Barb is the author of Zero Days, her account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with her husband and 10-year-old daughter. As of a couple minutes ago, Barb is essentially unemployed — she’s one of the folks getting their walking…
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Geocaching: take the kids along
by tom • March 6, 2008 • 8 Comments
As I was walking with a rail-thin Army Reserve sergeant along the way to Murietta Falls awhile back, we got to talking about what his overweight preteen son thinks of hiking. In two words: hates it. Army Dad’s solution: give…
Great hikes around Sacramento
by tom • March 6, 2008 • 0 Comments
A writer from the Bee goes walking with Steve Evans, author of “Top Trails: Sacramento.” They’re checking out the Cosumnes River Preserve. “The preserve is a great example of what the pre- European Central Valley used to look like,” Evans…
Mountain Hardwear’s new digs
by tom • March 6, 2008 • 1 Comment
Mountain Hardwear’s moving into the old Ford Assembly Point at Ford Point in Richmond in a couple weeks. Because the company is just down the road from Berkeley, it’s all about the sustainability these days — and plans to use…
Sutter Buttes: a way in
by tom • March 5, 2008 • 7 Comments
We’d been driving all day — up to I80 to Highway 89 and Sierraville near Tahoe, looping over to Quincy on Highway 70 and returning on the same road to Oroville and back down out of the mountains into the…
Terrain class rating system
by tom • March 5, 2008 • 0 Comments
Here’s a video describing those “class” ratings you may see on discussion boards like summitpost.com. It’s the Welzenbach System. Class 1 is basic hiking, on trail and off; class 5 is straight up the rock face with ropes, pitons and…
Trekking poles video
by tom • March 5, 2008 • 12 Comments
Found this gem on Youtube: Because it’s a local TV news report — and therefore trivialized in the most fingernails-on-a-chalkboard means possible — there is at least one fact error for alert viewers to watch for. Video posted by Trekking…
Berry Creek Falls via Skyline to the Sea Trail
by tom • March 4, 2008 • 6 Comments
One for the it’s-hell-getting-old file (whose corollary is “holy shit I get more like my old man every day”): My dad got his absent-mindedness from his old man and thoughtfully passed it along to me. Because I’ve been trying to…
Berry Creek Falls today
by tom • March 3, 2008 • 6 Comments
I’m doing the big loop at Big Basin to check out the water flow … pix & chatter tonight.