We made the 5 hour drive up to the Redding area (with some fun truck stop exploration along the way), had some Taco Bell for dinner (yum!) and ended up in Weaverville, CA and grabbed a room at the Motel Trinity (we are modest and underpaid). We discovered the next morning when we were driving through, that Weaverville is a very cool and very cute little gold rush town (we also love Nevada City on the way to Tahoe).

We hit the trail and ended up covering 16.5 miles round trip over the course of three days, pretty easily. We climbed about 3,500 feet, visited several waterfalls, camped by Upper Canyon Creek Lake the first night and along the Creek itself the second. We scrambled up to L Lake for a day hike and made lots of delicious food (pizza quesadillas, tortilla soup, pudding Oreo desserts).

We had a great time and I’m happy to report that I took lots of pictures! I’m glad I did, documenting a few mini-adventures that we might have otherwise forgotten about (jumping into the freezing cold water fall, draining the left over tortilla soup in a bag, finding a killer campsite along the creek).

Unfortunately, backpacking season is almost over so we might not end up doing another trip this year. I’m glad we finally made it out and I think this will just make us wanting to get out there early next year.

So far this year, I’ve gone on only two. (And they were only day hikes.)

I have some serious making up to do if I’m going to hit 200 miles of hiking this year. (While I haven’t been hiking, I’ve been a running fool… with 387 miles logged in 9 months of 2010 and many more to come with marathon training.)

Well, we are finally packing our bags for the extended Labor Day weekend and are heading up to the Trinity Alps for a three day, two night backpack trip. For some reason I have this nervous anxious feeling. I am excited to go because it’ll be peaceful and relaxing and beautiful (and a mountain range we’ve never been to). But in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “what about my long run this weekend?” I’ve been disciplined and on target for all my training over the last 4 weeks but this is going to throw me off. And it comes a week before I start a week and a half of traveling. So, I’m a little afraid that this might be the beginning of training derailment.

Anyway, I’m taking my camera so even if I do fall off the training wagon I will be getting back on the picture taking wagon. Tit for tat.

This weekend Dave and I backpacked 31 miles around the Buena Vista loop in Yosemite and from about noon on Saturday to about noon on Monday we didn’t see a single person other than each other.

How often does that happen in life?