Ansel Adams Wilderness

Hi, my name is Hudson and I'll be your horse. Oh, swell, the start of a four-day hunting and fishing pack trip into the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and you draw a nag named after an obsolete car. The look in his eyes speaks an inside joke for all the other oatburners. Hey, fellas, I got me a real dude this time! Horses know. A Long Beach fireman named Dudley Pratt draws a horse named . . . Dudley. Hudson, Dudley, Bugsy, Cosmo, Cinderella, 10AC--get it, Tennessee ?

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered that commercial packers in the Ansel Adams and John Muir wilderness areas cut a fifth of their overnight trips next summer and reduce the number of people and horses on each trip. The reduction will be in place as the U.S. Forest Service analyzes the impact of pack animals on 800,000 acres of wilderness in remote areas of the Sierra and Inyo national forests. The order by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D.

The serrated summits of the Minarets jut up on the Sierra skyline like the jagged teeth of a castoff comb. But this, of course, is a destination to treasure, not abandon. For decades it has lured hikers, climbers, backpackers and others into the wilderness west of Mammoth Lakes, rewarding them with scenery, solitude and adventure.

The serrated summits of the Minarets jut up on the Sierra skyline like the jagged teeth of a castoff comb. But this, of course, is a destination to treasure, not abandon. For decades it has lured hikers, climbers, backpackers and others into the wilderness west of Mammoth Lakes, rewarding them with scenery, solitude and adventure.

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered that commercial packers in the Ansel Adams and John Muir wilderness areas cut a fifth of their overnight trips next summer and reduce the number of people and horses on each trip. The reduction will be in place as the U.S. Forest Service analyzes the impact of pack animals on 800,000 acres of wilderness in remote areas of the Sierra and Inyo national forests. The order by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D.

Two campgrounds in Kings Canyon National Park were closed after a mouse died of bubonic plague. A dusting program will take three to four weeks to remove diseased fleas from rodents in the Azalea and Crystal Springs campgrounds, located in the popular Grant Grove section of the park. The closures temporarily eliminate 185 of the park's 683 campsites. The adjacent Sunset campground, which had already closed for the winter, will also be treated.

THOUSAND ISLAND LAKE Ansel Adams Wilderness, Inyo National Forest Ask folks whether they've been to the Sierra, and they'll likely cite a well-tromped trail in Yosemite. But plunge deeper into California's iconic backyard and you get to Thousand Island Lake, a spot around 10,000 feet above sea level where teensy granite islands glitter in the sun, where alpenglow bouncing off Banner Peak rivals the Northern Lights, where you could spend slack-jawed hours staring at the landscape.

Editors' note: Last week's cover photo (right), taken in 2001 by Times staff photographer Ken Hively at an existing fire ring near Thousand Island Lake, generated a lot of letters from readers eager to assert that building a fire at this elevation -- 9,833 feet -- is illegal and/or reprehensible. Environmentally incorrect? Yes. Illegal? No. The Ansel Adams Wilderness Area prohibits fires only above 10,000 feet and less than a quarter mile from the lake's outlet. Even if a fire were allowed, it is irresponsible to use such a limited [fuel]

Decades before triathlons, Xtreme games and even the first ascent of Mt. Everest, Orland Bartholomew skied the length of the High Sierra in the face of furious winter storms, 12,000-foot passes and severe avalanche danger. The onetime forest ranger made the daring trip alone. Along the way, he made the first winter ascent of 14,495-foot Mt. Whitney, the nation's highest peak outside Alaska.

Here in this remote slice of the High Sierra the U.S. Forest Service has launched a first-of-a-kind, summer-long, turn-back-the-clock training program in which rangers learn and apply the skills of a bygone era. In keeping with the pristine character of the surroundings, rangers enrolled in a special wilderness school maintain trails and footbridges in the old-fashioned way, without benefit of mechanized equipment.

Hi, my name is Hudson and I'll be your horse. Oh, swell, the start of a four-day hunting and fishing pack trip into the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and you draw a nag named after an obsolete car. The look in his eyes speaks an inside joke for all the other oatburners. Hey, fellas, I got me a real dude this time! Horses know. A Long Beach fireman named Dudley Pratt draws a horse named . . . Dudley. Hudson, Dudley, Bugsy, Cosmo, Cinderella, 10AC--get it, Tennessee ?

No doubt at all how Devils Postpile National Monument was named. It's easy to imagine that the collection of dark rock columns is a pile of posts pushed up from the depths of the Earth by the old devil himself. Geologists have another explanation: An ancient lava flow created a formation of columnar basalt, as it's known. Subsequent glaciers excavated one side of the Postpile, revealing a precipitous wall of columns 60 feet high.

Two mountain climbers were found dangling lifeless on the side of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on Wednesday after snowstorms stranded hikers throughout the Central Sierra. The climbers were spotted Tuesday by Yosemite rangers but could not be reached because of driving wind and snow brought by a storm from the Gulf of Alaska that swooped across much of California over the weekend.