Bracebridge Webmasters - Pedro Rodelas aka Chef Pierre and me

I didn’t end up taking that many pictures after all, but I did get to participate in a wonderful experience, and met some interesting people. I had corresponded a little with Pedro before in terms of updating the websites. He’s the one who put the wonderful videos that inspired me up on their site last year, and so introduced myself to him early on, and managed to nab this quick picture.

(from left to right) Christine, Cindy (half hidden), Tom, Maria, Dave, me, John, George, Sean and Katie

As Lani told me at one point, “This is live theater, you never know what is going to happen.” I don’t want to give anything away for people who haven’t been yet, but in a performance like this, where the “stage” encompasses the entire dining hall and all of the people in it, including the audience, the potential for Things To Happen is tremendous, and I thought that the actors and singers were quick on their feet, and managed to absorb even the strangest and most unexpected things into the storyline with grace and style. Lani Spicer took a beautiful series of pictures of the “littlest guest“, a ringtail cat that made it’s way up on to the stage and sometimes stole the show.

The best thing about being in the serving party (other than the people) was that we were allowed to slip into the back of the house during scenes we weren’t involved in, and watch. There are so many things going on that I missed when I attended performance last year, that I was glad to have the chance to take it in again (and again), for example, the looks that the Chef and the Housekeeper exchange, or the reaction of the Squire to the Parson.

Plus, if I haven’t mentioned it before, the music is amazing. I’m not much of an opera fan, but there is something about the power of the human voice and that kind of music that gives me goosebumps. The music buoyed me up even through the long days that started at 8 am with a full day of work before hurrying to the Dinner performance which often lasted past 10pm, and I marched around the office with parts of the refrains running through my head and lending me energy.

Next year I wonder if I can finagle a spot as a hostess. They have the lovely dresses, and get to watch even more of the performance.

During the month of November, I and more than 32,000 other people around the world each completed 50,000 words of fiction. This was just over 19% of the people who signed up. Collectively, according to the NaNoWriMo stats, the word count of everyone who participated and uploaded their writings to the NaNo web site is 2,427,190,537. That’s a lot of words.

It literally took me years to decide to take the NaNo challenge. Tom and I picked up the No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty a long time ago during one of our random book store wanderings. It’s a fun book, and it suggests all kinds of fun indulgences you can expect to treat yourself to during your novel writing month – like a handy stack of snacks next to your writing spot (for energy), getting your spouse to do the dishes, etc. It also promises strange and crazy things like, if you write enough, your characters will start to do unexpected things. I wanted to know how that worked.

Only a few days before November, I was thrutching through a list of possible ideas for a novel, with no particularly appealing prospects, when Tom suggested that I write about a society that doesn’t sleep. He’d started a short story along those lines some time ago, although he had little more than a character and a set up.

I took that idea and over the course of a month developed it into a dreadful, going nowhere story with flat characters who I ultimately didn’t like that much. It’s not that the idea didn’t have potential, (I still think it does) but hey, I haven’t written any fiction in years, if I ever have, and it sucked. That’s OK, and I learned a lot.

I learned that a 50K word novel isn’t really that long, and I shouldn’t have been afraid of running out of story before I hit my goal. I learned that it’s easy for me to make things difficult for my characters. I enjoy it. I learned that I have a nasty habit of qualifying my speech/writing – as in “I learned that I might have a tendency to qualify my speech/writing a little” – which is great for word count, but makes for crappy writing. And I also learned that they weren’t kidding. My characters really did start to do some unexpected things. It works like this: you have this idea for what you think your character is going to do in the next scene, but by the time you get around to writing it, you realize that he/she would actually respond in a completely different way. So, then off you go, shooting down some previously unplanned avenue. It was wonderful.

For the most part, I held off on the snacks, but I did reap the benefits of having my spouse take over many of the household chores… I mean the ones that he usually does anyway. I’m generally terrible at domestic chores. Have I mentioned before that I’m crazy lucky that I married Tom?

So, now that I’m done, I’ve decided to simply close the door on that particular story. No, you can’t read it. I still like the idea, and maybe certain elements will find their way into other NaNo projects in the future, but this particular effort falls into the burn-it-now category. I’m not committing to doing this again next year in any way, but I also wouldn’t say for certain that I would wait a whole year before starting up some other little story. As experiments and projects go, this one was sheer fun.

In the morning, the candy would be gone – taken by the Pumpkin Prince – and, magically, in its place would be some amazing, and much-desired present. The kids thought this was fantastic – new basketball shoes, toys, whatever – and felt like gloating when the other kids had only their paltry daily ration of Halloween candy in their lunches. And the advantages to the parents? After the one-night candy-fest, the kids were happily back to eating healthy food. And then, of course, there is the Pumpkin Prince, who makes out like a bandit with all the kids’ candy, which can then be generously re-distributed at events or throughout the year.

