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…
Backpacking Kerrick Meadow, Yosemite & Peeler Lake: Days 2 & 3 of Independence Day 2016 Trip
If Kerrick Meadows is the Northern Sister to Tuolumne Meadows, then Peeler Lake is Cathedral Lake’s Northern cousin. It is a really nice lake, the approach from the meadows has deep drop offs from the granite boulders with crystal clear waters
Backpacking Crown Lake: Herbert Hoover and Day 1 of Independence Day 2016 Trip
Fourth of July 2016: Another Independence Day and another backpacking trip into the Hoover Wilderness on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. But of course, on one of the busiest backpacking weekends in the Sierra Nevada we returned to the place where wilderness permits are moderately easy to obtain. But maybe, perhaps subconsciously, I was also returning on the 4th of July to the wilderness named after the 31st president of the United States….
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…
A Bright Dot Lake among Sierra Peaks, Backpacking Inyo Forest
Most of my pictures in the High Sierra focus around two opposites, a rocky peak or a watery blue lake (except, maybe, for the hundreds of photos of rock piles that may, if you look hard enough, have a pika in them). The side trip Curtis, Trails (& pup) and I took from our backpacking camp at Mildred Lake to Bright Dot Lake highlighted this even more. Bright Dot is a lake…
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…
Earthquakes, Landslides, Convict Creek and Pend Oreille
Last week I was visiting Curtis’s family cabin up by Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, which is a stunning place that I feel very special to have been able to visit three times now. Right now the lake and surrounding peaks are beautiful when capped in snow, and the trip requires a boat ride to reach the final destination! That is some real off the beaten path stuff for a…
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…
Santa Run Sacramento: This is what its like running in a festive felt suit
Yesterday Curtis, Trails + fam, and I took an early morning trip to downtown Sacramento for the 2nd annual Sacramento Santa Run. Trail’s had invited us along, and thanks to a coupon code it seemed like a pretty good deal for a “Themed Race”… you know those races where everyone pays a large registration fee to run, usually dressed up, through mud or colors or suds or idontknowbacongrease(it’s-probably-happened). Plus it’s hard to be a…
Hello! I am a 30-something outdoors-lady, backpacker, and resident of Groveland, California - 
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