool house, where perishable food was stored, reveals how challenging it was to keep things cold during summer. The building has two roofs, separated by several inches of open space.

"The top roof was to reflect the sunlight," Catchpole says. "The space in between was so air could circulate and keep the building cool."

The most impressive structure is the tepee burner, which is 75-80 feet high and provides a hint of the extent of the sawmill's operations. During a typical shift, the sawmill produced 100,000 board feet of lumber. From dawn to dusk, the camp was alive with the raucous sounds of men and machines at work.

"You'd hear the clanking of chains," Catchpole says. "And at a sawmill, everything has a squeak to it."

A steam whistle signaled the beginning and end of shifts, and diesel engines groaned long into the night as trucks loaded with lumber headed for Fresno.

But more relaxing sounds were never far away.

"You could hear Dinkey Creek roaring," Catchpole says. "And there were the sounds that wildlife makes -- grouse and quail calling to each other. There were all the typical California mountain sounds."

The sounds provided a soothing, memorable setting for many people who lived in the camp. Emmert says during the initial restoration work, he met several former residents who stopped to visit.

"They'd walk by and say, 'I used to live over here,' " he says. "They come back because they have fond memories, and we need to continue that with the restoration."

I am glad that I was able to see the town before it was completly restored because I think it adds to the old feel of the town. It felt like walking through a time capsule and an era of history that had been frozen in time.

I feel that this is a good time to say that if anyone ever does come across one of these gems in the woods or any other place, many hikers as well as myself ask that you abide by the leave no trace rule. It basically states that you leave nothing behind and that you don't take anything with you. Taking photos and memories are fine, but if you leave something behind it detracts from the scene for the next person. If you take something with you the next person will never see it. In order for the forest and these historical sites to remain we must all do are best to to keep it there.

All in all if you enjoy the feeling of discovery, don't deprive others from that feeling by taking their opportunity away.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Let me know what you think.