Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Last Minute Preparation
Well it's Tuesday, just finished our four miles, one week until we start the High Sierra Camp Loop. You always think you have everything you will need and then something else pops up. Most of the planning is falling into place. Got maps, trails and waypoints loaded into the GPS. Got the batteries charged, and got the "spare" batteries charged. Got a couple spare batteries for the SPOT locator. Ann thinks I'm battery crazy. We are now watching the weather so we can make any last minute changes to our gear. Two more practice hikes and we will give ourselves a three day break until on the trail.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Summer update
Well it's August 3rd and summer is closing quickly. I have not made an entry for quite a while.
The Cinque Terre trip is well behind us. FYI, I quite blogging our trip after the first day of the actual tour, letting the pros take over. The trip can now be seen in the August edition of Cooking Light magazine. There is also an online diary of the trip winner (Jennifer Harris) at the Cooking Light web site. If you look closely, you can identify the head of this toasting hiker on the second page of the article. It was a great trip, with great people, we want to return, next time for at least a month.
For those of you who may be interested in maps and Geo-locating systems, I have been carrying the SPOT personal locator since January. I provide the link below to those who wish to see what the system is about and view any locations that I have sent in recent days.
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0FZ5gyOkeu26bFfAEeYo5FftGLgsPUikv
Sent messages disappear in a few days and often the page has no messages if I have not been anywhere of interest or I have not felt the need to duplicate my routine hike messages. The page will, from time to time display OK messages when I hike a new location or possibly tracking messages if I have remembered to enable that feature.
Our young niece, nephew and my wife's sister visited for a week in July. In the afternoons our niece was attending kids cooking classes in San Luis Obispo, we tried to have other activities for them before and after class. One such activity was taking the Bob Jones trail to Avila beach. The big people walked and the little one's rode their bikes. The kids were troopers, but they were beat when we reached Avila. Yours truly was voted to ride the little girl's bike back to the car. No pictures of that event will appear on this blog. I was able to adjust the seat so my knees were only half locked. Looked something like an escaped circus monkey tearing down the path. An end of the week trip to Disneyland completed a perfect visit.
Ann and I were recently successful in securing rare short notice open spots in the 2009 High
Sierra Camp lottery, we will start our 53 mile loop connecting the (5) camps in the Yosemite area around the 26th of August. We were also successful in securing a five day window in which to summit Mt Whitney in late September (weather willing). These trips should give me something to write home about. I was able to summit Mt Whitney in (1) day last year on my 55th birthday. I had some great hiking partners that helped make that trip possible. This year Ann and I plan to take our time, take pictures, carry 30-40 lb. packs, spend two nights camping /getting use to the altitude prior to the summit day, summit /descend on the third day, camp the third and maybe a fourth night if needed on the way out. We have supplemented our (6) weekly training hikes by breaking in new boots and carrying loaded packs three of the six days. Walking our country
roads gets little attention, but put on a back-pack and head off on the same route and people are amazing. We have lived in this neighborhood for almost twenty five years and have met more people while carrying those packs then at any other time. People are very interested, many due to the fitness implications and others due to the destinations. In any event, what started out as casual training has resulted in an informal, but wonderful support group. I'm getting excited, spreading gear all over the house in preparation, checking and rechecking. Till our trails cross again....
The Cinque Terre trip is well behind us. FYI, I quite blogging our trip after the first day of the actual tour, letting the pros take over. The trip can now be seen in the August edition of Cooking Light magazine. There is also an online diary of the trip winner (Jennifer Harris) at the Cooking Light web site. If you look closely, you can identify the head of this toasting hiker on the second page of the article. It was a great trip, with great people, we want to return, next time for at least a month.
For those of you who may be interested in maps and Geo-locating systems, I have been carrying the SPOT personal locator since January. I provide the link below to those who wish to see what the system is about and view any locations that I have sent in recent days.
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0FZ5gyOkeu26bFfAEeYo5FftGLgsPUikv
Sent messages disappear in a few days and often the page has no messages if I have not been anywhere of interest or I have not felt the need to duplicate my routine hike messages. The page will, from time to time display OK messages when I hike a new location or possibly tracking messages if I have remembered to enable that feature.
Our young niece, nephew and my wife's sister visited for a week in July. In the afternoons our niece was attending kids cooking classes in San Luis Obispo, we tried to have other activities for them before and after class. One such activity was taking the Bob Jones trail to Avila beach. The big people walked and the little one's rode their bikes. The kids were troopers, but they were beat when we reached Avila. Yours truly was voted to ride the little girl's bike back to the car. No pictures of that event will appear on this blog. I was able to adjust the seat so my knees were only half locked. Looked something like an escaped circus monkey tearing down the path. An end of the week trip to Disneyland completed a perfect visit.
Ann and I were recently successful in securing rare short notice open spots in the 2009 High
Sierra Camp lottery, we will start our 53 mile loop connecting the (5) camps in the Yosemite area around the 26th of August. We were also successful in securing a five day window in which to summit Mt Whitney in late September (weather willing). These trips should give me something to write home about. I was able to summit Mt Whitney in (1) day last year on my 55th birthday. I had some great hiking partners that helped make that trip possible. This year Ann and I plan to take our time, take pictures, carry 30-40 lb. packs, spend two nights camping /getting use to the altitude prior to the summit day, summit /descend on the third day, camp the third and maybe a fourth night if needed on the way out. We have supplemented our (6) weekly training hikes by breaking in new boots and carrying loaded packs three of the six days. Walking our country
roads gets little attention, but put on a back-pack and head off on the same route and people are amazing. We have lived in this neighborhood for almost twenty five years and have met more people while carrying those packs then at any other time. People are very interested, many due to the fitness implications and others due to the destinations. In any event, what started out as casual training has resulted in an informal, but wonderful support group. I'm getting excited, spreading gear all over the house in preparation, checking and rechecking. Till our trails cross again....
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