Tuolumne

Happy!

Kicked off the Tuolumne season last weekend...
Beautiful as ever!

We drove out on Thursday evening, so that we could get an early start on Friday to head up Cathedral Peak. It was my fourth time on Cathedral, but it's always a treat! A nice, mellow alpine climb with fantastic rock and unbelievable views...
What was even nicer, was the weather: T-shirts were sufficient, even on the summit, quite rare conditions!

We ended the perfect day of climbing with dinner at the Mobil station in Lee Vining, where we also camped for the night.

Waking up to these views is incredible!
The morning got even better... Pancakes from the TM grill for breakfast :-)
After the long day on Friday we choose to take it easy on Saturday and go top roping on the Western Front. We climbed 'Green Eggs and Ham', 'March of Dimes' and 'New Tricks for Old Dogs' before heading back to the Meadows to enjoy a beer ...

Tuolumne Meadows and Cathedral Peak
Hoping for a sponsorship from Mammoth Brewing Company!

Mt. Shasta pictures

Below are some photos I took during last weeks ascent of Mount Shasta.

Mt. Shasta as seen from I-5 going north.

Looking up the 'Heart' to 'Red Banks'

View to the Bunny Flat trailhead from the top of Red Banks

The summit

Obligatory summit shot

Above the clouds

Shastina

Google Earth is such a nice toy, especially combined with a GPS unit. :-)

Mountain biking

My last post about mountain biking was not really enthusiastic. The problem was that I joined some veteran riders on a trail, which is beyond my capabilities. As I see it I had two choices... either don't bike with them anymore, or get better on the bike.

Since I had some free time on my hand in the last few weeks and I'm still not comfortable running that much after spraining my ankle, I worked on option 2.
In the last 3/4 weeks I rode at Arastradero Open Space once or twice a week. Arastradero is easy to reach and features some real easy trails with a few technical spots like narrow switchbacks and steep drops. After the first rides, in which I got familiar with the terrain I improved every time I went there, and by the end mastered things like the switchbacks without any problems. I also freaked less on steep descents, and hopped over some bumps with both wheels catching air. Actually very fun!

A few weeks ago Dan took my to Soquel Demo Forrest. I had a blast! After the climb up and the ride along the Ridge Trail we took Tractor Trail down to the Valley again... It was the easy way, but just the right thing for me at the moment. I'll keep working on my skills and make it to the harder trails eventually.

Mt. Shasta

I had my eye on Mount Shasta for quite a while this year, but for most of the time the weather looked not very favorable. When the forecast had a sunny day for Thursday I jumped on the chance and drove up to Shasta on Wednesday afternoon.
I arrived at Bunny Flat around 7PM. After getting the wilderness permit and the summit pass I strolled up the trail a bit, so I was sure on where to go in the morning.
After dinner, I found a nice flat spot to camp out for the night, set the alarm to 3:45 and read until it got dark.

Getting up was tough. It was quite chilly. Fortunately I had prepared my pack for the day the previous evening and was on my way at 4:30 after breakfast.

After last years experience on the mountain, which was quite miserable and unsuccessful, I made some changes to improve my odds of reaching the summit.
The biggest problem last year was starting off-trail. I had taken care of this by checking out the trail in daylight Wednesday evening. Another issue was that I did not eat enough on my previous attempt. To make sure that didn't happen again, I stacked up on GU gels, and would eat one every 30 minutes on the ascent.
Also, last year I over heated... my clothing choice was not appropriate for the conditions on the mountain. This year I choose some very light gear, and figured that I move faster if I'd be cold.
I must have done something right this time around.
I reached Helen Lake at 10400 feet at 7AM, took a 10 minute break eating something and putting on my gloves. The next stop was the top of Red Banks, the spot where I turned around last year. This time I reached it around 10AM, feeling great and with plenty of time left.
Misery Hill definitely deserves it's name though... It was so good to get to the ridge on top and see the summit block! I got to the summit by 11:30. The winds up there were pretty intense, so I didn't spend too much time on the summit, but headed back down.
Glissading from below the rock band of Red Banks to Helen Lake was so much fun! Definitly better than trying to walk in the by now slushy snow. The rest of the descent was rather uneventful, and I got back to the car by 14:55. After hanging out and resting for a bit I hopped in the car and drove back to the Bay Area...

It's quite funny... last year I put the attempt on Shasta on the list with the hardest things I had done. Yesterdays attempt was just pleasant. I think keeping well fueled was essential. Another point might be a change in my diet... having the farm box increased my consumption of veggies and reduced my eating out. Also I have been doing CrossFit rather regularly lately, which might have had an effect too, since I felt strong all the time, and recovered quickly when I took breaks. Nothing like last years "walking for two minutes, resting for one"!

Happy! :-)

Hiking at Point Reyes

In the last few weeks I realized that I explored quite a bit of the Bay Area and the surrounding regions, but I've hardly ever been to to the North Bay, except for two bouldering trips to Stinson Beach. So I figured it was about time to change that with a hike at Pt. Reyes National Seashore.
Pt. Reyes is located 30 miles north of San Francisco along HW 1, what makes getting there already a beautiful outing.
We started our hike at the Five Brooks trailhead and picked Alamere Falls as a destination...
To get there we chose a loop consisting of the Olema Valley trail, the Bolema Trail, the Ridge Trail, the Lake Ranch Trail, and the Coast Trail. We started hiking shortly before noon and climbed the first few miles through a forrest to the ridge, from here the trail dropped through brush lands to the ocean. We reached the turn-off to the falls after a couple of hours.

It's an absolutely gorgeous place! After the rain in the last few days the falls were running pretty well. Being there on a Monday had the advantage that no one else was around, an extra bonus!

We took the Coast trail, the Old Out Road trail, Alamea trail and Steward trail back out to the parking lot, to complete an approximately 15 mile hike, which took us 6 hours, with plenty of breaks... Since we hadn't anticipated the hike to be quite as long we hadn't brought any food and were almost starving by the time we reached the car. The fish tacos we picked up in Stinson Beach hit the spot real well!