Mountains and Trees

Yosemite - Fall 2011

2011-11-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

Today, Chuck and Jamshid and I went to Yosemite, and it was great. Well, except for all the fog on the way. It was foggy all the way from my place to the Sierra foothills, particularly thick around I-5 (of course). I took it slow and careful, so it added about half an hour to the drive.

Since it is late in the season, I checked the weather carefully. We were set to go last weekend despite the 20% chance of a tenth of an inch of snow, but then the forecast changed to 90% chance of 5 to 9 inches! Of course, after we canceled our plans, it didn't snow after all. In any case, I kept a close eye on the Yosemite webcams to see how much snow might accumulate during the week. I kept a copy of this particularly nice image.

Today it turned out to be sunny with a forecast high around 50 degrees. We started and ended the hike in our jackets, but in the middle of the day we could take them off in the sun.

Our hike was from the Wawona Tunnel up the south rim to Crocker Point. The lower part of the hike was dry, but about 10% of the trail was snow covered in the upper elevations. Here are Chuck (foreground) and Jamshid (background) in a particularly snowy section.

Stanford Point, Crocker Point, and Dewey Point are reachable in day trip, in that order. The main trail only goes near Stanford Point, and in the summer there is a chaotic profusion of side trails to reach the point itself. This time there were fewer trails through the snow, but they still didn't take a particularly optimal route to the point. So I made my own, which turned out to be even worse. In any case, we made it eventually.

It's not too much further to Crocker Point. I guess I didn't take a photo of the point itself. (The metal sign was propped up against a tree, where it wasn't very photogenic.) Here's a look down at Bridalveil Fall.

... and across the valley at the distant snow-covered mountains.

We were hiking somewhat leisurely, so we decided to not go all the way to Dewey Point. Here's a final shot from the return trip, from Inspiration Point (or thereabouts).

Windy Hill - 2011

2011-11-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Chuck and I hiked at Windy Hill. We planned to take Lost Trail to Hamms Gulch Trail to Meadow Trail to Spring Ridge Trail (steep up), about ~6.5 miles, ~1000 feet elevation. However, Chuck likes to complete as many trails as he can in each park, so we also covered the many small loops around the main entrance and lake. Chuck says our total was probably about 10 miles.

There a couple of good view spots up near Skyline, but generally it's a pretty standard Open Space park.

Hanalei-Okolehao Route

2011-10-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Richard and I hiked up the fairly steep Hanalei-Okolehau Route. Just after the first one-lane bridge an the highway past Princeville, a sharp left put us on a narry road next to a river (flat and gentle here). Parking is limited, but the hiking book and our experience is that it never fills up.

There were plenty of Richard's favorite guavas along this trail.

Also, good views of Hanalei.

Canyon Trail Adventure

2011-10-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

I went by myself today for a nice loop combining the Canyon and Black Pipe trails, the Kumuwela road and trail, and the Halemanu-Kokee trail. Once again I had the bad set of camera batteries, although this time I was able to diagnose the problem so that it won't happen any more.

There were various other groups of hikers up to and at the Waipoo Falls. After that, though, I saw hardly anyone.

The first part of the trail goes out onto various ridges overlooking the canyon. I do not know what process formed these natural arches.

The "Kaipo Perch" has a nice butt-shaped indentation for anyone who wants sit and watch the canyon.

'Round about here is where I met a couple of German tourists who asked me to snap their picture in front of the canyon. They also offered to take my picture, but that's when my batteries went south. They took my picture with their camera and offered to send it to me when they got home, so I'll put it up here if/when that happens.

They also wanted to know how far it was to the Kokee Museum. Gee, uh, does this trail even go to the Kokee Museum? They weren't sure, but apparently someone had told them to "just follow the trail" to get there. I showed them the map in my hiking book with the dense interwoven trails, and invited them to hike with me and I'd at least get them back to civilization. And thus Sebastien and Rebekka became my hiking partners for the rest of the day.

From around this point the trail veered in away from the canyon edge, so the best views were mainly of flowers from that point on. We had a nice conversation comparing the hiking in Hawaii, California, and the Alps; discussing the current economy and our respective countries' recovery efforts; and various other small talk.

When we got to a multiway intersection near the Halemanu-Kokee Trail, I looked deeper in my hiking book and found the proper route for them to take to the Kokee Museum. However, they decided that they'd had enough, so we headed back to my car, and I gave them a ride back to their car.

Moalepe Trail

2011-10-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

Richard and I finally went on the gentler trail that we'd intended two days ago, and I finally got my calves properly stretched out without overworking them.

The Moalepe Trail starts as a fire road/ranch road, although the ranchland to either side seems to be mostly abandoned. Certainly it's very lush and rugged, so rounding up the animals can't be easy.

The views are limited until you get to the picnic area. From there you can see the main Kauai mountain range, depending on the cloud level.

The clouds were playing hide and seek. Different cloud layers made it look like the clouds were tearing apart.

Since we'd seen so many different flowers on the way in, I figured I'd photograph as many as I could on the way back. Unfortunately, my macro photography skills are not that great, especially when it comes to getting the right focus.

This trail had a few more people on it than the others we'd been on, but they were still pretty sparse.

Iliau Nature Loop

2011-10-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today Richard and I roped my mom to come with us to the Iliau Nature Loop at the head of the Kukui Trail. The nature loop has signs giving the names and a paragraph of information about various native plants in the area. Unfortunately, my memory for plant names is very bad.

Also, the views over the canyon are spectacular.

It was starting to spit rain, so I hurried back to the car and got our picnic supplies, and we set ourselves up for lunch in the sheltered picnic area.

The rain was sporadic, but occasionally quite hard. After finishing our lunch, we found ourselves having to wait patiently for the rain to stop. During a lull when it had calmed to an occasional spit, we decided to make a dash back to the car. Our timing was perfect, as rain fell in torrents as soon as we got inside.

We stopped in Hanapepe for Lappart's ice cream. For Halloween they had Pumpkin Crunch flavor, where the Crunch seemed to be a mix of pie crust and pecans. It was strangely good.

Alii Vista Hale, Nonou Mountain

2011-10-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I played a few games of beach volleyball with the locals who come out on Saturday. 'Twas fun, but after a plane ride and a steep hike the day before, beach volleyball was an excellent way to make my calves hurt even more. I looked forward to a gentler hike to stretch them out again. As it turns out, I mixed up my intended route with this one, so today's hike was steeper than I intended. But it was still good.

Richard and I have hiked this trail before, so it was familiar terrain. It starts next to a horse pasture, then crosses a wooden bridge. It's been repaired now, but the last time we were here it was fascinatingly bowed by the weight of trees and other plant material that had washed against it in a recent flood.

Across the bridge, the trail climbs gently along the side of the ridge and behind the rather large yards of the richer locals.

At an intersection, the trail turns steeply uphill through a stand of Norfolk Pine (supposedly planted by Captain Cook for future use as masts) and up to a pair of picnic tables under a shelter.

Today I had a bad set of batteries in my camera, so there are no more photos.

Kukui Trail to Waimea River

2011-10-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

My plane to Hawaii got in early, and my parents' plane was getting in late, so I had time to go for a hike. It's an hour's drive from Lihue to the Kukui Trail (the first good spot to hike into the canyon). Richard and I have hiked here before, but I wanted to go all the way down to the river.

Downhill was easy, although in retrospect, five hours on a plane followed by an hour of steep downhill was probably not the best idea for my calves.

I saw only one couple heading uphill as I was heading downhill. Other than that it was very quiet, even heading through the campground near the river.

It clearly hadn't rained much recently. Although I've never been to the canyon bottom before, I assume that the river flow is usually higher than this.

Some relative of the mangrove was making itself home on the cliffside via an unusual hovering arrangement.

Near the river, the forest is pretty thick, and the trail is indistinct. I had to keep my eye open for blazes (generally a clear strip of plastic [or perhaps a baggie] tied around a branch). At one point I startled a pair of goats, one tan and one black. It was difficult to get a good photo through the forest.

About halfway up, you leave the forest and start up a red-dirt ridge with sparse trees. Here, the views were made more varied by the spotty clouds.

Closer to the top, the trail falls off the top of the ridge and switchbacks up the side instead, thus generally hiding the views. At the very top is a nature loop that I figured my parents would enjoy doing later.

The hiking book says 2.5 miles to the river, with 2500 feet of elevation change. That's pretty steep. I went down in only an hour, then took about 2.5 hours to come back up.

Mission Peak 2011

2011-10-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and Chuck and I climbed Mission Peak via the main route, and it was good. We saw people, cows, crows, turkey vultures, paragliders, a hang glider, and an RC glider. The gliders seemed to come out later in the afternoon when it was warmer. (More updrafts, I guess.)

Sierra Azul 2011

2011-10-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and I practiced our hill climbing by hiking on the Kennedy Trail in Sierra Azul. It's a basic fire road, but it goes up and up and up. It was a bit hazy, but we could see Shoreline and Moffett Field to the north.

Black Mountain 2011

2011-10-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Chuck and I hiked up the Black Mountain Trail from the Rhus Ridge Road entrance to Rancho San Antonio. From the peak (among the menhirs) we could see Skyline Road and Page Mill Road at Montebello OSP.

Henry Cowell - Fall Creek Unit 2011

2011-07-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid, Chuck, Sally, and I hiked at the Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell. This is just west of Scotts Valley, so it's a bit of a drive, and not one to try on a busy beach day.

We followed Fall Creek toward (but not all the way to) Trail's End, then looped around on Truck Road and Ridge Trail. I found the hike quite pleasant, and shady everywhere, even on the Truck Road.

There is an old rusted barrel stave mill along the creek. There's an interpretive sign, but it doesn't explain much, so we entertained ourselves pointing out bits of machinery and trying to figure out what they were.

We formulated a plan for an alternative hike the next time we come back, but I can't remember what it was. It may involve the S-Cape trail, which isn't shown on the map on the web site. If I recall correctly, there was a better map at the first major trail intersection from the parking lot.

Pescadero 2011

2011-07-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and Chuck and I hiked a loop in Pescadero Creek Park. We actually started in Sam McDonald Park from a little 5-car parking area at the Heritage Grove. There was only one other car there in the morning and two others in the afternoon, and the spots were shady all day, this may be a good parking area for future trips.

From the Heritage Grove Trailhead we wandered around the Heritage Grove first, then went up the hill past the Hikers' Hut. We missed the trail and followed the road instead, so we didn't actually see the hut. We continued clockwise around the Brook Trail Loop and back to the trailhead. As far as I can tell, it adds up to 6.5-7.0 miles.

The trail was open and hot at the top near the Hikers' Hut, but the rest was shady and not too bad, considering that it was in the upper 90's in Santa Clara. Since Pescadero is near La Honda on the west side of the Santa Cruz mountains, it was probably 15-20 degrees cooler where we were.

We spotted 14 banana slugs.

Sanborn-Skyline 2011

2011-06-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and Chuck and I hiked in Sanborn-Skyline along the trail that parallels Skyline Road. Since we weren't quite sure where to park, we ended up parking somewhat in the middle, then going out and back in each direction.

I found the out-and-back to be a bit boring, but Jamshid and I both liked the quality of the trail and the surrounding shade.

Wunderlich 2011

2011-06-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and Chuck and I hiked at Wunderlich today. We did this hike, plus an extra spur to the crossroads.

