On the plus side was the discovery of road biking, cool days, misc. writing projects (not here) and learning about meditation. I completed a 10-day silent meditation retreat and came out feeling invincible – or as another meditator said ‘like I could dodge bullets in the Matrix’.

I finished up a volunteering stint with NPS interpretation at the Visitor’s Center, and am excited to explore new opportunities for a mid-week opportunity to volunteer to help with youth education in the park. With the few short hours I am willing to spare each week, I expect I won’t be able to get as much face-time with the youth as I might like, but it will feel good to have contributed in some small way. Volunteering, by the way, is amazing. Even within the context of a small place like Yosemite, there are so many opportunities to see different perspectives and learn new things.

The rental business has been busy and fun. It’s interesting to meet the people that come from all over to stay with us for a short time, and be part of their vacation. And this year we’ve had so much help from Donald and Sarah who’ve made it easy to do the work part.

My milestone birthday came and went, and I’m planning a 5th boulder day party to celebrate and also to remember some of the people that helped me out so much back then. It’s not just the summer that’s flashed by – the last 5 years have disappeared like magic. If I think about it – the last decade or two has too.

Tom and Bruce on the NFS trail to the Mariposa Grove

The transfer station just outside the park boundary isn’t a very auspicious trailhead, but there were several families there picnicking in the parking lot and playing on the snowbanks. We snapped on our XC skis and headed straight off into the woods guided by Tom’s unerring sense for fun, and it wasn’t long before we run right into blazes that looked suspiciously like trail markers along a nice wide road/trail, and then even trail signs with faded lettering and icons of XC skiers. Goal!

Giant Sugar Pine just inside the Park

After just a little more skiing, we skied over the still half-buried gate marking the park boundary, and come across one of the most amazing sugar pines I’ve seen. (We haven’t been to the Rockefeller Grove yet, where the biggest of the big sugar pines are supposed to stand, but these were pretty amazing.)

Stream crossing

A sense of anticipation drove us on. I couldn’t wait to see those sequoias, and then just as we started feeling like we were getting close, a fast running creek blocked our way. Tom sure-footed and confident immediately found a way across, but both Bruce and I vetoed the crossing as being too sketchy, and we decided to ski upstream for a little while to see if we could find anything more reassuring. The next opportunity was an fat downed log lying across the creek. In the summer time this would have been an easy crossing, but with snow piled high on the log, the footing seemed less certain, more slippery and more likely to collapse or do other unexpected things. Also, it was high enough that I imagined a tumble before a head first splash into the freezing water below. Tom forged the way – kicking his feet carefully to test the snow beneath him. Bruce bravely carried his skis across, but I asked Tom to carry mine so I could focus on my footing. It went just fine. Easy even.

Once that hurdle was crossed, we headed off again with excitement until we crested a small ridge and popped out just across the road from the Grizzly Giant. We had lunch, shared the view of the trees with a few people who’d walked up the road from the parking lot, and then even though there really is no place like the upper grove in winter, opted to ski back down our trail to continue the rest of our day, celebrating the whole while our extraordinary luck that the main road to the grove had been plowed.

Tom with the Grizzly Giant in the background

First dusting of snow in Yosemite West

My own morning’s photographic exploits were more modest, and more furtive. There was a tiny dusting of snow at the top of our neighborhood this morning, hanging in the changing leaves along the side of the road, and I stopped to snap a photo out of my car window. (The visitors might stop randomly in the middle of the road for deer or bear, but me, I stopped for a couple of snowflakes. I need to remember to be more patient when others see something photogenic. But, for the record, I did check behind me to make sure I wasn’t on a blind corner, took only 2 quick snapshots and was moving again before anyone else came up behind me.) Snow on the ground. Ski season is coming up fast.

