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 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.
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).
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 ;)
view on top of Mt Garfield
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 :) Last winter holdouts beautiful trails with the sun peaking through creeks in the way Chilling out on top pano on the peak
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
Fab's new backpack View from the Overlook Trail Too warm;) The top Landscape... Camping! :)
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.
Yes, I was there too eerie and too many people Looking nice though Still too many people 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.
Just because I couldn’t find an existing map like this. The NE4000s as per [http://4000footers.com/ne.shtml](http:// http://4000footers.com/ne.shtml)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HNMwJfoPm0-JfGpB-EZ0JB61Gj4GkUk0&usp=sharing