Happy Halloween!

Part of me is really excited about the challenge, and another part is wondering what the hell the first part is thinking. First of all, it’s not like I don’t have plenty of other projects on the table, or more productive things that I could be doing with my time. Second, 50K is a really big number. Big enough that I can’t really picture it in my head. Third, I’m taking a week off in November to attend a conference, and I’ll be too busy absorbing conference stuff during that week to write much, so I’m already missing a quarter of the time that people have to write. I went to the NaNo forum, and unlike (it seems) many of the people posting there, I don’t feel compelled to write all the time (unless you count journaling, and I don’t). I don’t have a story bursting inside me that needs to be told. In fact, I don’t relate to ANY of the items on the “Are you a serious writer” thread. “Would rather write a scene with two main characters having sex than have it” – are you NUTS?

Wait, what is this about?

National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to devote the time to write 50K words that all point in the same direction. 50K words amounts to a short novel, but apparently, it’s a good goal to shoot for. According to the website, last year, in 2008, they had an all-time high completion rate of 18%, of a total of 119,301 participants from around the world, so it’s difficult, but not impossible. There’s a website where you can enter your word-count, and if you make it to 50K, you win. There aren’t any big prizes on the table, so even though it would be impossibly easy to cheat, there isn’t really any point to it. It’s all about personal satisfaction. And bragging rights, if you’re into that.

That said, I was surprised to find out that the National Best-Seller, Water for Elephants, started out as a NaNoWriMo novel, and the media kit has a decent list of published authors who participate. With nearly 120K participants last year, and growing, at least I have a lot of company in this craziness.

So, why am I doing this?

Well…

Tom and I picked up the No Plot? No Problem! book a few years ago, and there were two things about the event that caught in my head, and have been rubbing around in there since then. The first is: that it’s all about word count, not quality. No one ever has to see what I’ve written (don’t even bother asking to see it – the answer is no), so it’s a great opportunity to try to shake my somewhat overactive personal editor and just type. That sounded like an interesting exercise. You could even take it as personal development, if you wanted to.

The second thing is that these writers talk about having characters come to life and direct the story. That seemed like an interesting experience too. One that might be fun to have.

That’s it. I’m not sure that these two things make up for the vast array of reasons to do something else with my time in November, but I pushed the little button. I might as well enjoy the ride.

Flowers by a barn at Trapps Family Lodge

When I asked Tom what he remembered of foliage season in VT, he said that he mostly remembered October as being rainy and grey. Sure enough, it rained every single day that we were there. Fortunately, the clouds broke enough on a couple of days that I was able to get out and see what the wash of color looked like in the sun. It was amazing.

The Sierra gets color too. I’d say that we are near peak now – several weeks after the VT foliage passed its prime. The gullies fill with gold, and here and there a bright yellow big leaf maple, or a rosy dogwood, flashes in the sunshine. Le Conte gully, in particular, is full of these small bushes that turn a brilliant shade of yellow in the fall. Stavast has a painting called Golden Armada, and I’m convinced that these are Golden Armada bushes, whatever those are. One of my rescuers recently told me that when they airlifted me out of Le Conte Gully three years ago, the rotor from the helicopter picked up a tornado of golden leaves, rising up into the air around me. Would have been cool to see.

More foliage at Trapps

Stowe Church

As always, vacation is just a bit too short. The day our departure flight was scheduled was to be the first sunny day that week, and we missed out on getting to sail in a race with Denis aboard his J-24. It’s not that I don’t love Yosemite, and being in the Sierra, but vacation is always good.

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.

Celebrating our Anniversary atop Mt Tyndall

Theresa with Mt. Tyndall in the background

The next morning, we left our overnight gear in place, and Tom wordlessly stuffed most of what we would need for the day into his pack, leaving me with a blessedly light pack. The steep grade to Shepherd’s Pass seems intimidating, but even at my relatively slow pace, we managed to get to Shepherd’s Pass about an hour after leaving camp. Tom would have been there much faster, but we cleverly arranged for him to carry the camera so that he could entertain himself by stopping to take pictures, and so match my pace.

Pika! My first true sighting.

We made it to the summit at around 11:30, and had it to ourselves. The views from the tippy top of mountains is exquisite. We lounged there for a while under clear blue skies, read and signed the summit register, had a bit to eat, took our summit photos, and a short nap. More food and napping was in order when we returned to the lake close to the Pass, and we still made it down in time to relax for a while (more napping) before dinner.

