Day 3 – Hamilton Lakes to Big Arroyo Junction

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jimloco
  • 6.75 Trail Miles
  • 2,692′ Elevation Gain
  • 1,358′ Elevation Loss
  • 10 Total Miles (includes cumulative elevation gain)

Climbing out of Hamilton Lakes

This is a big day, you’ll hike over Kaweah Gap, and down through the Big Arroyo. There is water all through the Big Arroyo, and once you get into the Big Arroyo junction area you can have campfires. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can continue on the trail towards Kern Hotsprings. There is a couple springs, and one in particular towards the top at around 10,200 ft. Its roughly an hour hike from the junction, so be sure to water up before leaving. Otherwise you can just camp at the junction, but it means a longer haul the following day.

As you approach the top, you’ll pass Precipice Lake, and a series of small meadows. Once at the top, you can see down the entire Big Arroyo.

Trail in the Cliffs, going up to Kaweah Gap

10 yard tunnel through the rock.

Looking back over the trail we just came up

Pricipice Lake as we approach the top

One of the meadows approaching Kaweah Gap

My boys and me on top of Kaweah Gap

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Day 2 – Bearpaw Meadows to Hamilton Lakes

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jimloco
  • 3.6 Trail Miles
  • 1,681′ Elevation Gain
  • 1,168′ Elevation Loss
  • 6 Miles Total (includes cumulative elevation gain)

This is a relatively short day, the point is to recuperate from the pull to Bearpaw meadows, and prepare for the haul over Kaweah Gap.

Looking into Kaweah Gap from Bearpaw Meadows

Foot Bridge crossing Middle Fork Kaweah River

There is a slight descent to a foot bridge crossing Middle Fork Kaweah River, and then a sharp ascent into Hamilton Lakes. While the actual trail mileage is only 3.5 miles, with the elevation change it works out closer to 5 miles and ends up being closer to a 3 hour hike. This should put you into Hamilton Lakes before lunch where you can enjoy fishing and swimming.

Leaving Bearpaw Meadows and looking up towards Kaweah Gap

The trail coming up from Kaweah Middle Fork into Hamilton Lakes

Waterfall below Hamilton Lakes

Need to figure out what peak this, coming out of Hamilton Lake

Overlooking Hamilton Lake towards Kaweah Gap

Fishing at Hamilton Lakes

Bearpaw Meadows to Hamilton Lake

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Day 1 – Wolverton Parking Lot to Bearpaw Meadows

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jimloco
  • 10.25 Trail Miles
  • 3,122′ Elevation Gain
  • 2,672′ Elevation Loss
  • 14 Total Miles (includes cumulative elevation gain)

The whole crew starting at Wolverton Parking lot

My family was leaving from the Bay Area, and my brother’s family was coming from LA County. We decided to leave early on the morning of our first day and meet at the trail head in Sequoia National Park. We started hiking at 10am, and we needed to cover 10.5 miles to Bearpaw Meadows before dark.

Top of Panther Gap

We started our ascent up, and peaked out at the top of Panther Gap by lunch.  We got a little rain in the afternoon, and it threatened to dump on us during dinner. Towards the late evening it cleared up and left us with plenty of stars and a near full moon for the rest of the night.

This first day in is fairly aggressive, and we planned a shorter day to Hamilton Lakes for the following day. There is the initial climb to Panther Gap, and then it drops down to Buck Creek. From there, there is one more heavy ascent into Bearpaw meadows. There are several campgrounds before that heavy ascent before and at Buck Creek that have bear containers if you feel the push to Bearpaw Meadows is to difficult.

Looking uo the High Sierra Trail from Panther Gap

Beginning of the downhill into Buck Creek

Buck Creek, the campsites appear before the creek.

Bearpaw Meadows Campsite, the next morning.

Wolverton To Bearpaw Meadows

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High Sierra Trail – Explanation and Preparation

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jimloco

My brother and I are both avid backpackers and we routinely hike with our children. This summer, we joined forces and took our two families along with my nephew (of our sister) and we did the High Sierra Trail (Also known as the Trans-Sierra). Starting from Wolverton trail head in Sequoia National Park we hiked 66 miles in 8 days to Whitney Portal. At the Trail Crest in Whitney wilderness, we dropped our gear and bagged Mt Whitney to boot. This is the first article in a series of articles detailing our trip. Continue reading →

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Configuring Cradlepoint PHS300 for Blackberry on AT&T

Posted on December 20, 2011 by jimloco

I configured this for my Torch, I’m certain it will work on the Bold as well. Although not officially supported by cradlepoint, it does indeed work.

