Need to train more for long, hard hikes

January 11, 2012, 9:51 pm

A hike I want to do is 14 miles and 4,000 ft of climbing. Today I hiked 9.5 miles at Del Valle Lake and climbed 1600 ft. It went fine, but I can tell I need more conditioning. It was a very nice day. I hiked in just a t-shirt. Here’s my track log and elevation profile.

My track at Del Valle

Elevation profile

January 11th, 2012 | Category: Outdoors | Leave a comment

Tioga Road is still open

January 5, 2012, 9:15 pm

We’ve had very little rain, which means the Sierras have received very little snow. No snow means (besides the ski-resorts hurting) all the roads over the Sierra passes are still open. In particular, Tioga Road through Yosemite is still open and it usually closes for the season around Thanksgiving. In fact, according to this document with records starting in 1933, this is the latest the road has been open.

Ice hockey on Tenaya Lake

We took advantage of the open road as we drove over to Lone Pine and back. I didn’t see any snow or ice on the road, but it certainly has been cold—the creeks and lakes are frozen. Tenaya Lake was very interesting. It was completely frozen over and people were walking, skating, and playing all over it. Note the lack of snow on the shore and on the ice. That seems so incongruous.

On our way back over Tioga Pass we stopped at Lembert Dome and hiked up to Dog Lake. There were a few icy patches on the trail that were getting slick on our descent, but we avoided taking a spill. I kept thinking how this shouldn’t be possible at this time of year. We shouldn’t be able to drive to the trailhead, and we certainly shouldn’t be hiking at 9,000 ft elevation without snowshoes. I hope it breaks loose and snows a lot soon.

Links
—Frozen Tenaya Lake photo gallery

January 5th, 2012 | Category: Outdoors | Leave a comment

Alabama Hills arches, 2011

December 31, 2011, 9:03 pm

The boulders of Alabama Hills and Mt. Whitney


Just west of Lone Pine, the Alabama Hills are a picturesque range of boulders of all sizes. In fact, it is so picturesque it has been used for location shots in hundreds of movies, mostly westerns. A pamphlet available at the visitor center describes a driving tour that stops at several of the film locations. We did that interesting tour a couple of years ago, and even watched a couple of the highlighted movies on Netflix.

Mobius Arch frames Mt. Whitney

This trip we were interested in arches, and Alabama Hills has a lot of them. The one shown here is the most popular and even has a marked trail leading out to it. I had done some internet research and found the GPS coordinates of a number of other arches, so we set out to find and photograph them.

Interestingly, a couple of years ago we searched for the Eye of Alabama with just descriptive information—no GPS coordinates—and failed. We hiked all over the general area and never saw it. This time I spotted it easily from the road. Go figure! Check out the slide show for photos of more arches.

I should also mention that we skipped the motel continental breakfast and headed to the Alabama Hills Café. I forget which omelette we had, but it was so good! And large enough (4 eggs) for both of us.

Links
—Alabama Hills 2011 photo gallery

December 31st, 2011 | Category: Outdoors | One comment
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