Tag Archives: national park

California adventures

Posted on July 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

I made the proud realization this weekend that in the six years I’ve lived in California, I’ve done a lot of exploring. I used to have a giant Yosemite trail map with all the trails I’ve been on highlighted. It gave a great visualization for how much of the park I’d seen. I thought it would be cool to map out where all in California I’ve been in a similar way.

I’ve traversed quite a bit of the state and have seen a lot of great California sites. Some of my top highlights include:

  • Redwood National Park
  • Mendocino
  • Trinity Alps
  • Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park (including summit)
  • Yosemite (Half Dome, Cloud’s Rest, Buena Vista Loop)
  • Lake Tahoe
  • Napa and Sonoma
  • Farallon Islands
  • SF to LA on bike
  • Mono Lake, Bodie and the Eastern Sierra
  • Mt. Whitney (summit)
  • Joshua Tree

With that being said, there is still a lot of California I still want to explore, including:

  • Mt. Shasta (summit)
  • Pinacles
  • Devils Postpile
  • Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park
  • Death Valley
  • Channel Islands
  • Salton Sea
  • Palm Springs
  • San Diego and the OC

Are you satisfied with how much of your own state you’ve explored?

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Trip report: Yosemite, September 2010

Posted on September 26, 2010 | 2 Comments

This weekend, Derek & Dave’s lack of Yosemite adventures this year combined with Katie’s lack of Yosemite adventures ever made for a fun filled trip to the glorious National Park.

Welcome to one of my favorite places

We ventured up late Friday night (with a delicious Wendy’s pit stop along the way) and after struggling to find a campsite (first come, first serve is always risky business) landed ourselves a spot at Porcupine Flat. We set up camp, made a quick fire, attempted to warm up and then hit the sack. It ended up being a bitter cold night (elevation: 8,000 feet+) and we all struggled to sleep well.


Katie & Dave at May Lake

Saturday morning we rolled out of our tents at about 10 AM (we all got our best sleep from 6 – 10 AM as the sun was warming up), enjoyed some delicious butterscotch pancakes and jetted out to the May Lake trail head for our afternoon hike. We made it quickly up to May Lake and then after fueling up with mucky water, we forged up to the summit of Mt. Hoffman (10,850 ft).

It ended up being a more challenging hike than expected but after scrambling our way up the last 100 feet, we were treated with an amazing 360 degree view of Yosemite. Not a bad way to introduce Katie to the park (even though she declared the granite landscape lackluster!!).


Derek atop Mount Hoffman

At the top we enjoyed turkey wraps (fixed up with Baconnaisse), partook in power naps and then hobbled back down the mountain. After a quick side trip to Tuolumne Meadows for a fresh supply of H2O for the night, we parked our butts at our campsite, made quesadilla pizzas, binged on cookies and enjoyed a nice, warm camp fire.

After a slightly warmer second night, we packed up and hit the road for the long drive to Glacier Point. We took in the great view of Yosemite Valley, ate our lunch, took pictures, threatened to beat up an over zealous squirrel and then hit the road for the long ride back to San Francisco.

Katie taking in the views at Glacier Point

Overall it was a great (but quick feeling) trip with great company, conversation and food. Hopefully Katie enjoyed her first trip to Yosemite!

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Posted in Storytelling, Travel

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When is the last time….

Posted on September 21, 2009 | 4 Comments

When is the last time you went 2 days without seeing another person? No, I don’t mean like last Sunday when you didn’t leave your apartment and barely left your couch. I mean no interaction even by phone, text or email. Not even seeing a person on TV or in a magazine.

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?

Buena Vista Lake

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It’s ready! An ode to Mt. Whitney

Posted on September 11, 2009 | 2 Comments

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Posted in Fun, Looking back, Travel

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We made it

Posted on August 25, 2009 | 1 Comment

Summited: 14,496 feet. Tallest peak in the contiguous United States. Amazing time. Thanks Graham and Dave for great pictures.

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Whitney Houston

Posted on August 19, 2009 | 3 Comments

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for my highly anticipated summer adventure – the hiking and summiting of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States (14,505 feet).

As of now my highest hiked peak is Mt. Dana in Yosemite (13,061 feet). Whitney doesn’t sound awful compared with Dana, which we did in a day hike, but it’s much more of an undertaking. The backpacking route to Whitney is about 22 miles and is accompanied by about 6,000 feet of elevation gain (it’s a much lower and more distant trailhead than Dana which was something like 6 miles and 3,000 feet of gain). We’ll take 3 days to do it all and rather than take a camera I’m going to take my Flip to document and video record our adventures. Hopefully I’ll be inspired to put together a fun little video montage to post on YouTube next week. Stay tuned!

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Excitement

Posted on June 17, 2009 | 2 Comments

Just a quick little note to share my excitement for the coming weekend. My dad is coming to town (from Michigan) and Dave and I are taking him 1) skydiving and 2) to our favorite place, Yosemite. I know it’s so George H. W. Bush right now to go jump out of a plane but I’m really excited that my dad wants to do it and we’re going to have the chance to do it together. Dave is a little more apprehensive but we’re dragging him anyway.

For Yosemite we’re staying at the Wawona Hotel (Dad didn’t want to rough it in a tent, he’s on vacation after all) and we’ve got a few fun hikes lined up (Mariposa Grove giant sequoias, something in Tuolomne maybe?) Dad’s never really hiked, never been to Yosemite (or any National Park that I can think of) so it too should be a unique experience. (He bought hiking boots just for the trip!) To add to the memorability factor of the trip, we’re thinking about throwing the 16-mile day hike up to Half Dome into the mix. Are we crazy?

Stay tuned.

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Introducing a new page

Posted on December 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

As I attempt to expand the content on my blog, I’m planning to introduce a few new “pages” (see tabs on top of the blog). First up is a hiking log. I have set a new goal in life of hiking what would be the equivalency of the circumference of the moon. So this log will keep me on my toes in terms of keeping track (over the next 30 years). And given the fact that it’s going to probably take me 20-30 years to achieve the goal, keeping track for that long will increase the chance that my blog survives more than a few months.

I’ve got another small page planned for later this month – it’s slightly less exciting than the hiking log, so standby in suspense!

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Posted in Pointless

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