Especially near the entrance, the trails are half paved, I guess because they get so much horse traffic. The trail are also covered in horse poop, presumably for a similar reason. The park is nice enough deeper in, but it's not our favorite.

It was also hard to find parking.

Yosemite - Spring 2011

2011-05-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Steve and Chuck and I went to Yosemite and it was good.

Chuck and I met at my place, then we drove up and met Steve at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station (about 45 minutes). From there it was "only" about 3:15 to the Yosemite Valley.

As usual, photos cannot reflect the grandeur of the first view into the valley.

Snowpack is at 200% of normal, and it actually snowed a little bit in the valley last weekend. But today was nice, and the snowmelt was coming over the falls in torrents.

It was hard work climbing up to the rim, and the light wasn't ideal, so I didn't get my camera out until we got to the top. I was expecting snow, but despite the heavy snowfall deeper in the Sierras, there was substantially less at the top of the trail than I'd seen on previous trips (which were admittedly earlier in the season).

Note that with Yosemite Falls being on the north side of the valley, the trail gets more sun than elsewhere. The prediction was for a high in the mid 60's, but it felt warmer than that. It wasn't hot, but it was warm enough that I wasn't tempted to put on more than my shorts and T-shirt (although I also didn't want to stop too long under the mist from the falls).

The cascades above the falls.

The brink and middle cascades.

Another angle.

I got my camera out a few times on the way back down. Mmm...

Looking back up the trail.

The upper fall.

A woman contemplating the view from her perch.

Parking was much more full than I've seen before. We ending up parking up the road somewhat, which added to the hike, but it wasn't quite far enough to bother catching a bus. The upshot was that we had the opportunity to spot these deer in a meadow on our way back to the car.

On the way home we broke our usual tradition of stopping for dinner at Mountain Mike's in Oakdale. Instead we stopped a bit earlier in Groveland at a local pizza cafe that didn't just have delicious pizza, but also delicious vanilla malt shakes. Mmm...

Stevens Creek and Fremont Older - Spring 2011

2011-05-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and I went for a hike from the north (far) end of the Stevens Creek Reservoir. We parked at a little parking lot for a group picnic area. People had formed an extra line of parked cars along one side of the parking lot entrance road, so we joined the line.

We took the narrow trail up the hill up into Fremont Older, then arced around as much of upper part Fremont Older as we could without descending towards Hunter's Point. We stopped for lunch at the top of Nob Hill, and the view was OK, but not quite as encompassing as from Hunter's Point.

We then followed the ridge road down to the south end of the reservoir and returned along the narrow Stevens Creek Trail to the car.

We saw a deer. We did not see the second deer until I got home and zoomed in on this photo.

These looked like some sort of fishing bird with long necks and long bills, but they didn't cooperate for a photo.

Pinnacles - Spring 2011

2011-05-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

It was cool and cloudy, so Jamshid and I went to the Pinnacles today. From the Bear Gulch parking lot we circled counterclockwise up the Condor Gulch Trail to the High Peaks Trail, around to the reservoir, through the lower caves, and then back to the car.

There were raptors circling the high peaks, but it was hard to tell what they were. Condors or turkey vultures? Was the reddish-brown one a hawk or an immature condor? They did not cooperate for photos.

Castle Rock 2011

2011-05-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and Chuck and I did a five-mile loop from the north (main?) entrance of Castle Rock to the campground and back. I didn't take any photos.

Chuck asked what poison oak looks like, and since I'd just seen a warning sign and identification guide yesterday, I was able to point some out to him. Then we realized that there was *lots* of it beside the trail. Be careful where you walk.

Point Lobos 2011

2011-04-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

My parents and I took a short trip to Point Lobos south of Carmel. There were harbor seals.

Santa Teresa 2011

2011-04-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and I went for a short hike at Santa Teresa County Park in San Jose. This park is dry and hilly. Longer hikes are available, but since we're not in shape yet, we just did a four-mile loop. There were also a fair number of bicyclists here, but the fireroads are all pretty steep, so I'm not sure how fun that would be.

San Jose is visible in the distance, with the bay and the Coyote Hills behind.

Joseph D. Grant bike ride

2011-04-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

This is a park that gets hot in the valleys and breezy on the ridges, but today it seemed to be just right. (The weather.gov forecast was for a high of 65, but I don't think it understands the terrain, and it was definitely hotter than that in the valleys.

I started my ride at 10am along Grant Lake and then immediately turning uphill on Halls Valley Trail. This is a steep uphill, but I did much of it in 2nd, and only needed to walk my bike for a short distance when the bumpy road wouldn't support a hard effort in 1st gear.

Once on the ridge, I turned left towards Antler Point, which rises even higher, but it's not quite as steep as Halls Valley Trail, nor as long. I arrived at the top right a noon under just a thin layer of fog, which then proceeded to burn off as I stopped for lunch.

The parking lot is at about 1650 feet elevation, the ridge as at about 2600 feet, and Antler Point is at 3000 feet. So although the alternative way down is very steep, past the line shack and into Deer Valley, Deer Valley itself is still at 2600 feet and dropped right back onto the ridge at valley end.

The ridge itself has some undulations, but is mostly flat until it finally dropps down to cross highway 130. From there Bonhoff Trail has steep ups and downs, but mostly downs. Again I had to walk my bike a couple of times, although I got surprising traction from my new tires.

Foothill Pine Trail also has some steep spots, but more interesting is that it essentially runs along a creek bed. Today it was the perfect depth that I could ride with difficulty over the large rocks in the creek bed while splashing through the creek, but there was always a dry place nearby where I could put a foot down when needed.

Once through that, Hotel Trail and other trails leading back to the parking lot are quite flat (Lower Hotel Trail is flatter than the main Hotel Trail). By this point it was about 2:30, and I finally saw my first lizard. I thought it was strange that I'd only seen one, but was glad that I hadn't seen any snakes. And that's when I ran directly over a small one that was stretched out across the trail.

I didn't seen him move even as I ran over him, but I braked and turned around to see him shuffling off the trail. He'd just reached the grass at the verge when I came near again, and he curled up and rattled his tail at me. At only about 14" long, he was clearly immature, and his rattle hadn't hardened enough to get any noise out, but with that stance, he was clearly a rattlesnake.

The internet tells me that rattlesnakes are venomous and dangerous from birth, so I'm glad he didn't have time to throw a strike at me when I rode over him.

I was tired anyway, so I rode slow and easy the rest of the way back to the car. Grant's parking area has picnic tables and water available, so I could rest and refresh before driving home.

The map says my ride was about 16 miles, and I'd guess about 2000 feet of climb. I drank a little over 2 liters of water. Although it was nice to get a view from Antler Point as the fog broke up, I think an earlier start would be good. But the main thing is to just avoid the park in the summer, because any hotter would just be unpleasant.

South Bay Loop Ride 2010

2010-08-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

I used to ride my bike all the time as a kid, but not for particularly long distances. As I got older, I took longer trips, but not as often. The longest was in high school, and Google Maps now tells me that it was about 40 miles. I figure I'm bigger and stronger and more independent now, so I should be able to do a longer ride.

It's fun that there are so many bike paths around the bay. Unfortunately, Google doesn't know that some of them are on private property, so I had to improvise a bit. Stupid Moffett Field.

It is very very flat around the bay (being sea level and all). The only elevation is bridges and underpasses. The Dumbarton Bridge (highway 84) is pretty high, but it's such a gradual rise that I only had to go down a few gears. I was hoping to ride around the Coyote Hills a bit, but I had already had to backtrack enough that I decided to take the shortest way home instead.

The various cities and counties have clear goals to link up as many bike paths and bike lanes as they can. A lot of them are stymied by private property, but they're still doing pretty well.

They just finished the San Tomas/Aquino trail last year. It is nice.

Unfortunately, I forgot to change the batteries in my camera, so I wasn't able to take any other pictures.

My right knee started to hurt after about 20 miles, and it was very unhappy after 55, but it's feeling better now. We'll see about soreness tomorrow.

Big Basin 2010

2010-07-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid hiked to Buzzard's Roost in Big Basin. It was a nice hike.

Portola 2010

2010-06-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and I improvised a hike in Portola Redwoods. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that after we paid our day-use fee, we asked the ranger to recommend a hike in the range of ~6 miles.

It turns out that Portola is a dense web of trails that also connect with trails in other parks. I don't really remember which trails we used, except that we had to briefly leave the park (and the map), where we connected with the Old Haul Road, which brought us back into the park.

We also took a spur trail to the Old Tree. It is large, but that's hard to show in a photo.

Los Trancos, Monte Bello, & Skyline Ridge

2010-05-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Jamshid and I did a hike.

We did a 2-mile loop in Los Trancos, which we followed with 1.9 miles through Monte Bello, which lead to 1.0 mile in Skyline Ridge around the lake, and then another 2.2 miles through Monte Bello back to the parking area.

It was OK.

Henry Coe - August 2009

2009-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Hawaii 2008

2008-10-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

I spent two weeks in Hawaii with my parents. The first week was in Maui, which I haven't been to before. The second week was in Kauai, where I've been a number of times. The weather for both weeks was great. We only got sprinkled on a couple of times, with the only hard rain coming while we were safely ensconced in our hotel rooms for the night.

Our first Maui reconnaissance hike was just south of our hotel. The maps showed a 4x4 road leading to La Perouse Bay, but it turned out to be a freshly paved one-lane road. So we drove down and took a short hike partway around the bay. The most recent eruption on Maui was here in 1750, and the coastline was a mix of dark lava and broken white coral. The wind was pushing some pretty good waves into the bay, but the Hawaiians need to have pretty tough feet to hike in with their surfboards while wearing flip flops.

The next day we drove up the main volcano on Maui, Haleakala. We lucked out in having clear skies until we were on the way down. We poked around at various viewpoints on the road, then hiked a little ways down into the crater. At 10,000 feet elevation, the top is usually above the clouds, so it's pretty dry.

Day 3 took us to Iao Needle on the slopes of Maui's smaller volcano. Unfortunately, most of this terrain is private property, and they've stopped allowing hiking there. The park only has some short paved paths.

The next day my step-dad Richard and I left my mom at the hotel so that we could go on a real hike along Waihee Ridge. Once again, the clouds held off, closing in on the mountain tops only as we were on the way down.

The next day we took the long drive to Hana. It's not actually that far, but much of it is on a narrow, twisty road that narrows to one lane for just about every bridge, which is pretty often on this wet side of the island. We ended up stopping at Waianapanapa beach. It's called a black sand beach, although it's really made of small pebbles. Near the water they're 5-10 mm and very smooth, but they get larger and sharper away from the waves.

A short tunnel from the beach leads to an opening on the water.

I left my parents to enjoy the serenity of a beachfront cemetery while I scouted up the coast. Once again, the scenery was mostly rugged lava, which sometimes does a good job of directing the waves into the air.

Finally, on the last full day in Maui, Richard and I went for a real hike at La Perouse Bay. After rounding the bay, we started off on the "King's Highway". If this is a highway, I'd hate to see the King's Side Streets.

As it turned out, we need to take one of the King's Side Streets to circle back to the bay. This mostly involved following an unimproved route marked by chunks of coral set at each high point to mark a path that avoided the worst hazards.

It came time to leave Maui and head to Kauai. I was looking forward to Kauai mostly for the higher quality hiking, but also for its better hotel. The Wailea Marriott on Maui doesn't have its own beach (although beaches are nearby on either side), and its main pool is designed for relaxation.

