Henry Coe - August 2009

Today I took a shot at a longer ride in Henry Coe. My stretch goal was to make a 24-mile loop up to Mississippi Lake and back, although I gave decent odds that I wouldn't do the whole thing.

I got up nice and early, but perhaps I should have got up even earlier since I didn't leave the headquarters parking area until 7:40. By then it was already warm in the sun, although still pleasantly cool in the long shadows. The initial path rolled over the top of the ridge not too steeply.

It's hard to take photos that show the steepness of the terrain. But this one shows the last bit of ridge before I drop over the edge and a ridge I might have to climb on the other side.

It also doesn't show the dust covering the trail, thin in most areas but up to a couple inches deep in some ruts. It was definitely a tricky downhill, and I didn't want to fall and hurt myself before I'd even gotten started. (Not that I really wanted to fall and hurt myself deep in the Henry Coe wilderness, either!) I was doing OK, going slowly, but when I let go of the rear brakes for a moment to shift I caught a rut and slid the front tire out from under me. At that point there was nothing left to do but put my hands out where the bike wouldn't fall on them and accept however much gravel got pushed under my skin. Luckily not too much: just a couple of holes in each hand.

I shook that off, continued on down to Poverty Flat, across the dry creek, and started up the far side. The word "brutal" had already crossed my mind a few times on the way down, and it crossed my mind yet again on the way up the other side.

At the first rest stop, I heard a hissing and tracked it down to a hole in the rear sidewall. Slime tires are great, but sometimes an old hole will open up again if you pound on it, and I suspect the big rocks in the creek bed had broken the seal. In any case, it was a slow leak, so I continued on.

After a long, hard slog mostly in first gear, I neared the top of Jackass Peak and had to get off and walk for a few of the steeper, dustier parts. Once again, brutal.

I finally reached the top, only to find that the way down the other side was just as steep. I decided to turn around, then decided to continue on, then decided to consult the GPS.

OK, if that hill was that brutal to climb, and it was only 1/3 as tall as the hill I'd have to climb on the return in the brutal afternoon heat, I figured I'd better turn around after all.

My tire had finally resealed itself, but it had lost so much air that the sidewalls were flexing back and forth on the final uphill push, so I took the opportunity to pump it back up. My portable pump can put a lot of stress on the valve stem, and compressing air generates a lot of heat, so I ended up turning the slightly bent valve arm into a very bent valve arm, too bent to allow the locking nut to be screwed tight again. Fortunately, air pressure holds the valve closed, and it gave me no further trouble today. (I had two spare tubes in case I needed them.)

Returning up the ridge was, you guessed it, brutal. On the plus side, all those rest stops on the way back up gave me plenty of opportunities to take photos.

The last part of the big hill wasn't nearly as steep. On the other hand, the long morning shadows had shrunk down to very small morning shadows. And anywhere not shadowed felt like 90 degrees already, still at not quite 11:00 in the morning.

At this point my hand was covered with dirt, rubber off my hand grips, and of course those annoying gravel punctures. Ew.

I realized as I was finishing the last bit of hill that my water situation could have been awkward. I'd chosen to bring my water filter, which would have let me refill at Mississippi Lake, but bringing the water filter meant I didn't have room for that extra emergency liter of water (two half-liter bottles). Thus, I had only 1.5 liters of water, which I could have doubled, but that wasn't much more than the 2.5 liters I would have brought without the filter. Getting back from Mississippi Lake with only 1.5 liters in the hot afternoon sun would have been iffy. Plus, if I had turned around before reaching Mississippi Lake, I would have had to go a very long distance on only 1.5 liters. Fortunately, having turned around where I did, I still had some water left at the end.

So, all in all, it was a shorter trip than I wanted, but it was still plenty of exercise, and I lived to tell about it.

Mt. Tam - Summer 2009

Steve and Dianna and Calder and I went hiking on the East Peak of Mt. Tam. Steve and Dianna and I hiked about 5 miles. Calder hiked about half a mile. He did OK, although he fell down a lot.

Purisma Creek 2009

Hiked at Purisma Creek with Derek. Started at about 11:00, finished at 3:10. Early on, the fog was low on the west side of Skyline, but not in the trees. However, the trees had obviously been catching the fog earlier in the morning, as the ground was damp everywhere and some rivelets were not yet entirely dried.

No, that's not camera shake. The fog seems to make the more distant objects look blurry in the low-res view.

We did the standard 10-mile loop, counterclockwise from the northern entrance. However, we missed the turn back to the car and ended up at the other parking lot. Rather than head back down again, we walked along the road. In many places, a clear trail paralleled the road, but in other places it disappeared at a driveway and didn't pick up again until past a group of houses.

Yosemite, May 2009

I hiked by myself in Yosemite, from the Wawona Tunnel parking area to Dewey Point and back.

A Google Earth view.

My hiking book claims 10.9 miles. The GPS claimed 10.0. I'm guessing the GPS missed some switchbacks.

But I get ahead of myself. First, this early morning view of the Merced River from the Yosemite Valley entrance.

Now on the hike itself, a view from the first major view at Stanford Point.

Mysterious flowers.

Crocker Point.

Bridalveil Fall from Crocker Point.

Rugged terrain around and beyond Yosemite Valley, again from Crocker Point.

Ribbon Fall next to El Capitan.

Dewey Point.

Note the single spire in the lower foreground, and the multiple spires a bit to the right in the middle distance.

I never noticed this divot in El Capitan before. Given that it's not in the previous photo, the light must have to be just right to make it obvious.

With nothing in the foreground, you might think I shot this from an airplane.

A scraggly tree on Dewey Point.

Old signs nearby. What do they mean?

I have many pictures of the views over the edge, but none so far of the trail itself. Here's a picture of the descending trail to give you an idea of the mostly shady terrain on the trail itself. The camera must have been crooked because I don't remember the trees leaning like that.

Thunder was starting to reverberate around the valley, so I hurried my pace, but I stopped for one final picture of El Capitan (left), Half Dome (center), and Bridalveil (right) together.