Pilot's Knob, CA

A new hike in Yuma, for me. Nexgen Yuma and Meetup put together a hike up Pilot's Knob, a hill in California right at the point where California, Arizona and Mexico all meet. This hike is similar to the "goat trail" up Telegraph Pass minus the approach hike. It is a little under a mile in distance and a little over 600 feet in elevation gained.

Summit

Once at the summit you are rewarded with a panoramic view that includes Yuma, Algodones, Picacho, Felicity and the Imperial Sand Dunes

Panoramic 

 "Center of the World" Felicity, CA

Algodones, Mexico

-James

Lele Kawa

On Las Vegas and Snowboarding

I feel that with the exception of the hardcore fans of Vegas, everyone else shares a love hate relationship with the city. In this small area of the world you can do just about anything. The hate comes from the cost of this convenience, both financial and facing the crowds. I feel that overall I like Vegas, despite my hate of crowds and the pain I feel in my wallet when its time to leave. Its good seem to outweigh the bad. Where else could you gorge yourself at a buffet, before skiing, rock climb on your way back to the city, where you enjoy dinner from a Michelin Star chef, shoot machine guns spanning the last 100 years and then watch the most talented fighters in the world beat each other for sport? Nowhere that I know of.

I'm sure there are very few people who consider Vegas to be a ski town, but less than an hour from downtown they have a small resort that is pretty decent. Situated above 8,500 feet on mount Charleston, it actually receives a fair amount of real snow. At the time I went on Christmas Eve it had received more snow than any of the Souther California or Arizona resorts that are within a weekends trip away from me.

As long as you avoided the bunny hill, there were no lift lines and nicely groomed slopes. The bunny hill was crowded, barely steep enough to slide on, and full of tourist form all over the world. They didn't have nearly as many terrain features as Big Bear had, but there were a few jumps and sliders scattered along one of the runs.

With a new GoPro arrangement and a little editing I put together the video below.

-James

Lele Kawa

Lele Kawa at Squaw Lake, CA

I was surprised to learn form some guys at work that there was some cliff jumping near Yuma. Could this be real? An opportunity to do some lele kawa here in the desert.

It turned out to be true, and the cliffs are no joke. They loom about 35 feet over Senator wash. The only catch was unless you have a boat, you need to hike about a mile to get there. Now a mile doesn't sound that far but remember in the desert summer when the water is warm enough that you want to jump the air temp is often over 110. The mile there isn't too bad, its the mile back that is killer.

 Center of the photo has a 30 foot cliff

This photo lacks scale, but that point on the right is about 40 feet

The trailer for "Lele Kawa's literally living the dream" shows some clips from our time at the cliffs, and the full movie should contain even more.

-James

Lele Kawa

Early season snowboarding at Big Bear, CA

The worst part about early season snow is only two runs being open and lift lines. The best part is all the snow bunnies in tank tops as the day heated up.

It had been a while since I spent any time on a snowboard, so I was happy to get up to Big Bear, CA for the long weekend. Plenty of fake snow on the two open slopes, one beginner and one intermediate. The good thing was the intermediate trail had a bunch of man made terrain scattered all over it.

Normally I shy away from terrain parks in favor of glades or side country, but for early season you have to take what you can get. They had a good variety, which was nice. They had rails, boxes, small table tops, larger kickers, and some large pipes.

-James

Lele Kawa

San Bernardino camping

After I split from my friends in Joshua Tree, I headed to Big Bear Lake, CA for some snowboarding. I didn't really have any plan for this part of the weekend. Before I hit the road from J Tree I went online to see what camping and lodging options I had.

I found out about Yellow Post camp sites, from my google search. The main permit needed was the Adventure Pass, that I have had and barely used for about a year now. A further search gave me the map below, which showed me the locations of all of the sites.


View Yellow Post Campsites (partial) in a larger map

I decided to try for Yellow Post 26, because it was the closest to the lake and the ski resorts. I was amazed to find that the site was empty, since it was less then a mile off the paved road and 3 days into a 4 day weekend.

Once I arrived I was disappointed I didn't have my mountain bike. There was a constant stream of bikes headed up and down "Plantation Trail", which is mapped below. The weather was perfect for some biking. The ground was a little crunchy from the cold rather than wet with snow in spots but the air was a comfortable 60 or so in the early evening.

-James

Lele Kawa

Up to "Shit" creek with a Paddle board

I finally did it. I paddled a SUP board from Gateway Park in Yuma, up river to the confluence of the Colorado and Gila rivers, here often referred to as shit creek.

Board in front of the Ocean to Ocean bridge

It happened to be a little cooler this time, but I still set out around 1:30 in the afternoon sun. The cool weather must have scared away most of the floaters, because there were only 3 groups that I saw.

Going upstream was burning my arms out. It started to seem like I would never make it. There were a few times I though about turning back to attempt another day, but I pressed on. Eventually I made it to "shit creek". It wasn't very crowded, just a few people camping out and some trucks tooling around.

I decided to head up the Gila for a just a little bit. It proved to be too shallow after not very long, so I turned around and went up the Colorado for a little distance. Once I found a little beach to myself, I stopped for my break.

View during my break

After my break was the easy part, downstream. I kept a pretty good pace on the downstream, paddling the whole way rather than just floating. The worst part was the sun had gotten low and was in my eyes the whole way. I arrived back at Gateway Park just as the sun was setting.

-James

Lele Kawa

Colorado River Crossing Balloon Festival

This year Yuma hosted the 22nd annual Colorado River Crossing Balloon Festival. I took it as an opportunity to break out the camera and take some pictures.

It didn't hurt that they were pouring beer and serving barbecue. For $15 they had tethered balloon rides, to a high of 75 feet. It sounded better than it looked, so I didn't partake.

After my food and drink, I picked my seat in the stadiums bleachers. My seat seemed to provide a pretty good angle for seeing the balloons for the glow.

Watching the balloons inflate with the sky still bright was underwhelming. As the sky got darker the balloons started looking better.

After it wasn't getting any darker, I decided to wander around the grounds. It was kinda cool feeling the heat from the burners in all directions.

As I was leaving, I turned to see the balloons from the parking lot. I think this gave one of the best view. Being farther away evened everything out a little better.

-James

Lele Kawa