On the other hand, the Lihue Marriott on Kauai has its own beach, and the pool is much bigger with plenty of room to splash around. Plus, since it's a public beach popular with the natives, it gets a younger crowd with surfers always in the water plus the occasional volleyball game on the beach.

We spent the first day doing nothing and the second day snorkeling, so I have no pictures from those days. On day 3 Richard and I went hiking at the Na Pali coast. We were eager to get back to this trail since it'd been closed during our last visit. Just as we were arriving at the beach at the end of the road, the lifeguard was posting a "beach closed" sign due to high surf. Apparently two women had been swept to their deaths the day before, but at least the trail was still open. And beautiful.

Unfortunately, while we were on the trail we encountered a couple hurrying back towards the beach. The man was trying to get a signal on his cell phone, while the woman was saying, "The best thing we can do is get back to the lifeguard as fast as we can." Uh oh. It turns out that a guy had just been swept off the trail-side beach where we heading. So for the rest of the hike, we got to watch the search and recovery operation. Ugh. Once we got to the beach, we could see the big waves breaking directly on the shore, and how they could easily grab someone who wasn't paying enough attention.

After another rest day, we went kayaking on the Wailua river, then hiked up to the "Secret" Falls. There were a ton of tour groups also there, but they were all well behaved, so all we had to worry about was to not get sucked too deep into the mud. Since I didn't trust my camera to the kayak's dry bag, I have no photos.

Finally, on the last full day of Kauai we did the best hike of the trip. The plan for Richard and I was to hike a combination of the Cliff and Black Pipe trails to make a 4 mile loop. However, we made a wrong turn which took us back up to the highway at on overlook. There we met another couple who wanted directions to get to the Cliff Trail, so we hitched a ride with them back to where we'd parked. Then, since we'd already scouted the first section of "4x4 trail" and found it passable, we drove in with our rental SUV, saving ourselves a repeat hike along that boring section.

This time we found the proper turn to the cliff overlook, although it turned out to not be the view we were looking for, so we took yet another side trip on the Canyon Trail out to the real overlook.

There are no native Hawaiian predators, so the mice here are relatively fearless.

Around the corner from the overlook is the upper part of Waipoo Falls, where some scrambling let me look over both sides.

After returning on the Black Pipe Trail, we found another overlook on the highway to see where we'd been.

Pinnacles Night Hike - 2008

2008-08-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

When we camped at Henry Coe last year, I discovered that it's possible to follow a trail at night without a flashlight as long as the moon is full and there are no clouds. I remembered that a couple of weeks ago and wondered what it would be like to hike Pinnacles at night. A few web searches later, and I found that Pinnacles is open for night hikes, the moon would be full on August 16, and the Perseids would be in season as well.

Derek and Maureen and I left Sunnyvale at 4:30pm, stopped at a Mexican fast food joint in Hollister for dinner, and arrived at Pinnacles around 7:15pm. Surprisingly, along with the last few stragglers hiking out, there were other groups besides us getting set to hike in.

The mountains were between us and the sun on the way up, but we were able to catch the last few rays on the hills to the east. Not too much later, the moon came up. It's interesting how fast it appears to rise against the horizon. The Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours, or 1/2 a degree every 2 minutes, which is fast enough to see the motion against the horizon.

There was another group at a trail junction with good northeast visibility, so rather than stop we continued to the top of the hill. This gave us the bonus of seeing the last of the sunset to the west. (Note to self: make sure the camera is stable when taking a shot in the dark.)

The first "star" that became visible was in the wrong direction for Venus and the wrong color for Mars, so I guessed that it was Jupiter. Reviewing the star chart now, I'm pleased to see that I guessed correctly.

Derek was willing to ruin his night sight looking at a star chart, so we were able to find Cassiopea, which was a little further above the horizon than Perseus. We didn't wait long enough and it didn't get dark enough for Perseus to become visible, but we hoped to see some meteors that would radiate in a good direction to become visible. Somehow Maureen managed to spot two, including one in entirely the wrong direction, but Derek and I didn't see any.

We did see a satellite, though. I didn't think to note the time, but based on what flew over that night, I would guess that it was Lacrosse 2.

It was still fun checking out the stars and enjoying the cool weather. Pinnacles is normally very hot in the summer, but even still we took lots of cool clothing for the desert night. As it turned out, it was wonderful hiking and sitting weather, even in shorts and a T-shirt.

Hiking down in the dark was neat. It was easy to follow the trail, although in the shadows I was glad of my hiking boots to protect my toes from tripping and my ankles from twisting.

Mt. Tam - Summer 2008

2008-08-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Dianna had the baby for the weekend, so Steve was able to join Derek, Maureen, and I for a hike. In honor of the occasion, we went north for another stab at Mount Tamalpais, aka Mt. Tam.

We took a 7-mile route that started in Stinson near the beach, headed up the shoulder of the mountain to a campground, then looped back down along a different path. Much of it was nicely shaded, but it did open out for a bit where we could see San Francisco in the distance.

At the bottom was a short traverse along the foothills back into Stinson. The beach and tourist area was clearly visible.

Rancho San Antonio - May 2008

2008-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a chance to do the long loop at Rancho San Antonio for a while, so I decided to just go do it, and to not invite anyone who would slow me down or want to take a shortcut. I went early in the morning because parking was a zoo last time I was there, and today is Memorial Day.

The web said that the park is open from dawn to dusk. The sign at the park entrance said 8:00 am to dusk. I got there at 8:20 am, and the upper lots were over half full and the lower lots were completely full except where the occasional early person was already leaving. I got lucky and snagged a spot close to the trailhead.

I took a few photos of the scenery, but it was cloudy and grey, so they didn't come out well. Rather that post those, I'll show you some of the more interesting ones.

They have a new sign describing what do if you encounter a mountain lion. This is the first one I've seen with pictographs. It's mildly amusing.

There were lots of small flowers along the side of the trail.

I got back to the car at 11:40, which means that I did the 10-mile loop in exactly 3 and a third hours, which is 3 mph. Biking to work must have been good for my thighs because boy do my calves hurt.

Castle Rock - Spring 2008

2008-04-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Jon and Jamshid and I went hiking at Castle Rock. Jamshid suggested it because it's not as steep as some other hikes we've tried. Neither Jamshid nor Jon hikes all that often. Here are Jon (with beard) and Jamshid (without) sitting next to the first big sandstone outcrop we came across. This one was unusual in that it had inclusions of harder rock in it. I don't remember seeing that in the other sandstone outcrops at the park.

The above outcrop was on a spur on the path that lead to a peak with many more sandstone outcrops, of which I didn't take a photo. There was a group there in full climbing gear practicing on one of the taller rocks. I kind of wanted to climb it myself with just my hands and feet, although using an easier path up of course. But I decided not to since they'd already staked their claim to that rock.

We went back down to the main trail and continued along to the falls overlook. Here is a confusingly angled photo to study:

Further along, the train skirted the side of a steep bluff. The views were not entirely spectacular, comprising mostly dense evergreens covering every hill.

From some other vantage points, we thought maybe we could see the ocean. Or was that just low clouds?

After stopping at a bench for a rest, we decided to head back rather than risk wearing ourselves out. We took the direct route back and were back at the car in no time. We probably totalled 4 or 5 miles. Jamshid claimed that this was a good distance.

Muir Woods

2008-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

I took a short (4 mile) hike with Steve and Steve's new (6 week) baby, Calder. Calder did OK. At the top, we got a good view of the ocean.

When we got back near the entrance, we stopped at a bench to eat our lunches. Apparently, that's not allowed, and we got busted by a ranger. She was polite, though, and she led us to an area not too far away (just outside the entrance) where we could eat.

I took a panorama from the road looking back over the valley where the entrance is hidden.

Kauai 2007

2007-12-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

I finally took a camera to Hawaii. The weather generally didn't cooperate for taking good photos, but here's what I got.

From the hotel balcony we could see the cruise ships come into the harbor every other morning, leaving the following afternoon. My mom kept putting cookies on the railing for the birds.

We repeated an ATV tour that'd we taken on an earlier trip. The weather actually cooperated this day. At the end of the tour, our guide threw some pig chow out for the wild pigs.

The Honopu Ridge Trail has been closed since the last hurricane, but the locals have hacked out their own version. As it turned out, however, the best views were on the inland canyon side and from the top of the mountain. The oceanward tip of the ridge was socked in by clouds.

The eastern trail up Nounou Ridge, aka Sleeping Giant, is a typical Kauai hiking trail. I.e. it includes at least 2 of the following 3 features: a water tank in the driving instructions, a hunter check-in station, and a picnic area at the top. I can never tell from the hiking book if I've already been on the trail or not.

The Powerline Trail is a 4x4 road for hunters, complete with ugly power lines. After (or during) a rain, lots of waterfalls are visible on the opposite ridge.

Henry Coe - Fall 2007

2007-11-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to try my hand at biking in Henry Coe. I've been thinking about this all summer, but summer is not a good time to do anything too strenuous at Coe. Today, on the other hand was perfect. The projected high for Gilroy was 61, although cooler in the morning, and sunny all day.

I loaded up the car and headed out. Despite being Black Friday, the roads were pretty empty at 9 am. There was a bit of a line of traffic outside the Gilroy outlets, but I avoided that simply by staying in the through lane.

I had brought warmer clothes just in case, but although it was a little chilly in the shade, it wasn't too bad in the sun. And Henry Coe is known for having lots of sun.

Henry Coe also has a reputation for kicking the asses of cocky bikers, so I made sure to search out the easiest route available in Coe. In particular, I made sure that I'd be going up on the way in so that when I got tired, I could go (mostly) down to get out. The best fit was Coit Road. An easy paved section runs just outside the park from the Hunting Hollow parking area to the Coyote Creek entrance. You can open the map in a separate window if you want to follow along. Hunting Hollow is at the lower left.

The paved part is lined with trees, so it remained rather chilly along here. I kept my speed down to avoid excessive windchill. This was good practice for later; I had all day and I didn't want to tire myself out by attacking the hills too fast.

After re-entering Coe, Coit Road turned into a well graded dirt fire road. The road started rolling up and down a bit more, but continued to follow the creek and thus not gain much altitude. A couple of miles in it finally turned uphill. Even there, the hills weren't killer, and I never needed to go to first gear.

Part way up the hill is Coit Camp, which I guess is a horse camp, judging by the corral. (The Coit Camp Corral might make a good name for a Country & Western band. Do they go for that sort of thing?)

As you can see, the camp also has a luxury outhouse and a picnic area, so it made a nice spot to stop and have an energy bar. Apparently I wasn't bothering the woodpecker that was working on the shady oak above my head.

A little further up is an old pond that must have been dammed by a rancher before the state turned it into a park. It's been a dry summer.

After a last slog uphill, I reached a ridge where Coit Road meets Mahoney Meadows Road and turns right. The ridge is mostly gentle rolling hills, but it does climb to its highest point about 1500 feet above where I parked. I was still feeling reasonably fresh, so I turned onto Wasno Road (another fireroad), then onto the single-track Kelly Lake Trail. This initially rolls along the top of a ridge, eventually giving me the best view I'd get of the area that burned this September (in the far distance).

After that it was almost straight downhill. I might not have great uphill skills, but I have pretty good downhill control. I wouldn't recommend this route for most bikers, though. Kelly Lake isn't visible until almost the bottom of the hill.

