Why start a hiking blog? Three years ago, when Two-Heel Drive was born, the question had had scarcely been asked, much less answered — perhaps because up until then, hikers did not blog and bloggers did not hike. Related: How…
Hiking
First look: Garin Regional Park
by tom • October 24, 2008 • 4 Comments
Garin and the neighboring Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park are in the hills east of Hayward/Union City in Alameda County. Autumn is the next-best time to hike the East Bay hills (spring with the green/flowers being the best), and Garin/DryCreek…
Blogs
We’re No. 24 on somebody’s list of top 100 men’s health blogs
by tom • October 23, 2008 • 1 Comment
I just love that this was posted at a site called Massage Therapy Careers. A list-happy writer named Christina Laun compiled an impressive sub-category of another place we showed up in 2007: Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs. From the…
In the news
Yosemite’s Tunnel View: new and improved
by tom • October 23, 2008 • 0 Comments
It’s hard to imagine improving on the vista at Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park, but that won’t stop people from trying. They already cut down some ponderosa pines that had the temerity to block people’s sight lines; now they’ve…
Wildlife
Nature column debuts in Mercury News
by tom • October 23, 2008 • 2 Comments
Lisa Krieger, one of our best writers, has begun penning a monthly column about nature and outdoor doings (topic for future discussion: Why is there never any interest in the nature indoors? Must be because it’s all bugs and bacteria).…
Blogs
Interesting site: campingblogger.net
by tom • October 21, 2008 • 2 Comments
A Silicon Valley techie/family guy named Roy Scribner been blogging about camping for the past couple years. He’s mainly the tow-behind-the-SUV-camper type because he got a lifetime’s worth of sleeping on the ground during the army paratrooper phase of his…
Hiking
Map of East Bay indigenous people’s sites
by tom • October 20, 2008 • 0 Comments
The East Bay Hill People site (last seen here in May 2008) now has a map of sites throughout the East Bay that can be explored in greater detail on Google Earth. Here’s a zoomed-down look at the map; the…
Henry Coe State Park
Mount Sizer in Henry Coe: Among the best hard hikes in the Bay Area
by tom • October 20, 2008 • 6 Comments
What makes Mount Sizer a must-see? Check out Baychic’s pictures from Saturday. She went with a group that put in a 16-mile version of the Sizer loop (just about any Sizer hike is a minimum of 12 miles, all of…
Media (books, DVDs, etc)
Excellent Alpinist profile
by tom • October 17, 2008 • 0 Comments
Turns out it was getting all its go-juice (you know, money) from a monied Linux geek (and we mean that in the “geek is the supreme compliment” vein peculiar to Silicon Valley) who got smacked down hard in the Crash…