Between Midpines and El Portal Feb 2 at 4:00AM until further notice
https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/conditions.htm
Between Midpines and El Portal Feb 2 at 4:00AM until further notice
https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/conditions.htm
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
John, did you see that two-hour documentary on ABC a week ago Friday about good ole "Bates Hotel" Cedar Lodge in El Portal and Cary Stayner? Getting snowed in at El Portal would have been a bit spooky back then. What I didn't realize before this documentary is that the trio he abducted and killed were last-minute alternate victims. He had three others in mind; but it didn't work out.
There's a reason why I always take Hwy 41!Originally Posted by Drew Wiley
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Oh, there were several psychos right around Oakhurst too. One of them was a serial killer back in the late 60's, and another was into things even more disgusting and reprehensible. Won't elaborate, except to say the serial killer merely got life in prison without the possibility of parole, while the other guy was offered parole due to a plea bargain, but only after serving 450 years in prison first! There is a third example I remember who was a lethal serial arsonist. I don't know whether he got life in prison or in a mental hospital under auspices of criminal insanity; but nobody's seen him ever since, and he apparently died in confinement. Further back in the woods, quite a few people simply disappeared over domestic incidents (mostly tribal) which were never officially solved. Four people were killed in a North Fork bar on a single day. And I remember when the whole tri-county drug running operation belonged to the Sheriff of Mariposa County; so one had to stay clear of his deputies too. He's long gone, thank goodness.
I'm very well familiar with a few of the psychos in Oakhurst.
The bar in North Fork is notorious.
Maybe they cleaned up their act but I won't set foot in the place.
Too much bad mojo!
BUT before the Chamber of Commerce throws a speckled nitty, there are a lot of places worth seeing up there , and some mighty decent places to eat and drink if that's what you're after. The economy has suffered a great deal from the fires. It certainly helps to send business their way.
If you're in Oakhurst around lunchtime, the Southgate Brewery just off HWY 41 on HWY 49 is our fav.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
140 reopened!
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
The son of the owner of the North Fork bar used to routinely drive over to our side of the River to hang out with my nephews, who were his classmates. We heard all the stories. Neither the owner nor any of his family members ever entered their own bar during business hours. Just too risky. Oakhurst was a relatively small town when I was in school. They were bussed across the river too. Some of them were awful boneheads. The brother of one of them in my class got about a 250 yr prison sentence for some awful things
done on our side of the River; but I never knew him personally.
Do you remember the Bigfoot Burger Pit?
Last edited by John Kasaian; 4-Feb-2019 at 08:55.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Sorta. North Fork was a big town compared to my side of the river. It even had a doctor, which we couldn't reach without getting to a phone somewhere, or when the river flooded, both of which slightly improved by the time I was a teenager. But some background history... The Ghost Dance cult spread very quickly and was held around 1883 on the south side of River, probably up on one of those big Pliocene river terraces on Backbone Mtn. Then they went on a barn and ranch burning spree on all those lower ranches. The white ranchers took wagons and supplies and holed up in a defensible spot atop Tollhouse Rock or Tollhouse Point - don't know the exact spot; but it might have logically been where the emergency heliport now is. That episode passed quickly and I'm not aware of another uprising until the SJ&E railroad raised tempers around 1910-1915. But folks were pretty skittish for awhile. So there were eight ranch families which stuck pretty much together and didn't intermarry Indians, but just with each other. And they were a different social set than the loggers higher up. So by the 1920's they had gotten distinctly inbred, and every single household had at least one member with some kind of mental illness. This went on well through the century, with these clans now spread to both sides of the River. One specific clan produced a serial killer back in the 20's as well as in the 60's. But there were all kinds of non-violent mental illness too, and a few where you just had to be very careful not to press the wrong button. All that was obviously very hush-hush and embarrassing for the families involved, so didn't make it's way into the local documented histories, but did come out in a set of published short stories with pseudonyms. I always figured that those dicey old ranchers and ornery bulls were better for the land than developers taking over. Several of those spots are now botanical preserves managed by the Nature Conservancy. The last spot added was Haslett Basin down on the Kings drainage. That area is just about as good as it gets in terms of early Spring blooms and innumerable little hidden gem seasonal waterfalls. And of course, the McKenzie Table has been preserved for quite awhile closer to Clovis. She was a real eccentric too, to put it mildly; but I'm grateful she left the land to the Conservancy. The most stunning vernal pool blooms are on atop Kennedy Table or Squaw Leap, and both off limits (the latter is legally accessible, but only if you know the specific ledge up the cliff - any other direction, and you will run into inbreds who claim squatters rights to anywhere their cattle happen to roam).
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