It was around 12:15 when I got to the lake, about 2 hours and 20 minutes after setting out, which meant that it was a good place for lunch. The cattails were a bit drier than they'd been earlier in the year.

I took Coit Road back up to the Wasno Road intersection. This was a far gentler climb that the route I took down, but it was still 600 feet of up, with portions that needed first gear. My thighs were starting to feel the burn by now.

Turning left on Wasno Road, I retraced part of my earlier trip (a nice downhill portion), then turned right onto the single-track toward Domino Pond. The other parts of the trip was worthwhile on their own, but this was definitely the highlight of the ride. Mostly gentle downhill, with a few steeper downhills and short uphills, all with a good flow for coasting. It might be a bit narrow for some, though.

Past the Rock Tower turnoff, the trail turned uphill for a bit, then trended down again after joining Cattle Duster Trail. After turning onto Grapevine Trail, the downhills got steeper, and rock inclusions made some parts decidedly technical. I was proud to get all the way down and across the dry, rocky streambed at the bottom without putting a foot down.

Partway down was this small pond with makeshift bridges. Luckily the board didn't shift as I rode across.

I still had a little energy left, so rather than rejoin Coit Road right away, I turned left onto Anza Trail. This was single-track again, but trending uphill. Without much room to swerve for balance, I had to get off and push on a couple of steep parts, but probably for less than 50 feet total. The uphill trend was still quite tiring, though, so I was quite glad to pass Jackson Trail and start downhill again. This part was clearly more of a hiking trail (wider, and buried under leaves in places), but it still had a nice flow.

Finally a quick drop from Woodchopper Spring brought me back to Coit Road. After one last short uphill, it was downhill just about all the way back to the car.

I wasn't sure if the long weekend would bring out more people, or if the shopping season would keep them away. As it turns out, I didn't see anyone at all from the time I left the parking lot until I was almost back to the paved road. However, I did see a few groups starting from just inside the park and then along the paved road. Sometimes I forget that some people like to start out when it's hottest. On the other hand, cool air flows downwards, and I was distinctly chillier once again. I got back to the car at about 2:40.

Gilroy was a nightmare of crazy shoppers, but fortunately I only had to get through a couple of lights to get to the highway. The highway was busy, but not slow.

I am tired.

Ten Lakes - Summer 2007

2007-08-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we climbed from the road at 7500 feet to a saddle at 9700 feet, crossing from the Merced to the Tuolumne watersheds. By that point I was too tired to pull out my camera, so I'll just shuffle a Monday shot forward and pretend that this was our first view of four of the seven Ten Lakes:

(Yes, there are really four lakes there, although two are somewhat obscured. Plus, they're placed unexpectedly at different altitudes.)

We got confusing information from a hiker we passed, and I failed to reconcile it to the map, so we optimistically continued past the first lake on the trail. Thus, after descending to the western lake at 8900 feet, we added another 1.5 miles and 600 feet to our trek to get to the eastern lake.

Since we had left San Jose at what some considered a reasonable hour, our 8 miles and 2800 feet of climb brought us to our camping spot rather late. We had time to set up tents and cook dinner before it started getting dark, but pumping water, washing up, and other activities meant that we didn't hit the sack until after 9:30.

Pulling another shot forward, here's a shot of the unnamed peak above the eastern lake, hit by the sun's last rays:

Sunday we decided to leave our camp in place and just take a day hike. Continuing along the trail wouldn't have brought us to anything interesting within a day. My hiking book suggested following a creek downhill to the north-eastern lake, but that wasn't suitably ambitious for me. Instead we chose our own route to get onto a ridge and from there up to the aforementioned peak above the eastern lake.

I guided us off trail based on my best interpretation of the topo map. Even with the large-scale 200-foot contours, I could see that the ridge was sufficiently delineated that we'd be unlikely to get lost. But I was pleasantly surprised at how well the route worked, with not a single ravine, cliff, or brushy area to complicate our path.

From the 10,200-foot peak, we could look back at five of the seven Ten Lakes, plus the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River beyond:

In the opposite direction were the 10,845-foot Tuolumne Peak (tallest on the left) and the 10,850-foot Mt. Hoffmann (the pyramid of loose rock on the right):

Photographic proof that Derek and Steve also made it:

In another surprising development, we managed to return on almost the exact same route in reverse, recognizing many small landmarks on the way.

This time we had plenty of time to eat and clean up, then hang out by the lake. We were soon joined by bats, who seemed to be picking bugs off the water surface. Despite how close the bats would come, my camera's shutter delay made it impossible to capture one before it would escape the range of the flash. However, the scattered clouds did make this lovely moonbow:

Monday morning we walked a few hundred yards down to a ridge to overlook the northeastern lake. Although this lake is supposed to be the most isolated, the apparent green scum around the rim would reduce its appeal for camping (i.e pumping water):

After packing up, we headed back. Being predominently downhill, the return trip was noticeably easier. Steve thought we were also better acclimated to the altitude, although I found it hard to separate the various components of tiredness. Mostly my feet hurt.

After traversing the ridge containing the eastern lake, we stopped to take in the view of the western lake below. The green swath on the far slope contains the trail back up to the saddle and out.

After climbing down the western lake, we got briefly lost trying to find that trail out, but eventually found it. After that it was down down down to finally get back to the car, mercifully unmolested by bears.

Chris

P.S.

Utah Index

2007-06-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 16:

Drive to Utah

Sunday, June 17:

Monday, June 18:

Tuesday, June 19:

Wednesday, June 20:

Thursday, June 21:

Friday, June 22:

Saturday, June 23:

Moab Slickrock

Sunday, June 24:

Return to California

Return to California

2007-06-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

My Utah adventures complete, I spent the rest of Saturday driving across Utah to Cedar City. Sunday I drove the 700 miles from Cedar City to home. Surprisingly, I was able to make the distance in just under two tanks of gas. This is the first time ever that my fuel milage actually matched the EPA highway estimate. Possibly I have never before actually traveled a full tank of gas entirely on interstate highways with no city or mountain driving mixed in.

The drive was pretty uneventful. The only think I distinctly recall is the huge, smelly cattle feedlot near Coalinga. Man, that was gross. I wonder how I'd failed to notice it on my trip out the previous weekend.

Moab Slickrock

2007-06-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

I got up early again on Saturday to head over to the Moab Slickrock mountain biking trail. I thought that the motel's continental breakfast would be available at 6:30am, but I was wrong, and the office didn't open until 7:00am. So I dropped off my key and headed off without breakfast.

The trail is in the Sand Flats Recreation Area, and the entrance station was also not manned quite so early in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't have the appropriate change for self registration. OK, if I had to head back to town for change, at least I could also get breakfast.

OK, so trying again at 7:30am I got myself registered and drove to the head of the trail. My bike had survived the week OK in my trunk (even over the washboards), so I got it put together and set out. After about 100 yards I realized that I'd forgotten my sunscreen. OK, back to the car.

OK, headed out once again. This time I got about 400 yards before stopping for a drink... and realizing that I'd left my water in the car. Grn. Hurrying back to the car, I carried a little to much speed into a gully, trying to keep some momentum up the other side. Wham! My bike just couldn't change angle that fast without taking a beating. The mount for my mini-pump has been cracked for a while, so it doesn't hold quite as securely as it should, and the pump went flying. I was surprised that the only consequence of that heavy hit and horrible scraping noise was the pump falling out.

I retrieved the pump, returned to the car, and strapped on my hippack full of water. On the parking lot it became clear that my front wheel was now scraping the brakes once on each revolution, as if it were now out of true. It was clearly wrong, but not too bad, and I almost decided to go back on the trail that way. But I took a couple more turns around and finally realized that I'd actually unseated the tire in one place. Whew; I could fix that.

OK, one more try. It's a good thing I stopped for water. As this sign made clear, water is highly essential. In fact, the sign had me thinking about maybe not doing the full 12-mile loop. Well, I'd decide how I felt as I went.

I didn't bring my camera along. I feel confident in my biking skills that I figured I probably wouldn't crash, but I didn't want my camera to be under me if I was wrong. So you'll just have to live with this picture from the parking area. Almost all of the trail was along the rock. Although the trail did not go up that rock hill in the center background, that slope is pretty representative of what most of the trail did look like.

Near the beginning of the main trail is a 2-mile practice loop is supposed to cover pretty similar terrain conditions. I went around the loop and found that I was doing OK. I have enough bike control that I could handle even the steepest downhills, although I now made sure to keep my speed under control. Many of the uphills were so steep that I had trouble steering with so little weight on the front tire. A few I had to give up and walk up, but I noticed that I wasn't the only one with that problem, so I didn't feel too bad.

Toward the end of the practice loop, although I was still doing OK, I decided that doing the entire 12-mile loop was going to be too hard to remain fun. I figured I'd continue down the main trail a mile or so to what looked like a decent viewpoint, then perhaps turn around and head back. That seemed like it'd give me enough distance to feel like I had fun, but not so much distance to ruin it.

So I continued on, crawling carefully off each rock fin and and slogging in low gear back up the next one. After what seemed like more than enough distance, I didn't hadn't seen any particular viewpoint, nor did it seem like one would be upcoming, so I went ahead and turned around.

Just past the bottom of the first hill my front tire suddenly started hissing loudly. It didn't take long for it to lose essentially all of its air, but fortunately there was a good shady spot just within range.

I was surprised that I had gotten a flat since I hadn't hit anything, and there hadn't been any obvious sharp things on the polished rock. Upon inspection, I realized that it wasn't a puncture at all. The problem was that the valve stem had cracked at the base. My best guess is that the tube hadn't been seated quite straight, perhaps after the hard hit earlier in the morning. Or perhaps the tube was simply old enough that it couldn't stand up to the sustained forces from the hard downhill braking.

The next guy along kindly offered assistance, but I waved him off since I had all the things needed to replace the tube. Or so I thought. Just after he rode off I realized that I'd forgotten one more thing in the car: spare tubes. [Insert swearing here.]

It's bad for the tire to roll on it with an empty tube, so I hitched the front of the bike under my arm and started hiking back to the car. That was pretty tiring, but I soon realized that I could flip the bike over and push it by the handlebars while rolling it on its rear tire. This was reasonably comfortable except that by this time rivers of gross dirty sweat were dripping into my eyes, and I didn't have a hand free to wipe my face.

Looking on the bright side, that final incident ensured that I had no regrets about leaving Utah and heading home. I had no pangs of, "Gee, I'd love to stay out here just one more day."

Moab Slickrock
Time: 7:30am - 9:45am
Biking distance: 2.0 miles
Biking ascent: ~400 feet
Hiking distance: 1.2 miles
Biking ascent: ~200 feet
Water: 1.5 liters

Post-Arches Relaxation

2007-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was ready to relax by Friday afternoon, so I ate lunch at a microbrewery restaurant, Eddie McStiff's. (I bet they hate it when people call them Ed McStiffy's.) Utah's liquor laws are very strange, but I didn't notice any difficulties in just getting a beer at a restaurant.

I spent the whole afternoon hanging out at my motel reading a book, then went to another microbrewery restaurant for dinner, the Moab Brewery. The Moab Brewery was having some sort of motorcycle "show and shine", so the parking lot was filled with cruisers, and the restaurant was filled with burly motorcycle dudes. Fortunately they had room for a small hiker dude.

