panamintcity

Friday night found us once again heading out to Panamint City. This trip included myself, my old friend Reynard the Desert Fox, my bro-in-law Shawn and his kids Jakob and Arriana. This was Jakob and Arriana's first time ever making the hike to Panamint.

We arrived at Novak camp around 3 in the morning and The Fox and I hit the dark trail to the City. The Clan of the Shawn Bear would be hiking at first light.

The hike went great and we made it to the city at 9:30 am. My first priority was of course to take a nap. While I was sleeping The Fox was out working on the City water supply lines. I awoke to the sounds of water running from a broken pipe on the side of the Hilton.

I soon got up and uncovered one of our caches that we have not touched in over three years. After that Shawn and his kids made it into the City. It was about 1 pm.

After a trip up to the cistern to fill up on water we came back and got to work on the supply lines for the cabin water. I don't know who was the last person to try to work on the plumbing but they did a terrible job. I spent most of my time underneath the cabin just splicing cut sections of pipe back together. By the time I was done with the kitchen line we had used up all the fittings that we had brought so I had to cap the toilet line. I will fix that on the next trip.

The fox had a great idea to remedy the problem of water pressure cracking the pipes. We installed a long length of capped pipe on the outside of the Cabin. This pipe reaching nearly to the roof line is full of air and when the faucet is turned off the surge of pressure will just compress the air and not crack the pipe.

Shawn took the kids to explore some of the old mines and machinery while I worked on cleaning the inside of the cabin. I hate to say it but not all the people who have been coming up to the City have been doing their share of cleaning up after themselves.

Sunday morning we hit the trail back down Surprise Canyon and I was surprised at all the groups of people we past on their way up for the day. In all there was well over 20 total.

We made it to Novak camp and spent some time with old George. He is all fired up over this Ballarat Bandit guy and is hopeing to catch him before the law does. We then left and sat a spell with Donna in Ballarat and watched Rocky Novak sweat his butt off up on the roof of the General store fixing the solar panels and roof.

We all had a great time,I was amazed at how well the kids did on the hike and I know they will remember this trip for a long time to come.
Happy Trails,
Charles