Over breakfast, I read Tom’s copy of TUNA News, by a nordic ski group out of Utah. Lord knows why we get their publication – something Tom did at some point. There is new ski gear in the catalogs we receive daily in the mail, and I’m contemplating new AT boots to go with the big plans I’m making for this ski season. I’m always excited about snow, but this year I’m preparing for long weekends in the high country, in Tahoe, or if I’m really ambitious, over on the East Side. October 22nd was my 4th Boulder Day, and it seems like a long time, but I finally feel like I’m in the position to get back into ski shape. The first few years after the boulder event, I just didn’t feel like I could take the pounding, and last year there were so many house projects that we didn’t seem to be able to find the time. This year, everything is coming together.

I’m now on day 20 of my new fitness program, and already starting to see some results. I’ve lost some weight overall – just a couple of pounds – but between fat loss and muscle gain, I can see some significant differences in the way that my body looks, and those pants that were getting too small are starting to feel comfortable again. Most importantly, I’m feeling stronger than I have in a long time. Years. Long enough that I’d forgotten what it was like, and what it’s like, is good.

The program I’m on is only 30 days long, and so I’m shopping for a new program. I checked out the Mountain Athlete program because, that seems pretty sport-specific. Lots of functional movement and sport-specific exercise. Tom mentioned a guy named Eric Cressey who is well-known for building strength. Tom also thinks that between us, we know enough that I could probably design something good for me without spending a bunch of money – which is certainly true – but for some reason, I work out a lot harder when I’m on someone else’s program. So, I’m still shopping (and taking recommendations if anyone has them), but committed to finding something in the next few weeks.

A serious program might have to wait until after our vacation to Hawaii though. Can you believe it? After years of planning mountain vacations and family vacations, Tom and I are finally headed to the beach, just the two of us. Running on the beach, surfing?, hiking near Haleakala, exploring the Road to Hana, resting, reading, and relaxing. I’m looking forward to the change of pace.

The other new season that is just around the corner is NaNoWriMo. Last year, not only did I finish the challenge of writing 50K words during the month, not only did I enjoy spending hours typing up a story that no one will ever read, I also managed to learn something in the process. Naturally, I’m excited to do it again this year. November is only two days away.

Lots of new things starting for me. New season. New fitness level. New commitment to play. New exercise program. New NaNoWriMo challenge. Life is good.

Surprisingly, the mental rust was more noticeable than either my recovering shoulder or even my general lack of fitness. Tom laughed that it wasn’t the muscle memory for climbing so much as trying to remember if the red piece was bigger or smaller than the yellow piece, and was glad that concern for my shoulder had kept him from suggesting something more difficult. Once upon a time, this is the kind of terrain that Tom and I used to cover in what we jokingly referred to as “big swimming motions”. Now, certain sections made me nervous enough to not only pause, but to ask for a tighter rope. We ran into a friend there, who was getting in a quick free-solo at the end of the day. It took us longer to do a single pitch and rap than it took him to climb the entire route and walk down.

On the plus side, my shoulder didn’t seem to mind the climbing, and isn’t even sore today. Afterward my hands had the intoxicating aroma of chalk and ropes and climbing shoes that I associate with so many good times. That short pitch was just a reminder of how much fun I’ve had rock climbing in the past, and an invitation to do more over the course of the summer.

Hey. We should do that again soon.

Between a Sisyphusean marketing workload with DNC, a conversion optimization class that operates heavily on the you’ll-get-out-what-you-put-in principle, volunteer activities at the Valley Visitor Center for a full day once every other week, a frozen shoulder that seems to be adamant about remaining stuck, and house construction (Tom’s been going nuts, and we now have flooring down in most of the house, and appliances waiting for installation, it’s very exciting), it’s been a long couple of months between the last post and this one.

Fortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting closer. Two weeks ago, Tom and I met up with our friend Shauna, and skied out to the Nelder Grove of Giant Sequoias. Neither Tom nor I had ever been there before but it’s close to Shauna’s new house, and it was a perfect day and a great chance to explore. Last week, I got out for a quick walk on the Hites Cove trail to look at the wildflowers. And with those two activities as the sum total of my exercise for the last month, today Tom and I hiked up the Snow Creek trail to Mt Watkins and back. Our agreed-upon turn-around time left me a few hundred yards short of the summit, but I have Tom’s pictures from the top as inspiration for the next trip.