During dinner I heard gossip from the next table that they'd had a fire in the electrical box and they'd be shutting off the electricity soon. Indeed, just as I was signing my credit card slip the lights went out. It was still light outside, and the windows were large, so it probably wasn't a big deal for those people still inside as long as their food was already ready.

Six-day hiking total:

Time: 30 hours 10 minutes
Distance: 61.7 miles
Ascent: 12,210 feet
Water: 10.25 liters

Arches - Devil's Garden

2007-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

After returning and packing up camp, I drove over to the Devils Garden trailhead. This trail packs a lot of arches in a short area. I did the loop backwards, meaning that I did the more difficult primitive trail while it was still cool, then returned on the maintained trails later. Since everything was so close together, this section will have more photos and less text for each.

This turkey vulture was just getting ready for morning.

This boulder appears to be melting.

Private Arch.

A hare.

Dark Angel. (I checked. There is no Arch Angel. Why not?)

Double O Arch. Notice the second, smaller arch below.

A boulder with eroding supports.

As usual, the primitive trail was hard to follow. In some places a bit more explanation was required. Interestingly enough, just after taking this photo I helped a couple coming towards me to find the appropriate place to climb down off the fin.

Many more fins. Apparently it is very easy to get lost among them.

Navajo Arch.

Partition Arch. (The other side of the partition is unexciting.)

Landscape Arch. This arch has the longest span in the park. The trail used to go up to the base of the arch until a 60-ton slab fell off in 1991. Fortunately, the people underneath had sufficient warning to get out of the way. The park collected some good photos and even a video of the event. It must have been something to be there when it happened.

Tunnel Arch.

Pine Tree Arch.

Devils Garden
Time: 7:10am - 10:55am
Distance: 7.2 miles
Ascent: ~500 feet
Water: 1.25 liters

Arches - Broken Arch

2007-06-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Friday morning I got up at 6:00am. While it was still cool I checked my tire pressures and restored them to something decent. I left my tent up and walked over to to the Broken Arch trailhead just three campsites away. It was still early enough for bunnies to be out and about.

I was expecting the Broken Arch to not go all the way across. It turns out that it does make a complete arch. I guess it's called "broken" because it has a distinct crack across it, so the two halves are perhaps only staying up by leaning on each other.

Broken Arch
Time: 6:20am - 6:45am
Distance: 1.1 miles
Ascent: 30 feet
Water: 0.25 liters

Arches - Double Arch and The Windows

2007-06-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Next up was Double Arch. I assume that "double" refers to the two major arches that share a pillar, but I noticed that one of those arches is itself a double, with a tiny gap in the top of its span.

While walking toward the Windows trailhead, I walked into a shaded area. I looked over my shoulder to see what formation was blocking the sun and saw this scary sight. I don't even know if these windows have names, but only at just this angle could a small amount of sky be seen through both at once. With the sun behind casting red light against the wall of each window, it made quite the impression of bright eyes with red-glowing eye sockets. It reminded me a lot of a jack-o-lantern.

After that view, the Turret Arch and the North and South Windows seemed rather prosaic.

The sunset was pretty, though.

Double Arch and The Windows
Time: 7:45pm - 8:40pm
Distance: 2.5 miles
Ascent: 150 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

Arches - Balancing Rock

2007-06-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

A trivial trail goes around Balancing Rock, but the best viewpoint seemed to be right at the trailhead.

Balancing Rock
Time: 5 minutes
Distance: 0.2 miles
Ascent: 30 feet
Water: 0.0 liters

Arches - Park Avenue

2007-06-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

After dinner in Moab, I headed back into Arches with the idea of stopping at the various viewpoints along the road. Many of these stops turned into short hikes. The first hike was along Park Avenue.

Much of the route was along the bottom of a wash that was scraped down to the underlying sandstone. The sandstone was weathered in interesting ways. I'm still trying to figure out what carved out the straight channel from lower right to upper left of this photo.

Park Avenue
Time: 6:35pm - 7:20pm
Distance: 2.0 miles
Ascent: 300 feet
Water: 0.25 liters

Arches - Intermission

2007-06-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Before leaving the trailhead, I dropped the pressure in my car's tires. I had had them pumped up pretty high for optimal highway grip, even higher than the recommended pressure (which is tuned for comfort). I had no way to get a "cold" temperature, but I took about 8 p.s.i. out of each tire to get them down to a warm pressure of 33-35. Now I could skim over the top of most of the washboarded sections at 30 mph with minor chatter. Before that, anything over 15 mph induced vibration severe enough to be scary.

I wanted to hike some more, but it was getting too hot. So instead I went driving. (Mmm... air conditioning...)

First I checked the Willow Springs Trail. This dirt road is marked as a 4wd trail on the map, although that didn't stop Google Maps from recommending it as the route into Arches. I was able to get a good distance along it before running into a major obstacle. It's hard to tell in the photo, but this wash needed three tricky maneuvers to cross it. In the near foreground is a sharp drop that I'd need to take on the left to avoid scraping my belly. Just beyond that is a another drop, less severe, but ending in a sharp angle that would threaten my front air dam. That one would be safest to take on the right, if I could get over there in the space available. The other side has a sharp rise that would be completely impossible except for a very narrow region in the middle that was barely enough for my car... maybe..

I might have tried it (very slowly) if I'd had somewhere important to go on the other side. Since I didn't, I just turned around and went back.

Next I headed back to UT-128 to find a spot in a canyon shadow where I could sit and watch the river. As this photo shows, there were shaded spots, and there were areas to pull off, but somehow the two never intersected until much later in the afternoon.

I'd been contending with bugs all day. I'd hit a cloud of tiny bugs first thing in the morning, but they must have gotten bigger throughout the day. By afternoon, this is what I was trying to focus through.

Arches - Tower Arch

2007-06-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

After claiming my campsite, I drove up a dirt road to my second planned hike. The road was advertised as a "2wd road". It was certainly graded well enough for low-clearance vehicles, but it was pretty badly washboarded. There were also some washes with very soft, fine dirt, but that posed no problem for my 4wd car, even with my balding tires. Although it was sort of neat to feel the car dig straight down for about half an inch when taking off from a stop.

My destination was the Tower Arch. Given the minor inconvenience of getting to the trailhead, I wasn't surprised that I saw no one else on the entire hike. In addition, being in a less traveled area, the trail was even more primitive. Here is a picture that I swear I took with the camera dead level. In places, the trail was quite steep up the rock faces.

In some places, the trail was easy to follow. In other places, it was hard to find the next duck. In the photo on the right, there were six ducks in the general field of view of the camera, but I can only spot two now. Even for the two that I can see in the photo, I'm only sure that they're ducks because I remember seeing them in person.

The tower arch was suitably impressive.

Returning toward the car, it was interesting to contrast the ruggedness of the area I was hiking to the flatness of the area that I drove across.

Signs similar to this are throughout Arches. They're telling you to not walk off trail because you'll kill the delicate stuff growing on the rocks. This one had a particularly surreal graphic.

Tower Arch
Time: 11:30am - 1:00pm
Distance: 3.4 miles
Ascent: ~500 feet
Water: 1.0 liters

Arches - Delicate Arch

2007-06-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

I slept Wednesday night at a motel in Green River from 9:30pm to 5:45am Thursday morning. From Green River, my intention was to take I-15 a short distance to UT-191, which would take me down the west side of Arches National Park to its entrance at the south end.

Perhaps it was during one of those five-minute one-mph passes on I-15 that I missed seeing my exit. In any case, when the next exit of consequence showed as UT-128, I checked my map and realized my mistake. Fortunately, UT-128 goes down the east side of Arches along the Colorado River. So not only was it a valid alternate route, but it was a fun, pretty alternate route.

I had a reserved camping spot, so I could head straight for the first hike of the day, to Delicate Arch. Despite its popularity, this was a "primitive" trail, meaning that you had to follow the ducks (cairns) to find the path. This would become an Arches theme.

On a short spur was a view of pictoglyphs on a boulder. These are historic, not prehistoric. One clue that they're not so old is that they show a man riding a horse, which didn't happen until Europeans arrived.

Delicate Arch
Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Distance: 3.0 miles
Ascent: 480 feet
Water: 0.25 liters

Escalante Petrified Forest

2007-06-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

A little further up the road is the Escalante Petrified Forest. I felt going in that I wasn't very excited to see the rocks shaped like wood, but it might be interesting to learn about them. As it turned out, however, they were all out of trail guides. It made me somewhat cranky to see the marker for interesting item #3, and all I could see was that it was a rock. Also, it was hot.

Escalante Petrified Forest
Time: 11:45am - 12:45pm
Distance: 2.0 miles
Ascent: ~600 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

Mossy Cave

2007-06-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Leaving Bryce and heading towards Arches, I stopped at Mossy Cave. This is technically within the Bryce boundary, but on a different highway and outside the fee area.

The trail parallels a gully that gets its water entirely from an artificial ditch that the early settlers dug. Somehow that makes it less impressive. But it did have the only waterfall I saw on the trip.

The cave is spring fed, so it's natural. It's also boring. Is this the only place in Utah with moss or something?

Mossy Cave
Time: 20 minutes
Distance: 0.9 miles
Ascent: 300 feet
Water: 0.0 liters

Bryce - Peek-A-Boo Loop

2007-06-20T09:40:00.001-07:00

Wednesday morning I got up at 6:00am. After packing up camp, I headed back to Bryce Point to start the Peek-A-Boo Loop Trail. Well, first I blinked and missed my turn. That did lead to this pronghorn spotting, however. During this Utah trip I saw a fair number of deer that had a remarkable ability to run away as soon as they heard my camera lens motor out. For this guy I cheated by taking the picture from inside the car so that he couldn't hear the lens.

The Peek-A-Boo Loop follows a horse trail for part of its distance. Here's a riddle for you: why is it that a horse can be broken, but it can't be housebroken? I've noticed in my hikes that the horses seem to poop mostly on the steepest parts of the trail. Thus, a trail with only one major steep part has most of its poop in one area. Stinky!

The hoodoos here were the same as elsewhere in Bryce. So instead of more hoodoo pictures, here's a squirrel.

I mostly avoided taking pictures of artificial windows cut for the trail, but this one was kind of neat.

Peek-a-boo Loop Trail
Time: 7:20am - 9:40am
Distance: 5.5 miles
Ascent: 1555 feet
Water: 0.75 liters

Bryce - Auto Tour

2007-06-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Many of the interesting spots in Bryce Canyon are clustered close together near the entrance, close enough that if you blink, you'll miss your turn. After missing my turn back to the campground, I figured that I might as well take the auto tour of the back areas of the park. I ended up stopping at Farview Point, Rainbow Point, Natural Bridge, Paria View, Bryce Point, and Inspiration Point.

(download huge)

Some of these points included a short hike from the parking area to the best view.

Auto tour:
Time: 4:00pm - 5:45pm
Distance: ~1.5 miles
Ascent: ~350 feet
Water: 0.0 liters

After dinner, I wasn't so sleepy as on previous evenings. I tried to read a book at my campsite, but the bugs were bothersome. I tried shutting myself in my tent, but that was warm from sitting out all day. Also, the guys at the next campsite were having a good ol' time, so I didn't really get to sleep until 10:30.

