Thursday through Sunday December 26, 27, 28, 29, 2013 Boonville CA.
It’s a good time to check water springs for water
I had my van mostly all packed up when I got up on Thursday morning. I was going to Boonville to stay at my friend Marty’s cabin for a few days. I thought it would be a good time to explore for some new water springs above his cabin. Being late in the year with no rain yet, any spring found with water at this time could be a good candidate for getting some more water for the cabin as right now, there is just barely enough water to keep it going.
I got out of here just after ten AM and stopped in Guerneville to do some shopping and gas up the van for the just over two hour trip to Boonville.
Traffic was light and I made it in good time to Boonville and headed up to the road to the cabin.
This is the gate I have to go though to get to the property where his cabin is, down the hill a bit.
I went on in a few miles an stopped at this point to have some lunch.
After lunch I went on in to his cabin about another mile or so. Marty was already there. This is where I parked my van to camp for a few days.
This is Marty’s jeep and cabin in the woods. My van is just in back of the cabin.
After resting up and shooting the bull for awhile I said, let’s take your jeep up to Bear spring for a little ride, so that’s what we did.
This is the road up to bear spring, also where I was going to hike around looking for new springs tomorrow.
It’s nice and lush at bear spring. Here is Marty just as we are heading back to the jeep at bear spring.
We stopped and picked up some fire wood along the way as the wood supply for the cabin was real low and at this time of year, not much sun gets into the cabin as it’s on the north side of the hill.
We went back to the cabin and unloaded the wood and took a break, then we decided to take another jeep ride down to the creek and across the canyon, which we did.
Here we are just crossing the creek. We crossed over and went up the hill for a bit, then turned around and slowly made our way back to the cabin for the day.
Friday
The next day, I got up with a sore back, but it’s getting better. After getting going, I had Marty take me up the bear spring road and drop me off at a little creek gully that I wanted to explore for springs.
I hiked up the hill though the forest looking for big ferns that indicate there might be a spring at the location. Some of the forest was fairly thick brush, but I pushed on though.
This is an area of a possible spring. Water flows down here in the winter.
After wondering around and going back and forth a bit, I found the spring I was looking for. The spring at the top of the springs on the hill side.
There was about a gallon or so of water coming out of the hill per minute which is a good spring for this area.
Here is what the spring looks like before developing it. Just water seeping out of the ground.
And another seep, right next to the other one.
After finding those, I started back toward the cabin still looking around for more springs. I found some more possibilities on the way.
I got back to the cabin worn out so it was break time. Eventually, Dave showed up for a couple days.
After Dave settled in, we took a short walk up to the cabins water tanks and checked to see if any water was coming into the tanks. Not much, just a trickle, but that’s better than no water.
Here is Dave and Marty heading up to the cabin water tanks.
Steak and potatoes for dinner that night.
Saturday
The next day, I woke with still a sore back and it took awhile to get going, but I finally did.
I had Marty take me up the road above where the new spring was so I could just walk down to it and explore around it for more springs and also try to check out a route to pipe the water down to the cabin if we ever developed the spring.
Here, Marty and I are going up the road where Marty let me off above the new spring so I could explore my way down and back to the cabin.
Marty walked in from the main road a little ways with me on this old forest road.
He’s recovering from an operation, so didn’t go very far and left me to go back to his jeep and return to the cabin. I continued on walking around in circles exploring around that spring looking for others and slowly making my way back to the cabin.
When I got back to the cabin, Dave and Marty where working on some more fire wood. Dave is splitting these redwood pieces up for the fire.
Sunday
Sunday, I again woke with a sore back and we just sat around the cabin and took it easy. Around eleven, the owner of the property came by and we shot the bull with him for awhile, then Dave left for home. Marty and I stayed around until about 2:30PM then we also headed for home.
This is one of the most important buildings we have up there, the outhouse. Has a flush toilet and a hot shower. Great.
I made it home without any problems and am now resting up from such a laborious few days in the forest. :O)
My back is slowly getting better, but I think I need to see my doctor about getting some better meds to help alleviate the problem.