Hiking

This was our second weekend hiking in Cali. We started thinking that the nice weather and almost zero mosquitos were not a one-time good luck thing. Unfortunately the same goes for the long traffic lines on the way back to the SF area, not a one-time bad luck event. The hike was quite enjoyable and not very challenging, even though the elevation gain was around the 3000 feet spread out over 15 miles distance. We could see why someone described Mt Wittenberg summit as creepy. Only the last 2-mile section was annoyingly crowded, most of the people going in the opposite direction. We decided at some point to just ignore the crowds and not say hi anymore. They did not say hi either, so I guess the trick is to avoid eye contact :). 2019 08 03 07 54 09 098 2019 08 03 09 46 47 743 2019 08 03 10 32 25 881 PANO 20190803 110301 vr

We redeemed ourselves from all the broken rules pretty quickly just one day after our first hike in San Francisco. This time we did a loop hiking part of the Ben Johnson and part of the Dipsea Trail. We learned that the Dipsea route is the oldest cross-country race in the United States, it started in 1905!! And here we were, thinking that cross-country races were something relatively new, ha! We were very well prepared for this hike with our camelbacks filled out with water, sunscreen, bug spray we surprisingly did not need, emergency kit, no cotton clothing, snacks and what not. This was definitely not a baby-hike considering the 10.4 mile and overall 3048 ft elevation gain. Very different from the east coast hikes in New England: during this loop we almost did not encounter any rocks, there were plenty of switch-backs (barely seen in New England), only one mosquito made contact, the creek trail was very dry (and no creek in sight). 2019 07 28 09 52 57 893 2019 07 28 09 21 49 663

During what would be our first hike in San Francisco, we definitely broke some very basic hiking rules -hopefully I will not get banned from AMC a.k.a. Appalachian Mountain Club and not to be confused with AMC Theatres. To be fair, we started the day at 3:30 AM EST for a 6AM six-hour-long flight from Boston to SF and went directly to the hike after a brief stop at the hotel just to leave our big bags at the lobby (it was quite early to check in and get our room). Also, we had previously decided to do a hike we would categorize as baby-hike: 4.3 mile loop and 603 ft elevation, so the broken rules had barely any impact;)

This weekend we hikend Mt Garfield. It was a really enjoyable hike. Compared to other hikes in the whites it has a surprisingly little amount of rock scrambles. The trail up was beautiful and mostly in the shade. Albeit a 11.5 mile round trip, it was very enjoyable. Apparently it’s Liz’ new favourite trail now ;)

Another one down on the list. Nice little scramble on top between Osceola and the east peak. Nice view on top:

Sean and Elaine joined on on that one, which was a nice addition :)

On Saturday we went up Moosilauke via the Glencliff trail. While there were quite a lot of mosquitos attacking us, once we got a little bit higher they were all gone and it turned into an enjoyable hike. Even still found a little bit of snow :)

beautiful trails with the sun peaking through

On June 30th we finally made it out to try the new tent with two people. We also used that weekend to try Fab’s new backpack

The long (Memorial Day) weekend gave us a chance to tick off one of the things we had on our list for quite some time: Watkins Glenn in NY.

The day after we escaped the tourist trap and walked up to the peak of Five Mile Mountain via Clay Meadow Trailhead.

This past weekend had the perfect weather to be outdoors. Sunny, not warm, not cold. More importantly, almost no mosquitos! We both got a couple of bites though. We decided to check off two more of the 4K footers from the list and hiked Flume and Liberty.

We now understand what the fuss is about avoiding the Flume slide trail in wet weather/conditions. At the end of the line we both agreed that it was a good decision to do the loop, totally worth it. The in-out route via Liberty Spring Trail would have been boring :) The Flume -> Liberty ridge line still had some snow :)