Bryce - Navajo Trail + Queen's Garden Trail

2007-06-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

After lunch, I still had hiking energy, so I decided to check out the popular Navajo Loop. Actually, it's not a loop anymore since the Wall Street portion had a collapse. Despite Wall Street being closed at the bottom, I went down anyway to check out the rockfall. Here's the upper portion of that trail.

... And the lower portion, for once looking up at the switchbacks.

The rockfall, complete with warning sign. Anyone have $75 I can borrow?

Looking back from the rockfall area. I recall that the trail distinctly sloped up from my position, but now I can't figure out which landmarks in this photo, if any, show a real horizontal surface.

Returning to the top of the Navajo Trail, I went down the open side. The switchbacks were much the same.

At the bottom was a view of Double Bridge.

The other side of Wall Street showed a much more stern sign. I swear that I hadn't gone past any barriers yet.

The Navajo Trail connected to the Queen's Garden Trail. Here is (supposedly) the queen herself.

Some workmen were doing trail maintenance. I had to wait for a few minutes until they could pause and let hikers by.

Navajo Trail + Queen's Garden Trail
Time: 1:20pm - 3:30pm
Distance: 4.3 miles
Ascent: 1130 feet
Water: 1.0 liters

Bryce - Fairyland Loop + Rim Trail

2007-06-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning I got up at 5:30am and checked myself out. I wanted to get to Bryce Canyon early to get a first-come, first-serve camping spot. Here's my first view of hoodoos just outside of Bryce in the early morning light.

The guy at the entrance station warned me that the camp had entirely filled the night before, but if I waited until people started to check out, I should be able to get a spot.

The self-registration system is that you fill out a envelope and stub, clip the stub to a post at your chosen campsite, and deposit your money in the envelope. A ranger comes around occasionally, verifies that you've paid, then writes in big numbers the date that you'll check out and clips that to your post. So I just needed to find an empty campsite that had "19" clipped to the post, and it turned out that there were plenty of those available.

Possibly I was supposed to wait for a ranger to come and remove the "19" markers from the empty campsites before I claimed one. But I just clipped my new stub in front of an old "19" marker, and when I came back later, they'd taken the "19" and left a "20" with no snarky comments.

Before I could complete the registration I had to wander around looking for awake campers who could break a $20. Handy tip for this sort of trip: bring tens, fives, and ones. There's a lot of areas with self service or minimal service, so exact change helps.

While setting up my tent to complete my claim, I noticed a yellow piece of trash stuck to my car's grille. Oh wait, that's not trash.

After breakfasting on a PowerBar, I was ready for my first hike. The view from Fairyland Point (the parking area) was exceptional.

(download huge)

Heading down into the canyon on the Fairyland Loop trail took me past hoodoo after hoodoo. By the end of the day it was really Too Many Hoodoos. But there were a few interesting ones, such as this one which had the appearance of having been blasted/melted by lightning.

There was the occasional Bronze Evening Primrose open by the trail. I'm not sure why they have Evening in the name, given that all the ones I saw were open in the morning. Each seemed to be by itself in a clear spot in the sun. They stayed at least partly open until about 9:30.

I seem to like taking backlit photos. Perhaps because it means that I'm stopped in the shadow.

The midpoint of the trail was supposed to be the Tower Arch... no, wait the Tower Bridge. I was trying to figure out the distinction, and what exactly a Tower Bridge would look like when I saw it. Oh, that Tower Bridge.

Returning on the rim trail, there was an area where a number of nearby hoodoos had windows on them. I scrambled out on this unofficial path to get what turned out to be an uninteresting picture. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done that. Although that slope is by no means fatal, it's entirely loose rock, and it would have been tough to get back up if I'd slipped down.

Another unofficial trail led up a loose slope to another window viewpoint. Coming back down, I felt something in my shoe. It felt like a sizable stone, but I hadn't felt it enter past my ankle, and it felt oddly smooth. I took off my shoe and dumped it out, but no stone. Putting my hand inside, I could feel a lump somewhere under the insole. That's when I finally noticed that the outer sole had peeled back, and a couple of stones had wedged into it. My shoe was still wearable, but it sure liked to ingest sand and stones from that point on. I made sure to wear my boots for all of the longer hikes after that.

Sharp-eyed readers will be able to pick out the trail that I took from the canyon bottom to the rim.

Fairyland Loop + Rim Trail
Time: 8:00am - 11:50am
Distance: 8.0 miles
Ascent: 2309 feet
Water: 1.0 liters

Riverside Resort

2007-06-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

My motel near Bryce was the Riverside Resort in Hatch, Utah. It seemed like all the motels in Hatch also had an attached restaurant and mini-mart, and this one was no exception. This one also had an RV park, ATV tours, horse rides, and I don't know how many other adventure activities on offer. In fact, it only had 13 actual motel rooms.

I'd been a bit curious as to why their reservation page asked at what time I expected to arrive. Perhaps if I'd guessed better, there would have been someone to greet me. As it was, the guy working at the mini-mart had to run over to help check me in. He also informed me that their restaurant had had a fire just 5 days before, but I'd get the standard 10% motel discount if they happened to reopen that day. (They didn't.)

His other recommendation was the Adobe Cafe, but they weren't open at 4:30pm. On the assumption that they'd open later, I hung out and read a book until 6, then tried again, but they still weren't open. So I drove through town, and that's when I noticed that all three other motels also had attached restaurants. I returned to the classiest looking one, Mountain Harvest, where I had to pass through the mini-mart on the way into the restaurant. The lady at the cash register was ringing up someone's purchases, and she asked me to hold on, and she'd seat me.

While I was waiting, I read the special board: sliced beef with potato and sauteed vegetables. On the table just next to the board was a perfect steaming representation of the meal. I was just wondering how they managed to keep it looking so fresh when the cook came out and sat down to his meal. Oh. (I could tell he was the cook because his nametag said "COOK".)

After being seated and scanning the menu, I decided that the sliced beef looked fine, so I ordered some of that. After the hostess/cashier relayed my order to the cook, he took a few more minutes to let me think about how I was interrupting his dinner before he went in to make mine.

The restaurant only had seven tables, and at first I was the only one there. Others did come in later, though, and a lot of them seemed to be local or semi-local. Judging from the comments to the hostess, a lot of restaurants are closed on Mondays in Utah, and I wasn't the only person glad to find an open one.

The Riverside Resort was eccentric in a few different ways, one of which was to have the air conditioning on a light switch. There was also a temperature control panel on the wall, but I didn't discover until the next morning that that was only for the heater; the AC was a simple on/off deal. They must have fought all night.

My room also didn't have blackout curtains, but that didn't stop me from going to sleep at 7:40pm.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes

2007-06-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd seen enough of Zion, so I shuttled down to the car and headed out towards Bryce. But not too far off that drive was a park that another hiker on the shuttle had recommended on Sunday. So I decided to follow his recommendation and stop at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.

This was primarily an off-road vehicle park, but they also had a short nature trail through the edge of the dunes. I also saw a family just pulling some sleds(!) back to their cars and preparing for a picnic in the 100-degree heat.

The informative signs along the nature walk tells me that these flowers are Rough Mulesears. A fruited yucca is just behind the flowers. I'd swear that one of the fruits shocked me when I touched it. I guess that's what happens when you shuffle through the sand in the dry desert air.

The signs also told me that the sand was originally part a desert made up of quartz sand grains. After being buried and cemented into sandstone, iron leeched in, turning it a reddish color. That Navajo Sandstone then eroded, and some of it blew to this area, forming the pinkish dunes. (If they don't look pink to you, it's because either my camera's color calibration lost it, or your experience insists that what you're seeing is yellow/beige sand.)

I assume that this is a lizard track. I saw many lizards on this trip, including some sizeable ones with pretty colors, but none of them hung out long enough for a photo op.

It was hard work walking through the sand, and of course scorching hot in the afternoon. I was glad that the nature trail was fairly short.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes
Time: 0.5 hours
Distance: 0.5 miles
Ascent: ~30 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

Zion - Observation Point

2007-06-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Monday morning I got up at 5:00am so that I could tear down my camp and be ready for the first shuttle at 5:45. This was an "express" shuttle, meaning that it stopped at all the same stops, but drove faster between them. It was also a single van, rather than a tandem arrangement, so the driver didn't have to watch a monitor to see if anyone was getting off the rear car at a stop, so the stops were shorter.

One of the shuttle drivers on Sunday had told us that the wild turkeys liked to roost in a particular tree over the road, and sure enough, our Monday-morning express driver stopped the shuttle to show them to us. The shuttle had windows on top, so we could easily see the fat birds hanging out 40 feet up. Somehow it seems unnatural for turkeys to do that, but there they were.

Most people got off at the Angels Landing stop. I was the only one to get off at the Weeping Rock stop for my planned trip up to Observation Point, so I had the trail to myself all the way up. Here's a shot from partway up, looking at the trail near the bottom. I'm pretty sure this shot is zoomed in, so the lower trail is further away than it looks. The guy down there must have been on the next shuttle. After taking this photo, I waved, and he waved back.

Here's another photo looking back from a bit further up. The extreme switchbacks on the left are a different trail that forked off, heading for Hidden Canyon.

My trail then made a sharp turn into a narrow canyon. The trail was cut directly into one wall, about midway up, with about 50 feet of wall above and another 50 feet of wall below. Here's a view of the opposite wall. I'm sure geologists love this sort of thing.

Another sharp turn, and the canyon floor had risen to meet me.

The trail followed the canyon, then climbed up to escape on the other side of the hill.

After some more switchbacks, I found myself with a view straight down to the trail I'd followed through the canyon. Anyone else get vertigo from this photo?

The trail finally peaked at the level of Observation Point, but not yet on the plateu itself. The trail then followed the edge of the bluff as the plateau came down to meet it. Finally, the trail got onto the plateau itself and angled out to the point.

Angels Landing is cropped off the right side of this photo. In the lower right is The Organ, and the blocky plateau on the upper left is The Great White Throne. Supposedly these are Morman religious references, but the latter two sound an awful lot like double entendres to me.

The Great White Throne has an odd castle-looking structure on top. I assume it's just a natural jumble of rock on top of the plateau, but I can't tell for sure. Make you can make something out in the super digital zoom.

An awkward panorama captures Angels Landing in the lower left (of the full image) and The Temple On The Mount (plateau on top of plateau) on the skyline. Super digital zoom shows people on top of Angels Landing.

After that, it's just pictures from the way back down. Here the sun backlights a particularly jagged cliff face.

A yucca, recently bloomed.

The bridge leading into the canyon.

The interesting result of blasting out a trail on layered rock.

Yesterday's lunch at the lodge cafe (a hamburger and onion rings) had suffered badly under the infrared lamps. So this time I indulged myself with a soft pretzel and an ice cream cone.

Observation Point
Time: 6:00am - 10:15am
Distance: 8.0 miles
Ascent: 2148 feet
Water: 1.5 liters

Zion - The Narrows

2007-06-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

It was getting quite hot by that point, but I didn't want to spend the afternoon doing nothing. Although I hadn't planned to do it, I'd been told that the hike through The Narrows was nifty. Since that involved wading through the river, I figured it wouldn't be as hot. Unfortunately, since it involved wading through the river, it also meant that I had to take the shuttle to the car where I dropped off everything not waterproof. That included my camera, so there is no photographic evidence that I was ever at The Narrows.

The hike starts with a mile of paved trail that everybody and their grandmother can hike. Where the pavement leaves off, you're on your own to figure out how to follow either the riverbank or, where necessary, the river.

