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Friday, January 10, 2020

Tamarack Snow Park To Tamarack Meadow And Back 2020



Dale Matson

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

Snowshoe Route

Well, we pushed the limits of us two old codgers and snowshoed from the Tamarack Trailhead to the meadow for lunch and then back. It was about 3 miles round trip and took us about 2 hours including a lunch break. Our Airedale accompanied us and when he began to posthole, he would tuck in behind Sharon for a more packed trail.
 We have not had snow in quite a while and so the base was quite packed near the trailhead where most of the folk’s sled, toboggan, play and leave their trash and broken plastic sleds too. By the time we left, the parking area was full and included several portable stoves.
We kept Duke on a leash until we were well away from the others and leashed him back up before we got close to the main trail on our return. There were other dogs too.
Lunch consisted of trail mix and we used all the calories we brought along. My Garmin Fenix recorded over an 800-calorie effort. The creek was covered in snow and frozen over.
It was good to get above the fog of Fresno into sunshine for a few hours. How fortunate we are at our ages to still be able to do this.
We ran into an older gentleman (about the same age) on skis and went past him. He was also from Fresno. He said he was going to the end of the meadow before he was going to turn back. Hope he did OK. 
I used a Sony RX100 M3 for the photographs.



















Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Millerton Lake Eagle Boat Tour 1-4-2020



Dale Matson

Click Photographs To Enlarge

Trip Route 


This was the first tour of the season with about 20 people including two officers and Mike Smith our tour guide. We saw about 13 different eagles on our tour which was about 18 miles round trip by my GPS.
We began at 8am with a one-hour video primarily dealing with the near extinction of eagle pairs and the migratory flight path of the seasonal eagles that took them to Millerton Lake from their nesting sites at Great Slave Lake in Canada. Mike answered questions and then we headed down to the boat ramp for our 3-hour tour. I believe we would have only seen one eagle if we had not been on a boat.
We have taken several tours over the years but I believe this is the most different eagles we have seen and the closest we have gotten. This is also the closed photographs I have gotten of the resident Golden Eagle pair on the Madera Side of the lake on the boat tour. I had a new long lens for this tour. I used a Sony A9 with a 200-600mm lens with a 1.4 TC. Of course, there is always a pit stop with hot chocolate.  



 Old Eagle Nest
 New Occupied Nest

 Golden Eagle Pair
 Golden In Flight


 Hikers On Pincushion Mountain


 The End Of The Line Finegold Creek
















 Another New Nest?
 Golden Eagle Nest
 Courthouse Eagle
Pelicans