The skiing was brilliant and beautiful, the weather perfect, and it just feels fantastic to really get out and DO something for a whole day that doesn’t involve my computer.

It was about 11 miles round trip, with nearly 4500 feet of elevation gain, and I am bone tired and fully expect to be hobbling and sore tomorrow, but I am ever so happy. I’ll try to post some pictures soon.

Me - near the summit of Whitney

Hans is fast, of course, even coming off knee surgery, and he knows the route forward and backward, but that’s not all. Hans is just a great person and great climbing partner. Tom botched the King Swing on his first attempt across, and in the subsequent bouncing, managed to lose the bag containing all their food for the day except the 3 Powerbars and a couple of Gu’s that were in Hans’ pack. With another 9 hours of climbing ahead of them, it was a sad loss. Tom felt discouraged and sheepish, and thought Hans might want to turn around right then and there. I wonder how many people in Hans’ place would have shrugged off the loss, and then continued on to the top without another word of complaint. As Tom put it, there may be a lot of people who would say that it was OK, but Hans is the kind of person that really makes you believe it.

Anyway, they topped out in 12:39, descended safely, and went to bed.

The SLC gang at the Whitney summit - Annie, Sue, and Martha

Annie had gotten the dayhiking permit and generously let us join their group when a few people had to cancel. We met up with her in Bishop, grabbed a quick bite, and then headed down to Whitney Portal where we met Sue and Martha, and camped for the night.

The alarm clocks went off at 4am, and we broke camp and were hiking circles around the parking lot in the dark by just after 5am, then watched the sun rise as we climbed the first of many switchbacks by headlamp and the light of the moon. It was beautiful. Somehow, in the confusion of moving, and packing for back to back adventures, we ended up with only one working camera between the two of us, which was fine with me because I wanted my pack to be as light as possible.

It was a perfect day. Sunny, not too hot, great company and a spectacular place. I’m not sure you could ask for better. Other people mentioned sketchy snow and ice patches in parts of the trail, but although there was just a tiny amount of ice on the trail on the way up, it was easily avoidable by stepping on the rocks that stuck through. We made a few half-hearted attempts to count switchbacks, but quickly got distracted with conversation, and lost track. Sue and I saw a pika, and we all spotted a marmot. We talked fitness and flowers, trees and gear. As I said, perfect.

Tom doing burpees in the parking lot after the Whitney hike

There were a few parking lot antics when we got down. It’s not clear to me who started it, but in the end we all did 9 push-ups to top off the day, except for Annie who is either an over-achiever, or was so tired that she lost count and did 10, and Tom who had never done a burpee and didn’t know what he was getting himself in to when he was convinced to do 9 of those after 22 miles and ~6000 feet of elevation gain.

We were just about the get in the car and head back up to Bishop when I saw another amazing feat. A tiny chickory had scored himself a pine cone that was easily half his size and was running across the parking lot with it – it’s tail extended way out to try to counterbalance the cone. It had to stop half way to rest, before disappearing under the parked cars again, but I hope he got a nice meal in the end. I love those little guys.

Plus, Sue put together this great little video of the hike. You can see how much fun these guys are.

Tom at the summit of Sheep Peakwith Mt. Conness in the background

About 13 miles along the PCT, passing Glen Aulin along the way, we turned right and headed up to McCabe Lakes and hiked to the top of Sheep Peak, a mostly indescript, not quite 12K ft peak (11842 ft.), that nevertheless was a grand adventure, with a spectacular view. We took many pictures with Mt Conness in the background, and tried some panoramas with our small point and shoot. It’s hard to capture sweeping 360 views in a single frame.