I'd traded my shoes for aquasocks, so I had no reservations about getting my feet wet. Of course, then I realized that I'd forgotten to take off my watch. Luckily, the aquasocks had good grip on the underwater rocks, and my balance was good, so I never had to put my hand down in the water. In fact, I didn't really get anything wet higher than my thighs, which was how deep the water was in spots.

I stopped at a place where the walls were so close and undercut that it was easy to find a spot where no sky at all was visible. My knee was starting to pinch, so I decided to turn around there. On the way back, lots of people wanted to know how far it was. Of course, none of them really knew what "it" was, since The Narrows is just a place where you hike until you're satisfied, then turn around. The most amusing, though, was when I told a group that to get to a good spot, they'd have to go about three times as far as they'd gone so far. Just after telling them that, I turned the corner to find that I was already back to the paved section. Ha!

While walking back along the pavement to the shuttle stop, I discovered that being in shape doesn't prevent blisters from forming on wet feet. Oops. Fortunately, they weren't too bad and never ended up bothering me for any other hikes.

I should point out that any narrow canyon in Utah is subject to flash flood danger. That was never a worry for me, though, as there was no possibility of rain in the forecast the whole time I was there.

Another piece of trivia is that The Narrows is part of the Virgin River, the same one that I'd been following through the gorge in Arizona.

The Narrows
Time: ~2.5 hours
Distance: ~4.0 miles
Ascent: ~60 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

I had to take the shuttle back to my car in order to retrieve my wallet, then shuttle back up to the lodge for dinner, and finally shuttle back down.

I'd reserved a campsite near the visitor's center, and I was allowed to drive my car to the campsite. I'd checked in and set up my tent before going to The Narrows. All that was left was to get out my sleeping bag, pad, and pillow, and make myself comfortable. You'd think that wouldn't be an easy task at 8:40pm, with the sun still up, the other campers still noisy, and the tent still hot. But I was asleep almost instantly.

Zion - Emerald Pools

2007-06-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Returning to the trailhead, I felt like I still had energy for another hike. Checking the information sign, I learned to watch out for killer deer.

The sign also showed that I could hike to the Emerald Pools, then loop around to Zion Lodge. That sounded good, since I could get lunch there and not have to ride the shuttle again.

As it turned out, the Emerald Pools were not super exciting.

I stopped to watch a climber start to rappel down from the cliff above.

Headed back down, it was getting later and hotter. I was glad to get to the lodge where I could get an ice cold drink. Only after half the drink did I even think about lunch.

Emerald Pools
Time: 9:45am - 11:00am
Distance: 2.6 miles
Ascent: 250 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

Zion - Angel's Landing

2007-06-17T09:30:00.001-07:00

I got up on Sunday bright and early. (Wait, shouldn't that be dark and early?) Anyway, I got up at 5:30am and headed over to Denny's for breakfast. I was amused by the lady I overheard at another table talking to her friend: "I lived in San Jose for 18 years. Well, not San Jose, but Santa Clara. I loved it! It's like a big city spread out into suburbs."

Heading towards Zion, I got my first picture of true canyon country. (By the way, some of my pictures are panoramas stitched together from multiple photos. Some of those, like this one, I didn't bother to crop nicely, so they'll have an oddly shaped black border.)

Zion doesn't allow cars into the scenic areas of the park, so I parked at the visitor center and hurried to the next shuttle. It was only once we started up the hill that I realized that I'd left my sunscreen in the car. Luckily, that didn't matter too much at 7 in the morning.

My first planned hike was to Angels Landing. Here's the view from just a little ways into the hike, looking up at the first major climb.

A little further up I turned around to capture the trail, the road, and everything else.

This little fella thinks it'll be a cold winter.

After heading up some tight switchbacks, the trail entered a canyon. After another switchback or two, I took this photo back towards the mouth of the canyon. (I'm not yet so good at choosing the right exposure. I had to artificially brighten this picture to make the dark canyon features visible.)

After yet another set of tight switchbacks, the trail hit the top of the ridge. Or so it seemed. To get to the best viewpoint, you have to travel along Angels Landing. There was one lady who'd been able to keep ahead of me since we left the same shuttle. You can see her in the light blue hat and red backpack, hanging onto the chain in the lower third of the full photo.

The view from the top was awesome.

(download huge)

Some chipmunks were also up there doing their best to steal our food.

I captured some shots on the way back down that better show how hard the trail would be for anyone with a fear of heights.

The chains are locked into position well enough that they always rub the sandstone in the same spots.

A view of "Walter's Wiggles" from above.

Angels Landing
Time: 7:00am - 9:30am
Distance: 5.0 miles
Ascent: 1488 feet
Water: 0.5 liters

Drive to Utah

2007-06-16T20:30:00.001-07:00

It took one day of driving just to get from Santa Clara to the vicinity of Zion National Park. The route is basically I-5 southeast, cut east through Bakersfield and the Mojave, then take I-15 northeast through Las Vegas to St. George, Utah.

I stopped for breakfast at a McDonald's. Here we find the Rosetta Stone of trademark disclaimers.

I-15 cuts through a corner of Arizona between Nevada and Utah. Here the highway follows the Virgin River as a shortcut to the high Utah plateaus. In some cases, the gorge walls are so close together that the highway seems to be built on top of the river, rather than beside it.

I'd been warned that Las Vegas traffic would be very bad on a weekend. It was busy, but not enough to really be slow. The main thing that slowed me down were the miles and miles of 55 mph speed limit through "road construction" that wasn't actually happening.

I-15 through the rest of Nevada and into Utah was a breeze. When the speed limit is 75 mph for everyone, including trucks, pretty much everyone goes the same speed. And given the light traffic through that area, it was pretty easy to make the occasional pass at 1 mph speed differential.

St. George is built directly into a canyon. Here is the view from the motel.

The weather was forecast to be very hot in Utah. At 6:30pm, the bank in St. George showed the temperature as 104. At 8:20, the Weather Channel said it was still 98, with a predicted "low" of 76. Given the hot weather, I'd already planned to do my hiking in the early morning. Fortunately, despite the time difference in Utah, I had no trouble falling asleep at 8:30.

Henry Coe Backpacking - Summer 2007

2007-06-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Dianna and Steve and I went backpacking at Henry Coe this weekend. We went from the Coyote Creek entrance to Kelly Lake. As best as I can figure, it was about 7 miles from the car to the campsite, with 1500 feet total climb. The forecast was for a high of 80 on both Saturday and Sunday. Of course, it felt hotter in the sun, but the occasional breeze was nice.

None of us had problems with this hike, although we all had our own pace.

From the top of the ridge, you can look north...

...and south.

Most of Coe is grass, bushes, and trees. There are only a few rocks.

Is this a lilac tree?

Here's a close up of the same species, but a different tree. This one was losing its flowers.

Some pretty red-winged blackbirds were waiting for us at the lake. Here is one sitting near the top of a small tree.

Here's the same bird in an action shot. This also happens to be the best shot I got of the lake.

The best campsite was just below the earth dam holding back the lake. We kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn't burst in the night.

That's all the photos you get. The route back was the same as the route in, so there was nothing more to see. I hope you enjoyed the show. G'night, folks!

Henry Coe Backpacking - Spring 2007

2007-04-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went backpacking with Steve and Derek.

Our campsite had a dilapidated outhouse.

We went looking for a good meteor-watching spot, but it was still too light out. We found a nice meadow full of wildflowers, though.

Eventually, it got dark, but then the moon was too bright.

Once our eyes were adjusted, the moon wasn't quite so bright and fiery.

But it was still bright enough to cast a moon shadow and to follow the trail by.

It never got dark enough to see meteors, so we just sat and contemplated the dark horizon for a while.

Back at our campsite, the trees were being extra spooky.

And caterpillars were taking over.

Young Lakes - Summer 2007

2006-08-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend Steve and Dianna and I went backpacking in Yosemite. We started from Tuolumne meadows at the base of Lembert Dome.

We started west along the Glen Aulin trail, then turned north and headed uphill toward Ragged Peak. The views were the best to the south.

Views in Yosemite typically include big rocks in front of you, trees behind, and a very high horizon beyond.

We continued over a ridge near Ragged Peak and down to the first of the Young Lakes. We didn't have time to reach the upper lake that evening, so we stopped at the lower lake for the night.

Steve had voted for a late start. After estimating the driving and hiking time and adding a sensible margin, I figured we'd barely have time to set up camp before it got dark. And if we didn't use up all of the margin, we'd have extra time to relax in the evening. As it turns out, it's good that we had the margin. We had to wash dishes and bury the food waste in the dark. (Dianna handled the cooking. Thanks, Dianna!)

The Perseids peaked the previous weekend, but the viewing wasn't good because the moon was up so early. We hoped that there'd be a few meteors left this weekend, and the moon didn't come up until 1:00. Our camp had a nice big boulder to lie on with a nice viewing angle to the gap in the trees over our camp. We saw a few tiny meteors and a couple of satellites, and then finally a nice big sparkling meteor. After that we decided it was getting plenty cold, so we headed to our tents.

After it seemed like the light on my tent had been bright enough for long enough, I got up Sunday morning. It was cool, but not cold. Heading away from camp to water the trees, I found a sign warning campers away from a bear lure.

Ragged Peak is appropriately named. Surprisingly, the sun had not yet reached it.

It wasn't until 6:30 that the sun rose high enough to touch the top of the peak.

I went down to the lake to pump some water, and the reflections were so perfect that I had to run back for my camera.

After breakfast, we left our packs at the camp and hiked toward the upper lake. Along the way, we found the creek that fills the lower lake.

As is usual in Yosemite, the climb was steep in places.

A steep part of the trail will often get you above the tree tops, though. In this case, we could see the middle lake below and a sliver of the lower lake farther off.

The upper lake was surrounded by very green grass. At over 10,000 feet elevation, the trees are clearly struggling. Looking back the way we came, it's strange to see no tall trees or mountains in the way of the horizon.

Of course, if we had continued in the same direction, we would still have a ways to climb.

As was the case for all the lakes, the water was very clear.

We headed back down to our camp, packed up, and headed back down. This time we headed more directly south on the Dog Lake trail back to the car. This required climbing once more above 10,000 feet before starting the long descent.

At times, when the trail would break out onto an Alpine-like meadow, I'd break into a song from The Sound of Music.

One of the meadows allowed an excellent panorama from north to east to south. Dianna wasn't fast enough to duck out of frame.

Doe, a deer, a female deer!

On the way down from the last rise, the dust on the trail was very fine, so I was staying a bit further back to stay out of the dust clouds. Somehow this seemed to aggravate my knee, which sometimes pinches a nerve on descents. When Steve and Dianna stopped for a break, I figured I'd better keep going or they'd have to wait for me at the next steep descent. As it turns out, setting my own pace did wonders for my knee. At the bottom, it took them about 10 minutes to catch up again, although I hear they were distracted by a marmot.

Eventually we all made it down. We were glad to see the car.

Ansel Adams Wilderness - Fall 2005

2005-09-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

I went backpacking with Greg and Andrea in the Ansel Adams Wilderness this Thursday through Sunday. Greg and Andrea are backpacking veterans, which is good, because I'm mostly a newbie.

This map is easy to read, but it's missing Clarice Lake.

This map has more detail, but it's harder to read.

