Lentils

Some spicy lentils I made for recent my Yosemite trip. The spice blend is the same as I was using for my soups etc. It's a blend of mustard, fenugreek, pepper, cardamon, coriander, cumin, cloves, and allspice. I prepared the lentils in a light tomato sauce with some carrots, onions, ginger and garlic, and dried it on parchment paper in my standard way.


the spices


components of the sauce


I used a yellow onion for this batch


This is the sauce before I add the spices or lentils


I spice the sauce


Adding in the black beluga lentils


Thicken the sauce and then spread on parchment paper to dry


Ready to be weighed into single servings and taken on the trail

Cheers,

Seaweed Soup

A simple soup of pasta and seaweed that I took with me on my tour of the Tuolumne canyon region in Yosemite NP.


I start with a bunch of spices, most of which are going to be used in my lentils.

I toast the spices on the stove top, and then grind to a power with two red chilies.

I prepared and dried some fresh vegetables for soups

Sea Palm and Israeli couscous are prepared in broth of seven seaweeds and dried vegetables, a pinch of the spice blend, and saffron.

Cheers,

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Hello Internets,

It was a frustrating week following the Hetch Hetchy trip, but that is stuff for one of my other blogs. Anyways, I'm left alone for the July 4 holiday, so I repacked and did a solo foot tour of Eastern Lassen Volcanic National Park. It was one of the few areas I could reach without fires, and good air quality.

Day 1 : I entered the trail system through bumpass hell, toured kings creek falls via upper meadow, picked up the PCT north thru Coral Meadow, continuing thru Grassy Swale , around horseshoe lake, along Cameron Meadow, and settled down at Jakey Lake for dinner.

Day 2: I packed up my Jakey lake site, and played spot the dot to widow lake, continuing around butte lake, along the fantastic lava beds, around cinder cone, taking Nobles Emigrant trail to Badger Flat, before catching the PCT south thru cluster lakes, twin lakes, echo lake, summit lake, up to terrace lake via cliff lake and shadow lake, hike along the road to the car.

I pushed out four uphill miles after 8PM to try to catch the 8:40PM sunset at terrace lake. Not bad. I missed it by a few minutes, but it was still as site to see. I gave myself a pat on the back for the effort, given I had an injured knee, and I broken shoe. I think my total distance was close to 38 miles for the overnight trip, about 16 the first day and 22 the second.

I made some spicy tomato sauce with lentils last night, I'll be using that as the base for my dinner on my trip next week.

I'm not going to apologize for the large number of pictures, enjoy and thanks for reading,
Cayenne


When I travel solo, I leave a map on the dash of my car for the ranger. This is the map I left for this trip. I leave my auto information with my boss, and also mention the map on my wilderness permit. I deviated from my mapped route at badger flat, deciding to cut carried weight, and stay close to the lakes to save energy for the final charge uphill.


Avoiding the crowd, I left the trail and circled back into the bumpass hell area


Little puddles of bubbling mud


The elevated path through bumpass hell


Water streaming out of the bumpass hell area

More of the features at bumpass hell, this puddle features fools gold.


Bumpass hell, colored sand, with patches of snow remaining


Broke Off Mountain, standing in the center of an ancient super volcano, of which broke off mountain is just a piece of the crater's crown.


Crumbough lake


Kings Creek


Kings creek water cascade


Kings Creek Falls


These red plants stood out in a field of green, purple, and yellows.


Cameron Meadow


Something walked up behind me while cooking dinner at Jakey Lake


I recently replaced my beer can with a titanium cup from backpackinglight.com. 475mL advertised volume, but mine holds 482 grams of milli-Q water. I brought the brasslite for simmering performance while cooking my smoked jambalaya with chicken.


I'm a huge fan of this stuff, tasted much better on a trip when I wasn't huffing smoke all day long.


the contents of my backpack on display. I used a mosquito headnet while sleeping for bug protection.


Leaving Jakey lake in the morning


un-named lake


This trail is marked for people with small packs, visors, and big sticks :-)


Widow Lake, un-named on my topo map.


A river of rocks leading to Butte Lake.


Cinder Cone from Butte Lake shoreline


I enjoyed some lunch of chickpea soup, and some pita I toasted over the stove for use as a dumpling.


View of Cinder Cone dominated the perimeter of Butte Lake.


view from the Butte Lake Ranger Station


Cinder Cone


Dunes around Cinder Cone


Mt Lassen, it's gut check time, time is running out, and I want to make it to terrace lake (6 miles) to see the sunset. I pack up the camera, give myself a pep talk, duct tape my shoes to my feet, drink some water, eat some chocolate, and start the sprint.


This was beautiful enough in person that I took the camera out, maybe 200 yards after the last shot, but I didn't stop for longer than it took to snap the photo.


Terrace Lake, 48 minutes after I started the sprint up hill.


Mt Lassen from Terrace Lake


Self Portrait :-)
Thought I had sand in my shoe, turns out it was a good sized blister between my big and index toe on my left foot. I used hydropel more than normal, but it was no match for hot volcanic sand.


The sole delaminated on my Inov-8 295's. I got about 200 miles out of this pair.


One mis-step, and I lost the thingy that holds my laces on. I also have holes in my gaiters.

Hetch Hetchy trip report

Hello friends and dotcomrades, scroll down, a few pictures at bottom of post

Hetch Hetchy is located in the north west portion of Yosemite national park. Due to the enormous wildfires (quantity and size), views were limited and I got nothing but "i was there" photos. The smoked jambalaya kicked ass, although it potentially may have caused mild gas for Clark. I enjoyed it, and the flavor was very representative of the taste it had when eaten fresh. Honestly, I was stoked on the jambalaya last season and this year I've raised the flavor bar at the expense of cooking time.

Mosquitoes were very intense.

Water was drying up below 6500'.

A quick note :
This blog is growing in popularity, but it is still very difficult to find through the search engines. I don't spam. I don't buy ad words. I refrain from posting links to my own blog on backpacking forums (whiteblaze, BPL etc) and I do not hype my site every time someone asks for backpacking recipes. What I do, is quietly provide free, exclusive content, complete with step by step pictures and detailed recipes. I try to provide you with the knowledge and wisdom necessary to take care of your own menu planning. In between food related posts, I post pictures from trips I go on. If you find this content valuable please consider adding a link to my blog so that others may be able to find this site easier.

It's a holiday weekend, I'm thinking of going solo through Lassen. Looks to be the least fire infested area.

Cheers,
Cayenne


I was wearing my visor and towel combination for cooling and sun protection. Here I am about to break for a lunch of san joaquin gold and bread. San Joaquin Gold is a hard cheese, creamy like cheddar, nutty like fine parmigiano. It was awesome. View is of Rancheria falls.


backview, it can be pulled up and down to expose or hide the neck



Clark surveys water cascading down some slick rock


Zoom in on the cascading water


After missing the chance to photograph a mama bear with her snow white cub, I pulled the camera out of the pack. Here is a young buck.


taking a break in a spot where the mosquitoes weren't quite as bad. Did I mention that in Yosemite, the mosquitoes go all the way to eleven. I had no issues and was using treated clothing, long sleeves, long pants, long hat.


View overlooking the reservoir


Clark surveys the damn dam.


part of the dam


more of the dam