Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[glenn kangiser]

Mono Lake is about 2 1/2 hours from the Underground Complex when Tioga Pass is open.  A whole different world over there.



Cool Scenery.. everywhere you look it is like looking through a picture book....

Here is a shot of the Beaver Pond above Lundy Lake on Mill Creek....




Mirror Lake in Yosemite only wishes it was this pretty....





Sitting in the bottom of a V shaped valley, it is no wonder that an avalanche killed nearly all of the miners at the mine on the mountain shortly after they established their mining camp.  No way to make it safe from the snowfalls experienced in the Sierras...




Middle of November they simply roll up the sidewalks and close it all down until it is once again safe in the spring to return nowadays.... 





Nice to be close enough to this to go there once in a while....

[ben2go]

These pics are what I think of when I think about the wild west. Beautiful.   

[rick91351]

These pics are what I think of when I think about the wild west. Beautiful.   

That area around Mono Lake and Bridgeport is spectacular. In fact the drive down 395 is like a whole different world. 

     

 

[glenn kangiser]

You guys got that right.  It has been one of my favorite places ever since I started going over there.  Here is an old oven of some sort sheltered at a ranch on the way toward Walker on 395.



What do you think? 

Tortilla cooker?  Branding Iron heater?  Crematorium?

We got a few fish in the Walker River below Walker but the Brookies were all from the Beaver Pond area and Mill Creek that feeds it.  The biggest ones were from Twin Lake and Lundy Lake.



Here is the story of the Avalanche of 1882 at Lundy Canyon.

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/ghost_mines/avalanche.html

The mine was 3 miles from and 2000 feet elevation higher than we were at the lake and Mill Creek.




I hiked down Mill Creek over boulders and through the brush until it leveled out and holes were less plentiful.  Fish were biting in ever hole almost.





I lost my net out of my creel 2 times.. didn't find it the second time... [ouch]

[rick91351]

You guys got that right.  It has been one of my favorite places ever since I started going over there.  Here is an old oven of some sort sheltered at a ranch on the way toward Walker on 395.



What do you think? 

Tortilla cooker?  Branding Iron heater?  Crematorium?

snip-------------------------------------------------

Well I would ruled out a branding iron heater.     Just a fire works very good for that.

Blacks smith shop or a pottery kiln.  Or pizza.......  We deliver to all the mining, sheep and cow camps........

Never seen that place before......  Is it off 395 or off 395 and then off?   

[glenn kangiser]

It is directly on the roadside of 395 about halfway between Bridgeport and Walker I think.  Big meadows and an old ranch there.  South you go back into rough country from the meadow area.   The ranch house is brick as I recall and there is a 30 x 60?  shed roof barn across the highway.

[nysono]

MMMMMMMMMM, those Brookies are the perfect eating size.

[ben2go]

MMMMMMMMMM, those Brookies are the perfect eating size.

[glenn kangiser]

Yup.... It reminded me of fishing in Oregon when I was about 6 years old.  My granddad bought me a fishing pole to bribe me to go to school without fighting my mother all the way to the bus.  We had a mean teacher that would hit us with her ruler... probably occurred after lunch when she dropped into the trailer for her martini with her husband, the principal.

The trout up there were rainbows but catching them was just like these brookies with a hungry one in every good hole. 

[glenn kangiser]

How about a bit more remodel at the complex?

Sassy was a bit cramped at the old carport and wanting more room for her truck and getting in and out with bad hips and knees.  I got started yesterday.  Scrounged a 20' 8x13 glulam given to me years ago, knocked out the support wall of rammed earth after making a column of old 8 5/8" well casing (new old stock left over from drilling).

A customer gave me a bunch of 1/2 inch plates that worked well for end plates after shearing them in half and punching 4 more 13/16 holes in the corners for lags and rebar anchors.  Rebar was scrounged from cutoffs on a job and direct driven into the ground 2 feet with the jack hammer.  I ran them at angles but plan to weld the tops at the base plate.  Fine for construction purposes at this point.

[glenn kangiser]

Smoke cooked the fish.  The book I have on preserving recommends that over cold smoking, then freeze them if you want to keep them longer....so that is what I did. After we ate a few Sassy wrapped the rest for freezing.



I used this recipe for brining and smoking using trout instead of Salmon. (Same Family I think).

A couple things I would do - read somewhere to add 25% to the time for skin on and 25% for whole fish I think it was - at any rate I would soak them longer in the brine.  Re-reading that I wonder if I did not have too much water in the brine.  Guess I will try it that way next time using a longer time. [ouch]



Honey-Cured Smoked Salmon

    1 quart water
    1/2 cup salt
    3/4 cup honey
    1/4 cup golden rum
    1/4 cup lemon juice
    10 cloves
    10 allspice berries
    1 bay leaf
    1 large fillet of salmon

Combine all the ingredients besides the salmon to make the brine.
Place the salmon, skin side up, in a non-reactive dish and cover with brining liquid. Allow fish to brine for 2 hours.
Rinse the salmon in fresh water and pat dry with papertowels.
Place salmon on a drying rack (or grill rack that you will use to smoke the salmon on) and allow to air dry for about 1 hour.
Smoke salmon skin side down for about 1 1/2 hours, keeping temperature at 160 degrees farenheit..

My preserving book makes a big point on food safety.  Bacteria - botulism - love to grow between 40f and 140f.  A lot of the curing is done at this temperature so it is important to be sure to get the internal temperature of the fish up to 160 degrees for 1/2 hour during the smoking cycle mainly to prevent botulism.  Others may have no problem with different practices but I prefer safety rather than food poisoning....

