Another beautiful spring weekend in the Bay Area means two things: allergies and hiking. I don't let the first get in the way of the second, although here I sit…
I just enjoyed a cold and rainy spring backpack in Pine Valley in the Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest. We accessed Pine Valley via the Pine Ridge Trail,…
I wanted to keep up with my recent trend of long wildflower hikes on the weekend so I took advantage of Saturday's perfect hiking weather to hit a classic East…
I KNOW, it's been really quiet for far too long around here. But, it's with good cause. We bought a house at the beginning of February and have spent the…
A new house purchase has had me quite busy lately so I'm a week late on this post, but better late then never, right? With all of the recent storms…
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…
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 the 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.
Snowcamping, Yosemite, and friends. What better way to start the new year? We drove out to Wawona on New Year's Eve to meet a bunch of friends at the group…
Growing up, I always learned that it was bad to give into peer pressure when it comes to drugs, smoking, etc. They didn’t warn me about hiking. Some friends have gotten it into their heads that they are going to complete the Bay Area Ridge Trail one way or another, and I’ve been mercilessly sucked into their evil plans for world domination again and again. Now I MUST complete the same challenge or risk becoming one of the uncool kids.
This past weekend’s segment was the Fifield-Cahill Ridge (and part of Sweeny Ridge), a thirteen mile stretch of the trail on the peninsula between San Bruno and Belmont. This segment presents a bit of a logistical challenge due to the fact that it passes through SFPUC (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) land which does not allow public access except in very restricted ways.