At first glance, the high mountains seem like a harsh and barren place, all rock and no life, so I was surprised at the number of wildflowers that we saw up above Shepherd’s Pass. As we descended from Mt. Tyndall, Tom stopped several times to take pictures of the Alpine Gold, and we remarked on several plants that seem to have been dug up for food. As we hiked down from our campsite on the third day, we chatted briefly with a guy who had been up at Shepherd’s Pass doing a mammal survey. They’d seen pikas, 2 kinds of squirrels and a many many marmots. Life is amazing.

]]> http://LifeInYosemite.com/anniversary-vacation-mt-tyndall-1582/feed 0 http://LifeInYosemite.com/recent-notoriety-and-reminiscences-1570 http://LifeInYosemite.com/recent-notoriety-and-reminiscences-1570#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:33:15 +0000 Theresa http://LifeInYosemite.com/?p=1570

Me and my Vending Machine

As part of a photoshoot I participated in while I was working at the Mountaineering School, my picture was taken while I was hiking – or pretending to hike, rather – out on Old Big Oak Flat Road with El Capitan in the background. That image, for a short time, graced the cover of the activity brochure, and is now on the front of several Pepsi vending machines. My Pepsi machines, my friends tell me, are in the Village Garage, at Housekeeping Camp and maybe some other locations. Unfortunately, I’ve never really liked that picture of myself, and it’s a little disconcerting to run into such a big image of myself. I’m glad that the two machines in front of our offices have pictures of other people.

While at YMS, I also had a chance to go snowshoeing with Tom Stienstra, an outdoor columnist for the SF Chronicle, TV personality and guidebook author. Between that and his continued close relationship with Kenny, who now works only 15 feet from me, he recently decided to publish a story about me in the Chronicle. It is a story about the accident I was in nearly 3 years ago, and my subsequent recovery. It was interesting to work with an experienced journalist and storyteller, and to see the process that he went through in terms of preparing for an interview and then writing a story. Unfortunately, the online article generated a bunch of pretty negative comments, which I thought were either petty, immature, uninformed or a combination of the three, but they still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Some nice things have happened as a consequence of that story too. One was that another writer, Bill Katovsky, who is working on a book entitled Return to Fitness, contacted me about putting a short sidebar about me in his upcoming book. Again, I had the opportunity to witness the writing process of a professional author. The methods and styles of the two men are very different, but each time I was amazed to see the sometimes subtle, sometimes sweeping influence on the story I would have told, making it more dramatic and/or fleshing out details.

Another thing that surprised me was that someone who had recently been in an accident and had injuries similar to mine contacted me to find out about my experience with recovery. I was happy to report to him that so many of my issues have gotten better over the years. But most interestingly, to me, was the number of old friends who got back in touch with me after reading the article. Reconnecting with them gets me thinking about other phases of my life, and the cool people I’ve met.

I’ve gotten back in touch with some friends over the last year, since my sister-in-law, nieces and nephew convinced Tom and I to get Facebook accounts. Facebook is kind of a strange service. On Facebook, I am friends with old High School classmates that I hadn’t been that close to, even then, and co-workers that I rarely interact with in real life. And when it comes to HS friends, the day-to-day updates don’t seem to come close to filling in 20 years of radio silence. Still, I love it. I love getting little messages about what people are doing – just random news and noise from their days.

And then there are the actual conversations! I just got back in touch with my orchestra teacher from high school and she reminded me that at one point I was upset that my dad wouldn’t let me get a job. “School is your job”. I don’t remember that at all. School is an awesome job. Getting to hang out and learn things all day – I wish I’d been more appreciative when I was younger. I wonder what else I’ve forgotten.

I wonder if some day I’ll stumble back across this post and think back. Oh yeah, remember those silly Pepsi machines with my picture on them? Those were the grand old days in Yosemite.

I received an email today from my boss that had the whole office giggling out loud. We had people wandering in from the hallway to tell us that we all seemed to be having too much fun. Really, some funny emails are just worth sharing. If I had a pic of KK crying with laughter, I would put it into my list of reasons why I love my job. It happens pretty often – I’ll get that pic one of these days.

I wish I could figure out who the original author/editor is. The contents of the email is all over the internet, mostly from blogs (like this one) that are posting it up to share, but I have found an attribution. (Interestingly, I usually see it on the internet titled “Random Thoughts” but it has morphed along the way, and by the time we got it, it was “Observations of a modernist on post-modern life”.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy…

Observations of a modernist on post-modern life…

I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f*** was going on when I first saw it.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.

Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories

Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from; this shouldn’t be a problem….

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far (except the moment in an argument when you realize you’re wrong).

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA. No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don’t win, they are executed.

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…

As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

I think that if, years down the road when I’m trying to have a kid, I find out that I’m sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my a$$ everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?

It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat b@st@rd before dinner.

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.