The Trail

Theresa hiking the ridge to Sheep Peak

~7 miles before the PCT branches left, and we head right to McCabe Lakes. This section of the trail is mostly flat and winds through Lodgepole forest, and a long beautiful open meadow that made us think about the shepherds that illegally grazed their flocks here before rangers escorted them to the boundary of the park, while escorting their sheep to the opposite boundary. When we stopped for a bite to eat, we saw a lone PCT through-hiker. People stop at Glen Aulin.

Tom looking out from our breakfast spot

I’m not sure how far it is from McCabe Lake to the summit of Sheep Peak. Not far, but there is a nice elevation gain of roughly 2000 feet over steep talus. After my little scare on Horse Ridge a few weeks ago, I don’t really trust my perceptions on things like this, but Tom says that it was “lots” steeper than Horse Ridge. I had been nervous about it before hand, but although I still spent a lot of time imagining the rocks above me coming loose and rolling down on me, it seemed quite manageable. Progress!

Other notes

Breakfast by the river near Glen Aulin

Tom saw another Pika that I didn’t see. Some people have all the luck.

On the second day, we saw exactly 0 people. Bliss.

At one point, sitting up high on Sheep Peak and looking around us, Tom turned to me and said, “Oh, this is why we like going up to high places.” It’s been too long.

Virginia Canyon looks amazing – and quiet (a theme). It’s a longer drive, but a shorter hike in from the Virigina Lakes Trail Head on the East Side. The planning wheels have been set in motion.

Alpine Gold wildflowers on Sheep Peak

On the next trip, I’m going to carry hiking poles and see how that goes. There are pluses and minuses to everything.

Tom demonstrating the Anti-Ray Way in 2005

As it turns out, it has been a embarrassingly long time since I’ve gone backpacking, and I’ve just realized how much I miss it. It isn’t that we haven’t been getting out at all. Last summer we were pretty excited about getting into some longer runs, and we started getting a little more serious about collecting pictures, but as activities that take only part of a day, we were getting pretty comfortable returning home to the miracle of modern appliances, hot showers and a comfortable bed. No longer.

This winter, we thought it might be fun to ski out to Sentinel Dome to try to catch the light from the Horsetail Fall Firefall from the rim, far from the zoo-like scenes in the Valley. We cooked up a plan to ski out and camp – maybe with a plastic sled for some backcountry sledding the following morning, and then realized that our camping gear was in utter disarray. It would take days to find all our stuff, and Tom thought that some of our old stainless steel camping pots had been co-opted into impromptu lacquer containers when he was in a hurry to get the kitchen cabinets lacquered. Snow camping in February isn’t really the time to try to figure out your system again – the consequences for forgetting things is a bit more serious than in August in the Sierra. That, combined with the storm that rolled in over the days that we had set aside for the venture convinced us to stay home instead.

But the seed that was planted, started to sprout again as the weather got warmer, and Tom and I started to dig through our old equipment and began thinking about upgrades. So far?

Calipidder’s review of bear cans convinced us that the BareBoxer bear canister is the best (cheap) option for the short weekender trips that we will take most of the time. Small enough to fit more easily into our smaller packs, and lighter than our big clunky Garcias.

Gear Time with a neighbor, whose closet is so much more interesting than your average REI showroom, led to: New 1.3L Titanium pot from EverNew. New origami bowls from Orikaso, and a Caldera Keg stove – the amazing 3oz alcohol stove by TrailDesigns – a present from Neighborhood Gear Guy.

We also got a try before you buy deal on a DoubleRainbow TarpTent. Set it up in the backyard and slept outside for an evening. Boy did that get the I-want-to-go-backpacking bug going! We pitched it in semi-darkness, using the back porch lights instead of headlamps, so I’m not sure we really have that dialed yet, but even so decided that it was a great tent for the Sierra. Maybe I’ll talk more about it later. This is in definite purchase territory.

PS. Camping in your backyard is pretty cool. All the advantages of car camping – except you have a house full of stuff to choose from, and the kitchen sink – literally. The dishwasher too.

