Calipidder

From the moment the passes close each fall, I have serious Eastern Sierra withdrawals. Getting from the Bay Area to the “East Side” in the winter involves a long and circuitous route, undoable in a weekend. Even when the passes are open, I expect a minimum of a five hour drive just to get over [...]

 
I love to squeeze in a couple of weekend trips at the end of summer. After Labor Day the crowds disappear and the air takes on a nice fall chill. This weekend we headed up to Yosemite for a nice easy hike along Lyell Canyon where we met Paige, T, Deon, Sarah, Barbara, and [...]

Over Labor Day weekend we once again headed into the Sierra for a backpacking trip. This trip was built around my desire to see Benson Lake (the picture in this entry) with its giant sandy beach and trout fishing. We started off from Twin Lakes (out of Bridgeport), headed through Hoover Wilderness, down Matterhorn Canyon, [...]

 
Last week I spent seven days hiking a loop through Sequoia National Park, going in along the famous High Sierra Trail and looping back into the tucked-away Mineral King from the Kern River Canyon. Our route took us through some incredible scenery (is there any other kind in the Sierra?), including a night of [...]

 
I invited some geocaching friends out on a backpacking trip this weekend. Since I knew it would be a first backpacking trip for some people, I decided to choose a destination that was nice and easy with other attractions, like geocaches, fishing, swimming, etc. Island Lake in Tahoe National Forest is one of [...]