We drove up on Wednesday afternoon/evening. It's about a six hour drive. We stayed at a Motel 6 that night at about 8000 feet elevation. I found it hard to sleep because I could feel my heart and lungs working extra hard.

Thursday morning we had our last restaurant meal, picked up our wilderness permit, and drove over to the shuttle stop. Our trailhead was in Devil's Postpile National Monument, and no cars are permitted in when the shuttle is running. So we rode the shuttle in to the Agnew Meadows trailhead, which you can see in the center right of the map. The map says it's at about 8300 feet elevation.

From there it was a fairly easy descent northwest into a valley and past Olaine Lake at about 8100 feet. The ground isn't very fertile, and on the trails the ground turns to thick dust, almost like dry beach sand. On this busy section, the trail was very dusty. Bleah.

The trail passes Olaine Lake on fairly level ground in a forested area, so it felt somewhat like an eastern pond with nothing special about it.

From there we turned left (west) and climbed steeply up to Shadow Lake at about 8700 feet. This lake felt more like a Sierra Nevada lake. There was forest on some sides, but other parts of the lake were hemmed in by cliffs and rock falls.

From here we could also clearly see Mount Ritter and Banner Peak, our 13000-foot landmarks for the rest of the trip.

I think we had lunch in the vicinity of Shadow Lake. Here I would have my last and only cheese puffies for the trip, since cheese puffies don't compress very well into bear canisters. Mmm... cheese puffies.

From there we continued west uphill to Ediza Lake at around 9300 feet. When we finished the final climb and came out right next to the lake and a beautiful Alpine meadow with rugged snowy peaks behind them, I couldn't help but break loudly into song: "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." Greg didn't like that so much. Nor did he like it when I transitioned to "High on the hills was a lonely goatherd". And apparently my short snippet of "Doe, a deer, a female deer" got stuck in his brain for the rest of the day.

No camping is allowed on the south shore of Ediza, so we circled around the west side to the northwest side, where Greg followed his nose to a beautiful campsite high above the lake. Nearby was a nice stream where we could refill our water bottles using our filter pump.

We set up our tents and then wandered around the lake. Greg had brought his fishing pole and some fish-cooking gear, but although he caught a number of one- or two-pound fish throughout the trip, he decided to throw them all back.

There were three or four other groups camped near the lake, but none were bothersome. In any case, a waterfall on the south side seemed rather loud in comparison to the extreme quiet that otherwise would have been present. In fact, at night the waterfall sounded an awful lot like a highway in the distance. Har.

Greg made a delicious dinner of pasta with meat sauce. That was the last meal that didn't need to fit into the bear canister, so of course it was the tastiest.

Then we went back down to the lake and watched the light disappear off the mountains and the stars come out. We also saw a few satellites during the trip.

Andrea had read that Thursday at 7:52 was the perfect time for photographers in Yosemite to recreate the conditions of one of Ansel Adams' famous photos: "Autumn Moon: the High Sierra From Glacier Point". But for us the moon didn't rise above the high horizon until after 8 o'clock. Since it was quickly getting cold by then, we headed off to bed.

Again I had trouble sleeping due to the altitude. Also, while my mummy-style sleeping back is very warm, it doesn't allow much movement, and I needed to move around to keep from cramping up. Finally at around 1 a.m. I realized that my body heat had warmed up the ground enough that I could unzip the sleeping bag and use it as a blanket while I slept on my camping mat. I had to make sure that the sleeping bag touched the ground on all sides, however, because otherwise the breeze through the tent vents was very cold.

My new tent is built for one person and packs up very small and light. Like all tents (I guess), it needs ventilation so that humidity and perspiration don't condense on the inside. So it's a good thing my sleeping bag is super warm because the tent can't hold much warmth.

Friday we got up at around 8 am when the sun rose high enough to light our tents directly. Well, Greg was up earlier to fish, but crazy people don't count. Greg did discover that the rock outcropping above our campsite warmed up early in the morning, though, so we dubbed it Lizard Rock. It turned out to be less useful later, though, when it was windier.

Greg made us some oatmeal porridge, which Andrea and I declared as not so tasty.

We left our packs and tents and took just daypacks for Friday's hike. We returned east along our trail, then turned north along the John Muir trail over an 10100-foot saddle. Directly on top of the saddle was an unmarked pond with no inlet or outlet. A small patch of snow continued to melt into it, but the pond had clearly receded over the summer.

From there we continued down to Garnet Lake at about 9700 feet. I managed to make it down just in time to stake out a good lunch spot on some rocks poking out into the lake before a group of 11 backpackers reached it. Greg spoke briefly with them and decided that their group leader was a jackass because he needed help finding the trail that we'd just come down. They said they were on their way to camp at Clarice Lake. (Foreshadowing...)

We had a compact lunch of hummus in pita bread and watched the clouds puff out over the mountains and then evaporate. Andrea spotted a clot of tiny white birds high in the sky wheeling around each other as they drifted with the wind. For the most part we didn't see many birds or other animals on this trip. One marmot, a few chipmunks, and lots of mosquitos, although the DEET did its job with them.

Garnet Lake is very large and has many little rock and meadow islands, but I guess not as many as Thousand Island Lake a bit further north. We decided to not push that far, though, and instead we continued northeast to the outlet of Garnet Lake, then turned southeast on a little used trail to Altha Lake. Although a trail appears on the map, the trail we found disappeared at some camp sites not far from from Garnet Lake, and so we dead reckoned our way up a saddle to overlook Altha Lake.

Altha Lake is a comparatively mid-sized lake. It has no inlet or (when we visited) outlet, and it's ringed by steep walls on all sides. We found a fisherman's trail to the south end along the east side. It involved some scrambling on the rocks to avoid having to wade through the lake.

Our plan was to continue south to Laura Lake, which meant traveling without a trail. Fortunately, the forest didn't have a lot of ground cover to impede travel, and we just needed to stay at about the same elevation while following the high ground on the west side. With three people, we were able to break all ties in deciding which route to take, and eventually we popped out exactly where we wanted to be.

Laura Lake again had no inlet or outlet, and it perches strangely above a huge drop down to the San Joaquin River. (Actually, the map shows that Altha Lake also perches above the same drop, but it has a ridge around it that is just high enough to seem a bit more believable to keep the lake in.)

From Laura Lake, we turned west to climb up out of one valley and head back to the valley containing the John Muir trail. We had a small goal of visiting Clarice Lake, but without good landmarks, we didn't put great hopes in finding it on our way by.

After struggling through thick brush up to a saddle the ground cover thinned out and we strolled on westward.

That's when we ran straight into... the same 11 backpackers still looking for Lake Clarice. Not 10 yards to the side. Straight into. In the middle of a trackless wilderness.

Once again, they wanted help finding Clarice Lake. Of course, we weren't sure where it was, but pointed out that we'd just left Laura Lake behind us. "Laura Lake?", they asked. Greg figures they're still wandering out there.

We continued on and quickly hit the trail, and from there it was an easy trip back to our campsite at Ediza Lake.

Dinner on Friday night was instant garlic mashed potatoes with gravy. Mmm, mmm, good.

This time it got colder even earlier, so we headed to bed before the sky had even completely darkened. This time I closed the windward vent on my tent. The lee-side vent was still open for adequate ventilation, and I was able to quickly get comfortable.

It's a good thing I did that because that was the windiest night, with gusts perhaps up to 20 mph. Most of that time the wind was fairly light, but occasionally I'd wake up to hear a roaring approaching through the trees, finally blowing the trees all around before descending to push in the side of my tent for about ten seconds before lifting and roaring away.

Friday night my lungs felt fine and I don't recall having an altitude headache, but I could still feel my heart pounding extra hard whenever I'd lie on my stomach.

Saturday morning Andrea and I had a smaller portion of oatmeal before we packed our stuff back into our backpacks.

Our plan was to head south past Iceberg Lake to Cecile Lake, and perhaps onward to Minaret Lake. There is no official trail along that route, but Greg and Andrea had a book that said that backpackers had worn a decent trail, and we found that to be true.

At around 10:30 we popped above a rim to find Iceberg Lake at around 9800 feet. It surprised me in being accurately named. Walls of unmelted snow on two sides were clearly calving off chunks of ice and snow often enough to have dropped five or six small icebergs into the lake. The biggest was perhaps twelve feet long at the surface. Another one appeared to have been formed when two crashed together and tilted up. That one gave me the pleasure of partially falling apart and tilting over while I was watching, making many of the same noises and splashes in miniature that you see in nature shows for the big polar icebergs.

Greg and Andrea's guide book said that the snow should be melted out of the way by late summer, but we could see that there was still some snow along our path. The best crossing spot could perhaps take advantage of a bare spot where some rocks poked out, although they were still surrounded by snow. When we arrived, there were some people checking the conditions on both the upper and lower ends of the bare spot.

We watched those people and then another group poke all around the side of that snow field before giving up and coming back. Greg checked with them and learned that the "snow" was really solid ice with no grip whatsoever.

The sun was just starting to shine on the snow field then, so we decided to give it an hour or two to soften up a bit. After about an hour, a group of three people without packs gave it a try. Two of them looked like dedicated hikers, wearing shorts even in the cold weather. The third was wearing a sweatsuit and didn't look very happy. We watched them in the distance as they carved a way out to the middle pile of rocks and then from there to the far side. It took them a very long time, and it looked like a fair amount of convincing was needed for the third hiker.

Then another group of dayhikers came and followed the direct route across the snowfield where the path went. They didn't take nearly as long, so we figured we'd go check it out.

Greg tried pushing his hiking pole into the "snow" as far as he could ram it, which was about a quarter inch. Although there were some depressions where people had carved footholds, they'd clearly melted and refrozen. We decided that risking a hundred foot slide onto rocks (at best) or into the freezing lake (at worst) wasn't worth the extra lakes that we could visit. Plus the climb out looked like a doozy.

So we returned to our packs and had a lunch of peanut butter in pita bread, then headed back down to Ediza Lake.

This time we picked out a different campsite that seemed more sheltered from the wind. Greg tried to make potato cheddar soup, and although the cheddar part came out better than he'd feared, the potato bits didn't cook through, so it was a bit crunchy. Luckily, after three days in the wilderness we were neither picky enough nor stupid enough to complain to the cook.

Although it was not at all windy, Saturday night was bitterly cold. Fortunately, the short Saturday hike and my improving muscles meant that I didn't need to move around as much, and I quickly zipped myself up and slept tight all night, with no problems at all with the altitude.

It was also fortunate that I didn't move much because I must have messed up the top vent on my tent. Although a light breeze continued to circulate coldly around the bottom of the tent, the top of the tent wouldn't vent, and condensation built up around the upper walls. When I accidentally touched them in the morning, they immediately started dripping like crazy.

Our new campsite lined up better with a notch in the mountains, so the Sunday morning sun came up close to an hour earlier. We greatly appreciated it. Greg reported that the edges of the lake were frozen, and even from our site a few hundred feet away we could see frost on the ground around the lake.

After another small serving of oatmeal, we packed up and retraced our steps back to the Agnew Meadows trailhead. Since it was still early, we took the shuttle deeper into National Monument to visit the Devil's Postpile. It's a pretty cool basalt formation.

Finally we took the shuttle back to the car, and we drove out to Mammoth Lakes, where we had a tasty dinner in an Italian restaurant served by a waiter with a fake Italian accent and way too much cologne. Then we drove home. And thus it ended.