You can get the surprise of your life when you use an online-mapping service such as Google Maps or Mapquest.
When I punched start and end points into Google Maps for a trip last week near Yosemite, the suggested route included a Jeep trail that was built in 1916-17 to 1913 wagon-trail standards, has been closed to traffic since 1938, and now sits in designated wilderness open only to hikers and horses.
Heh, heh, heh. Good thing we knew better. Still, it's hard to believe a service that millions rely on could be so far off.
In advance of a trip, I often use Google Maps to calculate driving distances and time, then pick whatever route I feel like. I often try to avoid driving the same route twice.
Same with hiking. For a trip into Yosemite National Park, we decided to create a one-way route, to start at Cherry Lake in Stanislaus National Forest and end at O'Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite. So that meant we would leave my truck at the endpoint of the trip near the dam for a shuttle vehicle.
You might know the back roads out there - Cherry Lake Road, Mather Road, Evergreen Road, Hetch Hetchy Road. They're a bit narrow, like most forest roads that follow ridges and canyons, but they've been paved for years.
Google Maps instead advised a Jeep trail that it said was 14.6 miles and would take 56 minutes. The adjoining map showed that it climbed up a ridge and down to Miguel Meadow, deep in wilderness, then traversed over a short ridge above Hetch Hetchy, then plummeted in switchbacks to the tunnel on the north side of O'Shaughnessy Dam.
That's right, you're supposed to drive through the hiker's tunnel. After all, it's been closed for only 74 years.
I unearthed a historical engineering document in park archives that described the history of the route:
"A rough 12-mile truck road was also constructed from Hetch Hetchy northwest to Lake Eleanor in 1916 and 1917. The road crossed the river on a modified Warren through-truss bridge until the reservoir was completed in 1923, and later traversed the main dam. The road was built for the construction of the smaller, multiple-arch Eleanor dam." Kari Cobb at Yosemite headquarters then provided the date of its closure.
This story provided a few grins for our group. Others led astray have not been so lucky. Who could forget the heart-wrenching story of the death of San Francisco's James Kim? On a trip in 2006, the family, which included his wife and two small children, took an impassable road in snow-bound Oregon forest in an attempt to drive from Interstate 5 to the coast and got stuck. With no outdoor education, the family plunged into a series of errors. He died of hypothermia trying to get help; his wife and children survived.
The idea of depending on electronics as a safety net can leave you in a free fall. I always vet everything with detailed maps and love looking at maps and books. In time, you can learn to read the land, and in turn, how to find water, the best routes and the best locations for campsites with scarcely looking at a map.
On one recent trip, we left from the Onion Valley Trailhead, located out of Independence in the eastern Sierra, and hiked over Kearsage Pass and Glen Pass to reach Rae Lakes. About 150 yards above gorgeous Charlotte Lake, a guy stopped and asked for help.
He showed me his electronic GPS map display, which showed the trail we were on, the lake and another trail (that didn't exist) that was supposed to go to the lake.
"I can't find the trail to the lake," he said. "Here it is on my GPS. But I can't find it. What do I do?"
I pointed at the lake, practically right in front of us. "Walk to it."
Whales of a show: At Pinnacle Gulch south of Bodega Harbor last Sunday, Patrick Finley had a spectacular whale show - four of them within 30 yards of shore, "spy-hopping, spouting, and rubbing their sides along the rocks." This happens every now and then both here and nearby to the south in Drakes Bay.
North Gate reopens: The transformation of Los Vaqueros Reservoir continues to advance. After being closed for more than a year from the lake expansion project, the North Gate entrance near Brentwood opened last weekend for hiking and mountain biking, and the marina accessed from the South Gate near Livermore is expected to reopen by early August.
Freshwater Lagoon cleared: The boat launch has been reopened at Freshwater Lagoon in Redwood National and State Parks on the Humboldt County coast. An illegal release of sewage from a portable toilet by a tourist forced a temporary closure.
They are too: Mermaids are not real, reported the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which reportedly received numerous inquiries as to whether the mythical creature exists after the television channel Animal Planet re-aired "Mermaids: The Body Found." "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found," according to an agency statement.
E-Bike phenomenon: China has 120 million electric bicycles, Europe about a million, and Americans are catching on, with sales from near zero to about 100,000 this year, reports Martin Mulcahy. Most E-Bikes give you an extra push to help climb hills.
Salmon watch: Salmon off the Bay Area coast, from Bodega Bay to Monterey, continue to bite. Next up: Most feel some huge fish will move along the Marin Coast, what we call "The Salmon Highway," and stage for their annual late summer run through the bay, delta and upstream rivers.
Mountain lions near, far
From near: A reader from Palo Alto, Katie, sent in her story of hiking with a friend's dog at the city's Foothills Park when she came across a mountain lion. "It was about 10 feet away and crossed the trail in front of us. It stopped and looked at us. Then it went along its way." It was at Foothills Park, at dusk along Boronda Lake, where I saw my first mountain lion.
From far: In early June, John LeFan, who once saw a huge lion at Tennessee Valley in Marin, was in remote New Mexico when a lion confronted him at 20 feet. "It was circling me," LeFan said. "I have been watched by a lion, but never circled and never so close. I starting pounding my hiking staff and yelling. I did not make direct eye contact. I slowly backed down the mountain, stopping to yell and pound. I can't believe how its camouflage made it disappear (when it left). Time really does slow down."