We’re back from a two week trip to the Sequoia National Forest, which is in California’s Southern Sierra Nevada.

Our only goal was to leave the 120° F days in Palm Springs. Other than this, we had no plans, goals, or agenda. Sometimes doing almost nothing on a camping trip is the best kind of camping.

Fishing

River and Stream Flows

Almost every year we spend time in the Sierra Nevada and enjoy trout fishing in the rivers and streams. Not this year.

The past winter the mountains of California received a record snowpack. Record snowpacks mean heavy spring and summer run-off — swollen rivers and streams. Obtaining information for the many mountain streams is just about impossible, but the flow data for the upper Kern River is readily available and is an indicator for other waterways.

This spring the Kern River flow was over 10,000 cubic feet per second (CFS), which is huge. When we arrived it was flowing at 3,000 CFS, too fast for trout fishing. Along with the rushing water, there was going to be a lot of floodwater debris and muddy water.

Knowing this, I figured the upper elevation streams might be okay for fishing. But another problem caught my attention.

Trout Plants

Native fish would soon disappear if the Department of Fish and Game did not plant “farm raised” trout in our rivers and streams. Each year about 250,000 catchable size trout are planted in the Kern River and surrounding streams.

When and how many fish are planted is dependent upon water flows, temperature and other factors. Checking the State’s website I saw that no fish had been planted in the Kern or surrounding creeks since about February. Normally plants occur weekly in the area.

Bottom Line

Fishing would be very poor. In fact, we didn’t see a single person who caught anything other than a gentleman who told us he had caught one eleven-inch Rainbow Trout.

Since an adult fishing license costs $60 per year (good for 365 days), we decided to wait and buy our licenses when the fishing gets better.

Astronomy and Astrophotography

We normally go camping to areas that have little or no light pollution. The night sky at these places have thousands of stars that can be seen with the naked eye. Compare this to our suburban home, where the number is in the hundreds and the Milky Way really isn’t visible, the night sky at these dark sites is almost sensory overload. And, to be honest, I enjoy viewing these dark skies unaided more than looking through a telescope.

The past three years I have brought astrophotography equipment on many of our camping trips. Since the equipment is controlled with a mini computer, there isn’t need to attend to the equipment during the night. I set up the equipment on the first day and each night tell the computer what I want to take images of. Early each morning the computer turns off the equipment before the sun rises. On the last day of each trip I pack up the equipment.

I can take images of deep sky targets, and, at the same time, spend the nights with Joyce.

On this trip a problem arose . . .

The Moon

The moon acts like light pollution and it isn’t conducive to most astrophotography. We would see a full moon in the middle of our trip. I left my equipment at home.

How To Have Fun “Doing Nothing”

Years ago a friend told me that I was escaping reality by camping and backpacking so often. How can this be? Is there anything more “real” than spending lots of time in wilderness versus a city?

The City Trap

It is often difficult to escape the bad things of city life. Traffic and noise congestion, doorbells, TV, Internet, phones ringing — you get the idea. Most of these things are time wasters and many let their lives quickly pass by while consuming technology and not really living.

As humans we might be losing our humanity as social animals. Social animals interact with each other — in person — social media is not interaction between people. Nor is spending hours of daily leisure time looking at a screen.

Leaving the City Trap

On most of our camping trips there is no cell phone coverage (intentional on our part), no internet, no news, and often no people. Joyce and I have done many, many trips where we spoke to no one, other than each other. There just wasn’t anyone else around. Excellent!

Hiking

Yep, a great campsite will be surrounded by hiking opportunities. All is needed is to get up and start walking (camera optional). We took a short hike every day.

Books and Stuff

On this trip, like most, both of us take a book or two to read. Solitude makes reading easy and more enjoyable. We often discuss what each of us is reading. On this trip Joyce was reading American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. A book I bought nearly 20 years ago and now a popular movie. I re-read Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War and The Dialogues of Plato.

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As we often do, we played Scrabble. Scrabble is great for keeping the mind sharp, especially for older folks like us.

Nighttime

Ah, what to do at night? Every single night we sat outside and talked, most nights until well after midnight. After 20+ years of marriage, what can there be to talk about? Lots, as it turns out. Remove all “civilized” distractions and the communication just flows. People just need to get rid of all the things that are detrimental to communication.

Being outside, meant a gorgeous night sky every night. Spend hours looking at the night sky and there is much to consider about ourselves. The sky simply poses the questions if you wish to think about it.

No Campfires

Well, campfires were permitted. We rarely build a campfire, because the fire separates a person from their surroundings. We are in the minority here. Seems most people “need” a campfire when camping.

I’m not anti-campfire, we do have one occasionally. Sitting in complete darkness (turn off your damn lanterns and RV lighting!) is magical, in my opinion.

No Movies or Music

I keep a hard drive with a media server containing several hundred movies in our camper. I’ll have to write about how I set all of this up  in a future post. We normally don’t watch movies unless it is too cold to sit outside and the nights are long (winter). Then we might watch a movie at night.

Same goes with music. Like most people, we have a large library of music on our iPhones. We rarely listen to music when camping. For me, I like to sit down and listen to music while doing nothing else. I don’t care to have music playing the background.

Doing Nothing Is Good For The Soul And Relationships

Every camping trip makes our marriage better. The trips are about us enjoying each other and leaving nearly everything else at home.