I hiked within Rediscovery on both Sunday and Monday of the past long Labor Day weekend. It feels important, especially when coupled with almost neighboring Bigfeet and Plateau of Raw Art. There’s no direct trail connecting the latter 2 with Rediscovery as far as I can tell. I’m going to keep looking but I’m doubtful — a shame. So near to each other yet so far. Blue Mtn. has this nack of segmenting its various focus spots from each other, it seems. Certainly all the local rhododendron plays a role here.
Below is a rock I’ve named Flattop, with a neighboring stone called Razor Edge. They project from the side of the mtn. just above Rediscovery. It’s actually a ridge, with a faint but quite walkable trail running along a large portion of it. This was yet another exciting discovery of the weekend. Evidence of camping doesn’t make its way up here from Rediscovery, however, although a kind of very loose trail does. This ridge actually separates Rediscovery from Bigfeet/Plateau of Raw Art, the latter which can be glimpsed below through the trees to the south as you walk along it. Again: so near yet so far.
Moving back into Rediscovery, I found this sign marking a Traverse Station. I had to look up what that meant, and found this:
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Traverse+Station
The power lines above the station. We are at the peak of the same ridge, but further down toward Leola Creek after a steep descent of maybe 200-250 feet.
And it was in this same area that my former campspot is found, where I erected a primitive teepee in the summer of 1984. My plan was to live in the teepee all that summer, but I only stayed there a month — May as I recall. I believe I’ve already mentioned this teepee in the blog, stating that I couldn’t figure out how to seal the top and just stuck an umbrella up there, ha ha. At the same time a good friend of mine was setting up an *actual* and official teepee about a mile and a 1/2 further up in the hills from here, off a tributary of Leola Creek as I’m thinking about it. I helped with this process, thus the inspiration to create my own rough copy. And I’ve mentioned this man in the blog as well: he worked with me at Maynard Jackson’s Cafeteria in Blue Mtn.’s Town Mall, along with another guy I’ve touched upon named Willard. Other friends and acquaintances also had their own teepees at the same time set up in various area locations. Wild times. Have I mentioned my play “Dump” here?
As I’m checking now, I see not, although I’ve mentioned the old Middletown dump here. Well, I’ll just briefly say here that Dump was a rough draft of a play I created in 1984 at the peak of all this teepee madness. The whole concept became legendary in the minds of a handful, and even sprouted its own era: The Age of Dump.
*Anyway*, below is a picture of the actual spot where I set up my *own* teepee in the place I now call Rediscovery. I haven’t been to this spot in perhaps 20 years, maybe longer. Again it lies at the top of the low end of the ridge forming a barrier between Rediscovery and the Bigfeet area to the east. And, again, I’ll make a map or set of maps of this whole area soon for better explanations of what’s going on here.
Firepit next to the old teepee site…
… with gleaming coffee pot.
Here’s some pictures of one of several other camping spots found this weekend in Rediscovery.
Glimpse of Leola Creek Road from a rocky perch.
Someone left behind their peanut butter and jelly jar.
Yet another perch gives a nice view into the area’s formerly popular swimming hole on the creek. It’s still used, however, just not as much or as openly as before. I guess the place was shut down sometime around the turn of the century or so. Rough guess.
Another camping spot, this one with packed sand as a base. How did they get that sand up here? And then I found that you can actually see this white hexagonal base in GoogleEarth.
One more picture of the Rediscovery trail, with centering white mushroom.
Sunklands 