So I told the gray-bearded mountain biker dude with the bike that probably cost more than my car, “I’d probably be a mountain biker but I have a this strange fear of flat tires.” “Well if that’s the only thing…
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Favorite tent pictures
by tom • March 29, 2008 • 10 Comments
Inspired by this link at Backpacker.com, here are some tent pictures of mine in various settings: My REI Quarter dome at At Cache Creek Wildlife Area. Same tent, behind Mission Peak at Eagle Spring Backpack Camp. Moon through the webbing,…
Caught in the act
by tom • March 28, 2008 • 5 Comments
Cheryl Norlin, one of my Carrizo Plain camping cohorts of last weekend, sent this picture of me taking a picture: I’m pretty sure this is the picture I was taking: This originally was a vertical that I cropped into this…
Why local parks have so few visitors
by tom • March 28, 2008 • 9 Comments
Because people are lazy, American Idol-watching couch potatoes, or because the trails in our parks are too steep, and littered with cow poop? A guy named, appropriately enough, Ted Stroll, brought this up in a commentary in the Chronicle last…
Scouting Santa Teresa County Park
by tom • March 27, 2008 • 3 Comments
This has to be the most-documented local park I’ve never been to. It’s in south San Jose about a mile beyond the terminus of the Santa Teresa light-rail line. It has one large hill and respectable wildflower action in the…
Santa Clara County car camping recommendations
by tom • March 26, 2008 • 5 Comments
Nice places to car camp near Silicon Valley: Mount Madonna: Most ecologically diverse county park, with miles of great redwood and oak woodland hiking. It’s better to camp here in the spring or fall. The marine layer from the Pacific…
East Bay Parks photo contest winners
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 0 Comments
The park district has a page with all the winning entries from its 2007 photography contest. Sunol Wilderness, Morgan Territory and Mount Diablo are among the stars in the show. Click the link to see ’em all. More great East…
Hot falcon sex update
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 4 Comments
Those sexy peregrine falcons have been at it again, judging from the webcam high on a ledge of the San Jose City Hall, where the happy couple are warming four eggs (“they look like little red potatoes,” Melissa exclaims) for…
Crafting a pot cozy
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 3 Comments
A blog called Source to Sea offers step-by-step guidance for making a pot cozy. A pot cozy saves fuel and creates and alternative to simmering when you’re using, say, a one-burn, one-setting alcohol stove, but I’d take one along even…