For starters, upgrade the firmware to the latest provided by cradlepoint. For me this was version 2.6.1. For the sake of brevity I am only going to cover the changes to make it work with the modem. I am not going to do the whole configuration (ie I am excluding lan configuration). Its pretty simple in the end …

Basic -> WAN
    username: isp@cingulargprs.com
    password: cingular1
Modem -> Settings
    uncheck: Aggressive Modem Reset
    Access Point Name (APN): wap.cingular
    Modem Password: your blackberry screen password

Thats it, thats all I had to modify. For full configuration explanation for other carriers, and other possible troubleshooting tips go to cradlepoints site.

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Creating a media pc with Gentoo and XBMC

Posted on October 28, 2011 by jimloco

I am using an old broken laptop I have (Samsung N130) to work as a media pc. Its hardware is fairly typical of laptops, and is fully supported by Linux. I like using System Rescue CD to install with, I’m presuming you already have a working knowledge of Gentoo.

  • Intel 915 Video
  • eth0 RTL8101E/RTL8102E
  • wlan0 RTL8192E/RTL8192SE
  • Intel HD Audio

Basic Setup

  1. Boot into System Rescue CD
  2. /etc/init.d/ntp-client start
  3. Follow the basic setup here, stop after the first reboot.
  4. Setup wpa_supplicant if you are using wireless
  5. emerge and setup ntp

Config Tweaks

/etc/make.conf

USE="X gif jpeg png tiff opengl samba dbus gtk alsa aac mp3 wma 
     xvid win32codecs mpeg dvd ogg sdl vcd a52 flac gnutls"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel vesa vga"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics"
MAKEFLAGS="-j2 -l2"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"

/etc/portage/package.keywords
media-tv/xbmc ~x86

/etc/portage/package.use
dev-libs/libxml2 python
media-tv/xbmc alsa xrandr udev
sys-fs/udev extras
sys-auth/consolekit policykit
sys-auth/pambase consolekit

Install Packages

These 2 major packages pull in everything you need.

  1. emerge xorg-server
  2. emerge xbmc

Configure

  1. rc-update add alsasound default (make sure to unmute alsa)
  2. rc-update add consolekit default
  3. useradd -m -c “XBMC” xbmc
  4. usermod -G audio,cdrom,cdrw,video xbmc

Create ~xbmc/.xinitrc

exec /usr/bin/dbus-launch \
    --exit-with-session \
     /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone

Create /etc/init.d/xbmc with the following, and add it to the default boot level
#!/sbin/runscript

depend() {
        need dbus
        need consolekit
        need net
        after alsasound
}

start() {
        ebegin "Starting ${SVCNAME}"
        su -l xbmc -c startx > /tmp/xbmc.log 2>&1 &
        eend 0
}

stop() {
        ebegin "Stopping ${SVCNAME}"
        xbmc-send --host=127.0.0.1 --port=9777 --action="XBMC.Quit"
        eend 0
}

If you are using DRI, /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-dri.conf
Section "DRI"
    Mode 0660
EndSection

Create /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/custom-actions.pkla
[Actions for xbmc user]
Identity=unix-user:xbmc
Action=org.freedesktop.upower.*;org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.*;org.freedesktop.udisks.*
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes

Alternatively, for newer polkit versions, you’ll need to create a rules script /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/10-xbmc.rules
polkit.addRule( function( action, subject )
{
        if( subject.user == "xbmc" )
        {
                if( action.id.indexOf( "org.freedesktop.udisks." ) == 0
                        || action.id.indexOf( "org.freedesktop.power." ) == 0
                        || action.id.indexOf( "org.freedesktop.consolekit.system." ) == 0 )
                {
                        return "yes";
                }
        }
});

That’s it! Reboot and your good to configure XBMC and watch movies!

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