Cool hiking-related stuff I did in summers past:
- 2007: Tagged along on 4WheelBob’s White Mountain conquest
- 2006: Vacationed at Zion/Bryce/Grand Canyon in Southern Utah.
Went on overnighters to Tahoe National Forest and Emigrant Wilderness.
Took Steve Sergeant’s lightweight backpacking course.
- 2005: Vacationed at Yosemite.
I slept on an actual bed every every night in the summer of 2008 and barely got out of the Bay Area. I had four weeks of vacation and couldn’t find time to squeeze in a single camp-out. Upside: nobody had to pretend they were impressed with tales of my outdoor exploits. Didn’t have any.
Lessons/memories/conclusions now that it’s all over:
- Hearing the distant train whistle from the Roaring Camp Railroads from deep in the eastern half of Wilder Ranch State Park is just plain cool.
- Also just plain cool: Walking through groves of essentially newborn redwoods already towering skyward at Pescadero Creek County Park.
- Making little movies of your hikes is not that hard — the video function on your digital camera and some video editing software is all you really need. String together a bunch of short clips, edit out the boring/too-shaky parts and whammo: you’re in showbiz.
- If you find people you like hiking with, find a way to do it. Life keeps intervening on me and preventing this from happening.
- If you’re thinking, “by God I need to spend a week backpacking in the High Sierra,” find a way to commit yourself to doing it. I spent this year thinking maybe I’d get around to it and never did.
What about the rest of you? Any insights to be gleaned from your summer adventures?
I didn’t do even half the hiking I thought I would do and had resolved to do back with my New Year’s Resolution. I guess I have an excuse though as the air quality this past summer really suffered with all the fires we had and my asthma was really bothering me during the peak of that. But I did do my first ever backpack, many thanks to Steve Sergeant for getting me out there, and I did at least do some hiking, including a couple of 20+ milers. I tried and failed to complete a Sunol hike to Rose Peak but then it was pretty warm that day (about 90F) and that is a pretty tough hike as it is.
In a way though, my most memorable outing this year was the trip I took just last week to the Eastern Sierras. I didn’t camp, I didn’t hike, I just stayed in motels at Lee Vining and Lone Pine and a great bed & breakfast in Bishop and ate in restaurants (Whoa Neli Deli at Lee Vining, Whiskey Creek and Yamatani’s in Bishop, and the Totem Cafe at Lone Pine, and drove most everywhere I went other than hoofing it around Bishop.
Otherwise, the Eastern Sierra is so beautiful this time of year with the aspens turning their fall colors that nothing else mattered. I ran up my credit card in the face of this financial crisis (yikes) and got some nice pictures for the effort, though nothing to compare with the stuff Galen Rowell took that they have hanging in the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop. I feel so good about this trip that I wish I could still be there!
Oh, and for anyone who hasn’t seen Galen Rowell’s work, here is a link to some of his images at the Mountain Light Gallery, http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.html
Wow. Looking at his stuff really makes me want to get out there!
I had plans to go backpacking in the Russian Wilderness, do some camping/hiking trips, and do a lot of day hikes. The smoke from all the fires we had up in the north part of Northern California put the kabosh on most of these plans. The Russian Wilderness–along with a lot of the country to the west and north of Mount Shasta–was on fire. Visibility was often two miles or less.
So I stayed very local and did walks and hikes from my front door, plus I went swimming in Lake Siskiyou.
Lesson learned: Do the things you want to do at the earliest opportunity. I could have backpacked Russian Wilderness in mid-June (before the June 23 lightning fires) but I wanted to wait until late July so the lakes would be warmer for swimming.
I can’t honestly say that I accomplished anything this year, but on the other hand, I hadn’t expected to. I’ve mainly been hiking on weekends at familiar locations close to home, just like always. I did go on a really nice cruise and land excursion in Alaska. A family vacation with 13 people. What little hiking we had opportunity to do was really great though. I suppose if I learned anything, it was that packaged tours are great fun, but having the accompanying itinerary can really cramp your style if you happen to find a place you would really like to explore more. I hate feeling like a tourist. This can be really good reconnaissance though. If we ever plan a trip to Alaska again on our own, I have some really good ideas for places I want to spend some time in, things I want to do, and time of year that may be best for doing them. And I have learned about some of the possible pitfalls that I would want to avoid.
As for right now, I’m looking forward to winter hiking.
I had a summer of high hopes and everything got in the way… I did manage two backpacking trips: one where everything, including the road to the trailhead, were still snowed in in June and another at the height of the fires (and mosquitos)– it took a while for my lungs and bug bites to forgive me. But a night out is a night out.
My lesson for the summer is to not let go of your hiking shape, because it’s a LOT harder to get it back than to stay there!
I learned that even if it’s a big hassle to drive a lot and you only have one day to do it, it’s worth it to head for the hills. I played hooky and took the dog up to a set of trails outside of Nevada City (Grouse Lakes Area, off Highway 20) and went for a 10-miler that made me so happy I exist and the world exists and all that beautiful stuff, it reminded me that it’s worth it. Better when you can go for longer, better when you can share driving costs, but worth it– because now I’m crutching it around and really glad I took advantage of the moment when I had it.