Backpacking Virginia Lakes to Green Creek – Day 1 to Summit Lake & Yosemite
The Virginia Lakes and Green Creek trails into the Hoover Wilderness can make for a stunning day hike. Curtis and I have spent past weekends leisurely exploring the first few miles of both of these areas. At one point, I think I spent a solid hour at Blue Lake willing a pika to pop out the rocks. It looks like there should be pikas there! Obviously I said YES when…
Baboon Lakes, John Muir Wilderness: Rugged Glacier Carved Backpacking
Thank you, glaciers. Curtis attended a lecture detailing new dating techniques used on Sierra Nevada alpine glaciers a couple of weeks after our backpacking trip to Baboon Lakes. He reported back that Baboon Lakes was featured on one the slides as an example of glacier carved beauty. Well yes, of course. Although evidence of glaciers surround you in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it is too easy to forget to say…
Red Cones, Mammoth Lakes: A little peak to add a little joy to your day(hike)
On Labor Day weekend we bagged this miniature peak (high point?) in the Mammoth Lakes area. On a busy weekend, this small adventure was a perfect fit into our busy schedule.
Backpacking Aloha Lake: Moonlight, Alien lore, and Unexpected Snow
“Moonlight backpacking,” this was Trail’s next big idea. We were just settling in at Track 7 Brewery for some goodness and burritos when she pulled out the moon cycle calendar on her phone… When was the next upcoming full moon? Where can we get moonlight reflecting granite? You available? This is how Trails, Route, Curtis, and I ended up hiking out to the Aloha Lake region of the Desolation Wilderness between the…
Remember that time we backpacked to Mildred and Genevieve Lakes?
There is quite a few trips from this past summer that for one reason or another I wasn’t able to blog about when it was fresh in my mind. Luckily, that usually that means I must have been prioritizing something else that was pretty cool, probably ecoSUMMIT or attending a wedding. But now in the heart of winter, denied of that thin alpine air, I am ‘wistfully’ looking organizing these…
West Side Trail: Where the History of Logging, Railroads, and Taco Bell Intersects
Working with people who have lived in Tuolumne County for many/all of the years of their lives results in lots of impromptu history lessons. Like someone will casually mention Mr Bell’s ill fated railroad Amusement park in the City of Tuolumne. You know, like Mr. “Taco Bell”, franchise restaurant owner and railroad affectionado… No I don’t know, but you bet I was about to find out! The West Side Cherry Valley Lumber…
The Trees Have Eyes – a (Spooky?) hike to Parker Lake, Ansel Adams Wilderness
I think most people have thought of the woods as a “Scary” place at least once in their life. Im not talking about real scary here either, like hypothermia or altitude sickness, but the irrational sort of scary. For example as a little kid my brothers pretty much convinced me that axe murders and Freddy Krueger hid in the woods surrounding our home. Also, I think around the same time I…
Hiking Bull Run Lake, Stanislaus National Forest Amid Hunting Season
It was one of those weekends where the mountains are plastered in clouds, rain, fog, and at certain elevations snow – while it was a warm perfect autumn day down in the foothills by Groveland and Murphys. Despite the better weather at lower elevations I was determined to head up into the Sierra Nevada Forest. I had failed to wash the tent with waterproofing, so backpacking was out of the…
Kingsbury North & the Finish of Thru-Hiking the Tahoe Rim Trial – Day 12
And at 8:30 am I started walking the final 7 miles back to the car we had abandoned 12 days prior. In this final stretch of trail I began daydreaming about lunch, beer, and my beautiful bed. It is exciting to finish a backpacking trip and return to the wonders of a normal meal, if not a little sad to be leaving this amazing place I had grown accustomed to. True story: at some point over the past 12 days (and let it be known it was not day 1) I had grown accustomed to the aches, the mid morning snack break, the push up switchback after switchback, and the grandiosity of an omnipresent Tahoe vista…
Hello! I am a 30-something outdoors-lady, backpacker, and resident of Groveland, California - 
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