Plus, we are also re-evaluating our sleeping pad situation. The backyard camping test included a trial of the Women’s Pro thermarest which I found surprisingly comfy for sleeping on the ground, and unsurprisingly less comfy than my bed. Since I have the luxury, I may try a few other options before making a final decision on that one.

In the category of Other Really Cool Things, that we’re probably not going to get right away: the MÜv Aquastar UV water purifier – light weight, good for clean Sierra water, and the recharging system rocks. The PolyCryo ground cloth from Gossamer Gear is also amazingly light and packable, and although it’s only $8 for two, the shipping more than doubles the cost. Think we might stick with the rolls of 6mm poly or the extra Tyvek we have around from house building. At least for now. Lastly, kind of a cool modular sleeping pad system from MontBell is worth a mention, but ultimately not thick and comfy enough for us.

One important note for the climbers: it sounds like the Slabs Approach to Half Dome has not been affected by the Mirror Lake Loop closure. According to the lead climbing ranger (JesseM – again from the Supertopo thread), that approach is still ‘open’, but is also still ‘active’ in terms of rockfall in its own right. Go places at your own risk.

Anyway, here’s the text from the NPS page…

On March 28, 2009, a large rockfall occurred from Ahwiyah Point near Half Dome. Rocks fell roughly 1,800 feet, knocking down hundreds of trees and burying hundreds of feet of trail on the southern portion of the Mirror Lake Loop Trail. The impact generated ground shaking equivalent to a magnitude 2.4 earthquake. Numerous smaller rockfalls have occurred from Ahwiyah Point since the initial rockfall on March 28. There were no injuries or structures affected.

The approximate volume of the initial rockfall is 43,000 cubic meters, or 115,000 tons. This is considerably larger than the 1996 Happy Isles rockfall, which was estimated at 30,000 cubic meters in volume. Therefore, this rockfall is the largest one in Yosemite National Park since the 1987 Middle Brother event.

Due to the debris and trail coverage, the southern portion of the Mirror Lake Loop Trail is closed to hikers indefinitely.

Because of the most recent rockfall activity around Yosemite Valley, there has been speculation that rockfall has become more frequent. Based on historical databases and recent events, park geologists are unable to discern a geologically significant increase in rockfall activity in Yosemite Valley.

Rockfalls are a natural and dynamic geologic process. Due to its steep, glacier-carved cliffs, Yosemite Valley experiences many rockfalls each year. Natural processes like rockfall help to create the beautiful and changing scenery in Yosemite National Park.

Bird's Eye Gilia

A friend had been a little worried that the poppies were past. True, they may not be as abundant as they have been, but there are still plenty spectacular. Right now, it seems like the best display is further up-canyon, near El Portal. For my money, the hillsides have gotten even more interesting because instead of uninterrupted carpets of orange, the orange is punctuated with many other flowers and colors. I think the show stopper this trip, were the beautiful patches of Bird’s Eye Gilia (of which I got the Gilia and the B, but had to look up the rest).. or the RedBud. RedBud is always amazing when it is in bloom.

Many of the people that I stopped to ask about flower names could only shrug. To my, “Ooo – do you know what kind of flower that is?” one guy smiled and said, “The pretty kind”. True enough. Still, for those who are interested in this kind of thing (and are understanding of my imperfect flower identification skills)…

Mystery Flower: Caryophyllaceae Family, Silene? Maybe Alpine Campion?

In addition, we spotted (in no particular order) Pretty Faces, Chinese Houses, Fiesta Flowers, LOTs of Poison Oak, Indian Paintbrush, Fiddlenecks, Miner’s Lettuce and a bunch more that we don’t know yet. Today’s mystery is a flower that looks a lot like the Alpine Campion, but I still need to look at some more books. I’m still waiting for the Fairy Lanterns to bloom, but I think I have to wait until the Poppies are mostly gone for that. Guess I’ll just have to make another visit.

Fiesta Flower