Calipidder

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 [...]

We continued with the ‘easy’ portion of our trip on the morning of Day 5 by turning off the John Muir Trail and heading up Piute Canyon to Humpreys Basin. About 10 miles long and with about 3000 feet of gain, it’s not terribly difficult by Sierra standards, but it was enough to keep us [...]

The big day! I’ve been wanting to get over Lamarck Col for a long time. Typically used as a quick approach into the Evolution area of the Sierra, it’s not as trivial as going over an easy pass like Piute or Bishop but it does save quite a lot of mileage. There is an easy [...]

When planning this trip I kept three things in mind for the first day: it’s a long drive to the trailhead from the Bay Area, I had to pick up my permit, and we’d be high for this trip. High in the altitude sense, of course. I’ve spent a lot of time above 10,000 feet [...]

On Wednesday we will be leaving on a backpacking trip that will have us above 10k for six days, so we decided to head to the mountains this past weekend and get in some hiking and sleeping at altitude. Our Saturday goal was to hike the duo of Sonora and Stanislaus peaks, a 12 mile [...]