Shimmering waters of Lake Winnemucca “I can breathe up here.” So said my allergy-prone wife, Melissa, whom I had talked into an “easy” jaunt down to Lake Winnemucca from Carson Pass. It was an odd thing to hear 9,000 feet…
National parks
Sunday at the Marin Headlands
by tom • April 21, 2008 • 6 Comments
I never tire of the Marin Headlands. I drag all my visitors to see them — I even took my Mom up there in the middle of a blinding rainstorm (“there’s a spectacular coastline over there,” I promised, pointing to…
More Carrizo Plain pics
by tom • April 4, 2008 • 0 Comments
Carol took some most excellent pictures the weekend before last during our camp-out at Carrizo Plain National Monument. Check ’em out. (They leave mine in the dust).
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…
Carrizo Plain camp-out report
by tom • March 24, 2008 • 9 Comments
It’s a damn long drive to Carrizo Plain National Monument from the Bay Area (or any area, for that matter) to see this. Must be why they call it a plain, eh? Then again, you can never tell a park…
Half Dome hiker on OpenRoad.TV
by tom • March 20, 2008 • 0 Comments
Rick Deutsch has a five-minute video with Doug McConnell of Bay Area Backroads fame. It’s all familiar ground to many of us in the Global Hiker Elite (particularly those who’ve had the good fortune to drive 60 miles to a…
Beyond the Alviso slough
by tom • March 17, 2008 • 3 Comments
It would be unfair to call Alviso the armpit of the South Bay because in the real world, people wear deodorant that makes the smell go away, whereas in Alviso, the smell never goes away. On one side there are…
A plug for Don Edwards National Wildlife Sanctuary
by tom • December 12, 2007 • 2 Comments
A story in this morning’s Chron describes a billion-dollar plan to open up old Cargill salt ponds, build strong levees and let nature take its course, which should mean hundreds and perhaps thousands more birds and other wildlife in the…
How Calipidder spent her Thanksgiving holiday
by tom • November 29, 2007 • 1 Comment
Byrce and Zion! She had no woes with the harrowing Angel’s Landing hike. The last hike and definite highlight of the day was Angel’s Landing. This is a towering rock in the middle of the canyon, with 1500 foot drops…