Don Pedro Overlook Trail, Red Hills: Old Gravel Roads, Wildflowers, and Dam Views
I went for a wildflower trail jog in the Red Hills after work yesterday… isn’t spring great? I am never going back to the sun setting before 7pm! (Once I figure out how to control that, of course.) Yesterday’s hike was the first time I have started from the trailhead off of Old Don Pedro Rd. Typical I have come in from the Red Hills Rd parking area, or pull…
Barbera and Biking Shoes: A Road Bike(?) Tour Murphys, California
Last month Trails and I hit the roads surrounding the little Sierra Foothills winery town of Murphys, California to burn some rubber (road bike tires, of course) before we burned through some wine tastings. Or rather, to burn through some brakes while navigating a terrifying stretch of dirt road on tiny road bike wheels before rightfully rewarding ourselves for surviving. Murphys Road Bike Loop – San Domingo & Murphys Grade…
Pilot Peak, Stanislaus NF: Fire lookouts and mountain bikes
Every time I am down in the Merced River Canyon (that is the Hwy 140 entrance to that park, by El Portal) Curtis points out the Pilot Peak lookout tower standing high above us and says I should go there… you know someday. But we don’t dare take our passenger cars up the steep final grade to the top, and who wants to walk up to a lookout tower when everyone else…
Sawmill Mountain, Stanislaus National Forest: The first of many Mountain Bike Adventures!
I’m not sure why I finally decided to do it, but I have gotten myself a mountain bike. She is a Novara Madrona 27.5, which I used Curtis’s 20% off membership discount on at REI… and I have SO MANY new places can now explore with it. Maybe they will seem like odd choices, but I haven’t been able to explore around Groveland and the Stanislaus National Forest as much as…
Stevenson Creek Falls, Redinger Lake & Million Dollar Road(biking)
Here is the thing about winter in drought stricken California: There isn’t enough snow to do all the fun winter things, but the passes are still closed. Before you know it you are aimlessly clicking around of Google Earth trying to find something new and different and, most importantly, OPEN. This is how on the three day Presidents Day weekend Curtis and I ended up at driving around Redinger Lake, a…
Brews and Biking Shoes: Sonoma County Tasting Loop
Instead of ‘Brews and Hiking Boots‘ this trip was more of a ‘Brews and Biking and Wine Too’ sort of trip. Curtis and I head out to Santa Rosa in January and attempted to follow the “Merry Wheeler,” a bike ride with a merrymaking pit-stop at a Sebastopol brewery as described by Weekend Sherpa. Of course before we even had one single drink I went and got us “lost” by taking…
Hello! I am a 30-something outdoors-lady, backpacker, and resident of Groveland, California - 
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