Camping at the Lair of the Golden Bear

Yesterday, we got back from our annual family camping trip at the U.C. Berkeley Alumni Association’s Lair of the Golden Bear near Pinecrest, California. We had 19 people in four tents, with 8 in just ours. As usual, we had an enjoyable and relaxing time. The car is unpacked and stuff is mostly put away but I am still working my way through the laundry. I have finished the towels and bedding and most of the clothes. I still need to wash the sleeping bags.

Some of the highlights of our week in the Sierras:

• Hiking to the Natural Bridges swim-through cave. The air was so hot and the water was so cold! Carrying my camera in a zip bag to take pictures from the deep pool was tricky.
• Seeing an eagle pulling big fish from the Pinecrest Lake right near the swimmers and boaters.  One of the Pinecrest summer residents said it was a bald eagle but it may have been an osprey (fish eagle).
• Watching a white headed woodpecker eating his way from pine to pine.
• Walking along the creek (Tuolumne River, North Fork), looking for wild flowers, animals, insects, and pretty stones.
• Watching the sunset from the Trail of the Gargoyles, in the Stanislaus National Forest.  We could see Mount Diablo (a 3,864 feet or 1,178 meter peak in the San Francisco Bay Area) in the far distance.
• Hanging out with family and friends.

This was the first time we have been camping since my father died – he loved the mountains.  We stopped at Railtown 1897 in Jamestown on the drive home yesterday to collect more caboose pictures – see my Caboose Sisters Pinterest page for the whole collection. I also put up a Camp Blue Pinterest page with more images from our camping week.

Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson