Calipidder

Half Dome

If you plan to hike Half Dome this summer, you’ll have to plan ahead. Like Mt Whitney, Half Dome is moving to a quota system on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and holidays. Granted, that quota is still an enormous 400 people per day, but they say that is half of the number they usually see on weekends.

The permits MUST be reserved ahead of time and are not available in the park. So if you show up on a weekend this June and expect to stroll up Half Dome without planning ahead, you’d be wrong. Enforcement - well, who knows how that will go. I wonder if there will be a ranger standing at the bottom of the cables and asking for permits

See here for more information (and an FAQ). From the website:

Beginning in 2010, all people using the Half Dome Trail above the subdome must have a permit in possession on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays when the cables are up. A maximum of 400 permits will be issued each of these days.

Here is where I make a confession. I have never done Half Dome. I’ve had absolutely no desire to hike along with a herd of people in order to stand on top of that giant chunk of granite. If the right opportunity came along (for example, a sunrise summit on a backpacking trip) I certainly wouldn’t object to doing it, but it’s never been near the top of my todo list. I can think of many other crowdless places in the Sierra where I’d be far happier.

As far as the permit system goes - meh, I’m impartial. I don’t think it will stop idiots from climbing it (see: Mt Whitney) but at least it will help regulate the mass of humanity on the cables, and maybe make it safer too.

Prints

Redwood Peak is an easy little peak that’s a stone’s throw from the nearest trailhead. Not one to take the easy way, I decided to approach it from a trailhead several miles away in Chabot.

Redwoods

With an hour left until my turnaround time I hustled along BART until I reached Redwood Bowl 15 minutes early. I had a snack, refilled the water bottles, and then headed up the peak. It’s a very easy one - the most excitement comes from the fact that the approach trail runs against the archery range fence and I heard several arrows flying through the woods. Hmm.

If You Go

Redwood Peak via the Bay Area Ridge Trail from Chabot

Unfortunately I was unable to make it to the OR show this year, so I’m enviously following along with the conversation on Twitter and various blogs. At least I have an excuse to go to the Summer show now (I usually miss it because I’m on the trail in August). I thought I’d throw up some links to the blog posts and product launches as they come in. If you have any suggestions or links to share feel free to add them in the comments section and I’ll add them to the main body of the post.

Yesterday (January 20th) was the Mountain Demo Day at Snowbasin

• Photos from Backcountry.com Blog
• Photos from the JoyTripProject

Today (January 21st) the show floor opens, and it continues through Sunday.

• Champion Supersuit (via Gear Junkie)
• Outdoor Retailer on Facebook (photos)
• Outside Blog on Day 1
• Trailspace report of Day 1
• New Product profiles

Probably the best way to get a feel for the show and all the new gear is to follow along with the constant feed of comments and photos live from the show floor. To follow along with the show in ‘Real Time’ head on over to twitter and watch the hashtag #ORWinter. I’m not seeing a lot of blog posts or news articles yet, so until they start getting published this is your best best for new info.

Lassen Park Road

Just a quick post tonight to share some pictures. We headed up to Lassen last weekend to get in a quick overnight car snowcamp and some cross country skiing before the big storms rolled in. We got some beautiful fresh snow overnight and got to enjoy some fresh trail-breaking on a ski loop on Sunday. I wish we could have stayed up there all week, enjoying all this precip as snow instead of rain.

I snapped a few photos while we were out there but kept the camera mostly put away due to the wet snow.

One thing I had some fun with was trying out the video mode on my new Panasonic LX3. Got some nice shots of the bubbly and steamy sulphur works:

Shrouded Mono Lake

For the first seven years I lived in California I always flew back to Michigan to visit my family at Christmas. Each year I would inevitably face midwest snowstorms, holiday travel crowds, cancelled flights, etc. But it was always worth it to visit my family.

Last year was the first year I skipped the holiday travel - the overwhelming aggravation of it, combined with ticket prices that were 3x the previous year’s cost made me switch my family visit to summer, and it was a great decision. I sure do miss the Christmas traditions, but trading it for less annoying travel and time on the beach in the summer is a compromise I’m willing to make. So I made the same decision this year.

Since we don’t have any family out here, we found ourselves with a second year of a non-committed Christmas. And what do we do when we find a free day in our calendar? We hit the road, of course. At the last minute we decided to spend the holiday in our favorite place in the world - in a tent in the Eastern Sierra.

Continue reading Christmas in the Eastern Sierra