I made a snap judgment Wednesday to check out Mission Peak at sunset, which I had been fixing to get ready to do for ages. Winehiker Russ loves to lead this hike (just under six miles with 2,000 feet of…
Tom's travels
High Sierra road trip
by tom • July 16, 2008 • 6 Comments
So I’m on vacation this week and needed to do some vacating yesterday, so Melissa and I headed for the hills. We took Ebbett’s Pass, lunched with a through-hiker and gave him a ride into Markleeville, then headed down to…
In the news
Court deals blow to Santa Clara Open Space Authority
by tom • July 15, 2008 • 2 Comments
The Santa Clara Open Space Authority has been piling up over $50 million most of this decade because it added a fee to people’s property taxes to pay for open space, trails and other things. A trouble-making anti-tax group sued,…
Hiking, Wildlife
No proof a mountain lion attacked that hiker at Foothills Park
by tom • July 14, 2008 • 3 Comments
Something about that story set off my B.S. detector at about 6 p.m. today … which may very well have been when investigators were making up their minds that there wasn’t a lick of proof that the guy who fell…
Mangan's memoirs
Free at last!
by tom • July 14, 2008 • 8 Comments
The Hikes column in Thursday’s paper will be my last. For once it’s not an austerity measure imposed from above; it’s me being more frugal about my free time … basically all my hiking hours were going into the column,…
Wildlife
Hiker roughed up in mountain lion attack at Foothills Park
by tom • July 14, 2008 • 10 Comments
UPDATE: Read this first. Turns out there’s no evidence implicating a mountain lion. Original post: Guy walking a trail Saturday afternoon got pounced upon by a mountain lion, whose youth, enthusiasm and ineptitude saved the hiker’s life: The pounce knocked…
Blogs
Site worth a visit: Natural Born Hikers
by tom • July 11, 2008 • 1 Comment
Alert reader Ann L. sends along this link: Natural Born Hikers. The site has been around for ages and is updated in a whenever-the-get-around-to manner which suggests they prize hiking over goofing off online. I always respect qualities in other…
Trails
Tahoe Rim Trail links
by tom • July 10, 2008 • 8 Comments
Fedak left for two weeks on the Tahoe Rim Trail yesterday without so much as an aloha or arm wave, but I don’t blame him: overexposure to my ramblings no doubt left him two options: go out of his mind…
In the news
4WheelBob earns President’s Fitness Award
by tom • July 10, 2008 • 2 Comments
If you ever wondered about Bob’s regular-guy cred, well, he reads this blog every day but I had to read about him winning this award from That Other Tom at the Chronicle. On the visor of my truck, a postcard-size…