[glenn kangiser]

Got the wall torn out and started on the second column yesterday.  Here is a pix of the missing wall. 



I am planning to cut down the end of the glulam to allow for a lower sloped porch type roof to cover the now wider garage.  Also needing more length as the longer truck sticks out of what was marginal cover for the Mercedes. 

Maybe I should have started over? 

Here is how I direct drive the rebar anchors.  I find the Harbor Freight jackhammer to be great for driving the 5/8 rebar directly down between or through the rock and claystone earth here.  I have actually driven them through some of the softer rocks though it takes a while.  It is a pretty good hammer for the price and hasn't broke yet... [ouch]

[glenn kangiser]

Got the left side covered at a 2/12 pitch today.  Didn't get a pix before dark though.

Also added a beam and figured out a way to make a truss for the front of the carport.  I was considering a wall and some possible shelves or something but Sassy wants it open so I guess it will be open.

[pmichelsen]

Good to know regarding the HF jackhammer, I was thinking about picking one up with a spade bit to help when digging trenches on my property.

[glenn kangiser]

For the price I thought it would not matter if it broke soon, but it is still going and hitting hard.  They make a bigger one also - a copy of the Bosch? Brute I think but I have not tried it.  This one is plenty heavy and I have broke a lot of rocks with it with consistent hammering.

[glenn kangiser]

I was looking for more places in the Sierra that had machinery and mines to go look at.  I read a story online about a place we passed by on the fishing trip last week so decided to go have a look.  This was a failed venture that eventually resulted in the major portion of Tioga Pass road going through Yosemite.

$300,000 was spent making a road from the rail-head west of Yosemite to the Great Sierra Mine and drilling around 1800 feet into Tioga Hill to reach the bottom of the Silver Ore in the area of the Sheepherder mine.  Just 200 more feet the engineers thought but the investors said no more money leaving the Great Sierra Wagon Road to later be sold to become what is now Tioga Pass Road completed in September of 1883.  The last portion of the road from the trailhead to Bennettville is as it was originally made.

I arrived at the trail head last night around 5 pm so the pix are a bit dark. 

I passed several alpine ponds before breaking out into the more open area near the mine and Shell Lake.  Here is my first look at the $300,000 hole in the wall that made the Tioga Pass road feasible early on.



Sometimes they were only able to make 23 feet a week drilling and blasting the mountain that was much harder than they originally thought.  This required the bringing of heavier machinery hence the great Sierra Wagon Road.

Not much machinery left at the mine but here is a shot of the steam air compressor and the air blower for ventilating the mine.





I continued hiking past the mine to have a look at a couple of the lakes I had seen on Google Maps.  It was getting dark and I wanted to check out the thousands of Brook trout making the stream and lake waters come alive as I walked past.  They weren't biting but I wasn't seriously fishing.  Most seemed to be in the 4 to 6 inch long range.



On the way back along the shore of Fantail Lake I saw something I recognized from my garden.... Wild Onion Seed-heads.  I of course had to get some seeds and have a taste to see what they were like. (This is outside of YNP according to the map, where you should not do such a thing).



Peeled one layer off and took a bite..... WHEW..... nearly blew the top of my head off.  I'll have bad breath and stink for a week I think.... John, I think we can now give your Ramps some competition.  I don't know whether they will grow here or not.  Winter would be my chance it looks like as they are only on the edge of the stream where it is constantly wet. They seem to produce in a long attached root wad kind of like Iris's.


I hiked back out of the mine and lake area after dusk using starlight.  I had a flashlight for backup but figured ...why waste it when I could still see?   

The Mountain Lion tracks I saw around the lake probably meant it was more scared of me than I was of it because ...I didn't see it. 

The story for the road on the last section of the PDF below about Bennetville.

http://www.pinemtnlake.com/pdfs/Romancing_Sierra_part_1.pdf

[glenn kangiser]

Here is a shot of the left porch roof on the carport..before I got the urge to go exploring again the other day.



We have been talking over putting in a wall on the side.  The sun still shines in on the truck most of the day since it is open to the south and west.  It would give us a place to display some more old stuff as well as limit the mud in the walk area in the winter which could be important for Sassy's ability to get around.  The clay here gets pretty greasy on top especially at the first of winter. [ouch]

[ben2go]

Under ground garage with concrete floor or similar?Can't be having Sassy trudging through mud.

[Sassy]

Under ground garage with concrete floor or similar?Can't be having Sassy trudging through mud.

[glenn kangiser]

Considering that or crushed rock, Ben, but my trucker has his dump truck down right now - maybe fixed? and the other guys around charge twice as much..... I'm pretty tight....




......Oh.... she is so funny....

[ben2go]

I'm trying Sassy,but he isn't budging.

Considering that or crushed rock, Ben, but my trucker has his dump truck down right now - maybe fixed? and the other guys around charge twice as much..... I'm pretty tight....




......Oh.... she is so funny....

My counter offer for Sassy.We will accept crush rock until concrete or the like can be laid down.Due date for concrete or the like,monday morning noon.   

[Sassy]

I'm trying Sassy,but he isn't budging.

My counter offer for Sassy.We will accept crush rock until concrete or the like can be laid down.Due date for concrete or the like,monday morning noon.   

  I like the way you think, Ben 

[ben2go]

  I like the way you think, Ben 

   

[glenn kangiser]

UMMmmmmmm Ben.....

You are not helping matters...

[ben2go]

UMMmmmmmm Ben.....

You are not helping matters...