Hi notes

If you just got a blank message from me…sorry! I composed a message
and then went to the help screen and apparently lost the message. I
was trying to find ’spell check’…if anyone knows how to access it,
let me know! In the meantime, please excuse any typos I don’t catch!.
So here goes again…
The road to Hi Mountain was finally opened at about noon Friday
1/3/03. I navigated the river crossing in my ‘72, 4 wheel drive pick-
up with no problems. A US Forest Service crew was busily cutting up a
huge oak tree that had fallen accross the road at the camp grounds
when I drove by.

We were concerned about rain damage from the two recent storms, and
sure enough, some water had gotten into the downstairs visitor’s
center. My rag mop and I made quick work of THAT, however!
I did some Condor tracking at about 1430 hours, but didn’t pick up
any signals. I had called Mike Barth (at Hopper Mt.) before leaving
Friday morning and he said that two of the Ventana birds that had
been frequenting Atascadero (B161 and Y192) had flown down to the
Hopper Mt. area and were hanging out down there. I had also spoken to
Ryan at the Ventana release site and he said that there were no
Condors in the Atascadero area that he knew of…and he was right!

Mike Tyner arrived at the lookout at about 1600 hours and said he had
seen about 20 Elk near the ranch houses at the Pozo ranger station.
The weather was beautiful: 70 degrees and NO wind at noon. A Northern
Harrier circled below the lookout at 1300 hours while a Calif.
Thrasher accompanied it in song. The Sierras, with a thick covering
of snow, were plainly visible off the North East. It should be
beautiful this weekend if any of you care to visit the lookout!

Enjoy!
Kathleen