Sunol Wilderness

Today I managed to got lost in my 'backyard'.

OK, backyard is a little exagerated, since I'd never been to the Sunol Wilderness before, although it's only 45 minutes from my place. I took the trail to the 'Little Yosemite' area and continued on along the canyon, as I planned to take the Backpack Road Trail to the ridge, following the ridge back to the parking lot.
Along the way I came across the sign below:

A 'Rock Scramble' of course I couldn't pass on this!
The 'trail' essentially followed a creek bed up the hill. At some point it was supposed to cross the trail I originally wanted to take...
I followed the creek bed until I saw a path crossing the ravine. Here I took a left turn, bushwacked a little (through poison oak, fortunately I was fine!) and found myself here:


In the middle of a hill with no trail what so ever. I followed a cow trail...
Since I didn't feel like retracing my steps through the poison oak I gained the ridge here and fortunately found the trail on the other side of the ridge...

A nice, adventurous 8-mile outing on a Sunday afternoon.

A few days in Tahoe

End of May I spent a few days at Lake Tahoe. Driving up to Tahoe City on the Thursday afternoon before Memorial Day.
The days were not particularly planned out, but it turned out to be an awesome trip, including some climbing at the 90-foot-wall at Emerald Bay, hiking the Rubicon Trail and the Sherryl Creek Canyon trail. Furthermore I scoped out the Luther Spires climbing area on my way back, didn't do any climbing there though.

Too Hot!

Bailed out of the Valley one day early...
After Dan and I had finished our objectives of the weekend after only one day, we decided to head back and escape he 95F heat forecasted for Sunday. Also my ankle was not too happy after the approach and descent from Lower Cathedral Spire.
It's about time Tioga Pass is opens!

First Mosquito Bites, First Sunburn...

... A good weekend! :-)

I spent the weekend in the Valley with the SAC crowd. After driving up on Friday night we all met up at Swan Slab Saturday morning, where we placed several TRs... Oak Tree Flake, Grant's Crack, the line next to Grant's, the Aid Route, and Lena's Lieback. After TRing and just chilling for a while Paul came up with the idea of trying to free the 11b part of the aid route. Since the moves are well protected I was happy to give it a few goes... I guess that's what's called "working a project"... We both failed miserably... We'll have to come back and try with some aggressive shoes, since we identified that improper shoes were the only reason we couldn't make the crucial move ;-)
At the end of the day I jugged up the line to clean the TR. It has been a while since I last practiced aiding and I had forgotten how hard it is to jug... Good practice for an attempt on something big, which will hopefully come later this summer.

On Sunday I took Sam and Leo to Glacier Point Apron, where we climbed Harry Daley. Sam led the first pitch, Leo the second. We ran into two other parties from Stanford (well, the extended community) Linda and Heather and Mary and Ashley... It was quite cozy at some of the belays.
After rapping the route with TWO ropes we set a TR on 'Variation of a Theme', a 10b slab climb, before heading back to Yosemite Lodge to meet up the rest of the gang...

week 18

Mon: rest, felt pretty off after not getting much sleep during the weekend.
Tue: Climbing, PGSV w/Dan. The first four routes were hideous... I felt way off, no endurance for a series of powerfull moves. Last 6 routes were good. Chose slabby balancy routes... After climbing I did last Fridays CFSV workout: 500m row, 30 burpees, 10 push-press @ 75# : 6:35.
Wed: rest
Thu: climbing w/ Dan at PG SV, two warm-up TRs, 3 lead routes, 4 TRs 11a - 11c
Fri: rest
Sat/Sun: climbing in Yosemite with SAC crowd

Food Adventures

Today I emerged on a new food adventure (besides the on-going quest to try every restaurant on Mountain View's Castro Street) by picking up the first farm box I subscribed to.
I was intrigued by the concept of fresh, seasonal, local, organic food at a reasonable price. The advantages of non-industrial food have been discussed in many different places, most prominently probably in Michael Pollan's book 'The Omnivores Dilemma'. I hope I am doing not only me, but also the environment a favor.

An added bonus: It will be easier to try a new recipe each month since new ingredients are thrown at me all the time. I'm quite excited!

In this weeks box:

• Fava Beans
• Baby Carrots
• Shallots
• Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Scallions or Summer Squash or Artichokes (depending on nature's mood)

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