Trail Guy, The Farmer, Hiking Buddy and I went on a bit of an adventure. We had all been here are various times in our lives, but never after a fire. The upper end of North Fork Drive had borate (pink fire retardant) sprayed on both sides of the road, the views were much wider than before with so much brush burned out, and it was much more apparent than before how very steep the drop-off is to the river.
After a tail-gate lunch, we headed across the creek and up a dirt road to see how things looked.
This road was widened by bulldozers to create a firebreak. The area definitely burned, but the October rains and the north-facing slopes together have allowed green to begin emerging.
Hey -what is that?
Just a couple of little underground rooms, one with a solid concrete door.
Look – we crossed a bridge to peek into the little rooms – I didn’t notice at the time.
This road is just going up and up and up and up. . . nothing looks different. Let’s go back and take the fork to the right. But what is this white stuff? Ash. A tree on the ground burned and we are looking at the branching pattern left behind.
This was probably covered in a variety of shrubs. I am loving the green here.
We headed over to a big flat area, known as Grunigen’s Flat, a former homestead or cattle ranch or commune or something.
Because it all burned, this impressive rock wall shows up.
We followed the wall, which followed the creek. All this chiseled quarried stone, laid without mortar, for what end?
Ugh. Fire.
I kept expecting to come to a granite slab with Indian grind-holes. Sure enough, we did, but I didn’t photograph it. I was too absorbed in the sycamores, stone wall, and the green.
The ground was weird like this all over – is this some sort of fire-heave effect?? I don’t think it was a gopher evacuation camp.
The Farmer did a bit of searching and learned that the wall was built in the ’30s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, specifically the Yucca CCC Camp. Not sure what purpose it served other than providing work. If I didn’t have other things going on, I might look it up. But sometimes, a wall is just a wall, and a stone wall this aesthetically pleasing is good enough for this Central California artist for now.
