When I first moved to CA in 2015, I had a very short bucket list of must-do hikes. Half Dome and Mount Whitney were pretty much it. I knew very little about other wilderness areas and parks, so I set out to do the most famous Sierra hikes within my first year of living here.
I’ve written before about hikes and snowshoes not going as planned, but I’ve never failed so much on a hike before as I did back in mid July near Lake Thomas A. Edison.
I only make it up to that area once a year, if that. It’s a three hour drive, and a third of it is on a crumbly, cliffside, one lane road. Continue reading
Most of you know how much I love Yosemite, and how much I absolutely adore Half Dome. It’s one of my favorite hikes, and I hiked it three times during my first three years living in Fresno.
I get antsy after Tioga Pass opens and access to Mono Lake is easier. There is typically still a lot of snow and ice on the ground in early summer, but I can never seem to wait until it melts before making my first trip of the year to the east side. It was mid June, and it was time to go! Continue reading
I think day trips to the mountains are the best. You get a good breakfast at home, then leave well before sunrise. There’s no traffic, no line to get into the park, and no hunting for parking. You have plenty of time to explore, then you get to sleep in your own comfy bed at the end of the day. Yeah! Continue reading
Not every hike needs to be 15+ miles. Not every hike needs to have 4000+ ft of elevation gain. Not every hike needs to be deserted and in the middle of the wilderness.
I could turn this blog into a multi-part series. I tend to be too wordy, especially when I do that, so I won’t.
Have you ever done something and loved it so much, that you still felt like you were on cloud nine even AFTER you got home? For days? That’s the kind of trip this was. Continue reading
News is 24/7, 365, just like many other professions. We don’t have holidays off, along with first responders, hospital staff, and some retailers. For me, that’s OK. I live clear across the country from my family, so I don’t have any “obligations.” As an introvert, I sometimes prefer a quiet holiday alone or at work with a thinner staff, while others are caught up in big gatherings.
March turned out to be a great winter weather month for us. We had a lot of Valley rain, and we made a great attempt to catch up to our snow averages. We’re still behind as the season winds down, but at least we tried.
I had a snowshoe planned toward the end of the month. It was right after another good dose of snow. I’d never snowshoed in Kings Canyon, so we settled on the Park Ridge Trail. Continue reading
I’m skipping over much of February’s adventures. I got outside and climbed 3 of the weekends, and I solo hiked the San Joaquin River Trail for the 4th weekend. I had a blast, but nothing monumental happened.
I don’t do a lot of climbing trip reports because they would all be very similar. I drive, I climb, I get a few scrapes and bruises, eat some pizza, then go home.