Death Valley Petroglyph search

I want to start today by pointing out that it’s now Monday, May 19th in Death Valley.  We ran a race two, long hot days ago.  Jared still has the same shirt on from the race.  Not saying anything, just wanted to point that out for all my little readers out there who may have overlooked it in the rush of reading this ravishingly remarkable report.

So, we awoke and it was already over 90 degrees by 7:30 in the morning.  Gant continued his stewardship of public lands that morning and then we hiked the dune.  It was high and hot, it was scenic and slow but it was fun.  Jared for some reason went native and hiked most of the way without his sandals.  The difference in temperature between the sunny side of the sand and the shady sides was palpable and I understand why he wound up like this quite often.  We eventually hit what could be considered the high point of the dunes, as long as you didn’t look to the West to see the slightly higher point that was much further away.

After we cleared the dunes it was on to a Death Valley Petroglyph search.  Gant, ever the skeptic didn’t believe that it existed.  So, we found the area in question and started hiking and looking for clues.  I was occasionally picking up two separate sets of footprints heading in the direction that told me that we were going the right way.  There is literally no reason for anyone to have been out there, except to look at this petroglyph canyon, so the footsteps were a big confidence booster for me.  But I eventually lost them, Jared caught up to me while I was looking for the prints and he found the entrance shortly.  I’ll not tell you where this is, nor will I describe it’s location outside of the clues already given.  Just a warning if you find it though, you will be watched while approaching.

It is a wonderfully tight little canyon with some great petroglyphs, all the more so because it’s so out of the way and off the beaten path.  There’s a bit of a hike required to reach the canyon from the nearest road and then entering the canyon there’s a series of obstacles to scramble over.  The obstacles get progressively harder until you hit a small bowl in the canyon.  Thankfully, the Indians apparently were also often stuck in this bowl and littered the walls with artwork.  Unfortunately none of us brought a rope and as a group we were unable to continue past the very slick, approximately 20 foot high section of water polished rock that led up out of the bowl section.

Jared, working with a boost was able to scale the waterfall and scouted up ahead and told us of a few more obstacles above.  According to to the story we heard about this canyon is that at the top there is supposed to be a bighorn sheep skull.  Jared came back reporting that he had gotten stuck at another waterfall section and had not seen any skulls.  After quite a few failed attempts and a bloodied knee I made it up that waterfall unassisted and continued scouting beyond where Jared had stopped.

It was a very serene place, as I got further and further away from the group the canyon grew quieter and quieter.  I could no longer hear any voices, all I was left with was the walls painted by untold hands ages ago.  Whatever hardy souls made a life in Death Valley had left there mark on those walls and it was humbling to behold.  For as strong as they were as a people to survive there, they are gone.  They, who climbed higher than I could and drew on rocks where I could not are gone.  The humbling aspect was that these strong people are gone and all that remains of them is the marks they made.

I never did see the bighorn skull.  I turned around and went back, I was afraid of getting hurt and nobody being able to hear me since I couldn’t hear them.  I’ll get to that skull though, someday.

We returned to camp after this little excursion.

The next day we awoke, and started driving home.  We stopped and hiked mosaic canyon along the way, at least some of us did while others napped (At least he changed that filthy stinky shirt).

Death Valley is a humbling place, I need more of it.

Here is an album of pictures from this trip.

We awoke in Grandview campground, in the White Mountains.  I’ve sung it’s praises enough previously, but it really is nice.  The only plans we had were to drive up and see the Bristlecone pines and then drive out to the Eureka Dunes in Death Valley to camp that night.  So, there was no rush as Gant and Holly matched wits that morning over the squared circle in an intense game of checkers as Jared and I packed our trash.

We eventually got to going and encountered a barricade saying the road was closed.  I personally wanted to see the Patriarch grove, rather than the Schulman grove so we went around the barricade and made some progress on the road despite the warnings.  There were snow patches that were manageable thanks to some hard work, but we eventually hit a dead end and had to return to the lower Schulman grove.  I’ve still, to this day not done the entire Methusulah trail hike and we started that but there was a bit too much snow to follow it easily so we took the old cabin trail back to the truck.

After that we filled the gas tank and Jared and I took a quick dip in the Owens.  Much to my dismay, the old rope swings have been torn down and now it’s just a jump in from shore.  Holly and Gant decided that a cool, refreshing dip in the river was not on their agenda and instead stayed stinky and sweaty throughout the remainder of the trip.

We eventually got to the Eureka dunes (Second highest dunes in the US, after some shit in Colorado that has a homoerotic name).  Jared played up my fear of snakes by throwing a belt at me, well done my good sir.  Then we got there and everyone was all depressed or something because it was hot, in Death Valley, in May.  I wanted to hike to the top of the dunes but no one wanted to.  So we played catch instead.

After playing catch, I went for a little hike into the wilderness.  Much like the baby jebus did when he was in his 30’s if I remember right.

Gant and Holly stayed up late into the night cooking some crazy concoctions.  Jared and I brought some meat, some skewers and were done cooking, eating and asleep before those two kids were done cooking.  I can’t say I don’t appreciate a good warm meal, but honestly hunger is the best sauce, sleep is the best dessert.  The faster I can get my food, the happier I am personally.  Plus cleanup and dishes and all that tomfoolery is just not my cup o’ tea I suppose.  But, to each their own.

Saturday broke bright and beautiful.  Convict lake is ringed by big bold mountains that were just glowing that morning.  We had a quick and easy breakfast and were on our way even further north to the Mountain Warfare Training Center for the race.
We stopped in Bridgeport, we saw the Walker river and we arrived at the base.  If there’s one thing that draws me back to the Marine Corps it’s this place.  In all the United States, this is where the USMC chose to put their cold weather survival school and mountain warfare training.  The place is like a forgotten fairytale for me, bits of magical memories and challenges.  It has always held my heart.

Well, we got there with plenty of time to spare so we wandered a bit and took some photos.  Unfortunately, based on my training and experience I’ll never see the photos, since the were taken with Gant’s camera.  But, I’m sure they turned out nice.  The crowd looked to be in pretty good shape overall, this was going to be a tough race based on who and what I was seeing on the starting line.  Gant got his IBS under control in one of the plethora of porta-potties they had as the start clock counted down to race time.

When we started the first thing I noticed is that the first two miles is a damn brutal uphill.  More and more people started walking and eventually I had to give in as well and walked.  Starting off at about 6,800 feet and running up another 800 feet was rougher than I thought it would be.  At about the 2 mile mark we hit the first two obstacles in the race; a 5 foot wall and a tire course (like in football).  Honest to god when I was approaching the wall I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to get over it.  I was hurting after that hill climb.  At the edges of the wall there are hay bales for the shorter people to use to help get over the wall, I was so damn tempted to hop on one of them, but I wasn’t sure if Gant or Jared could see me so I played it safe and went over the wall, if only barely.

Right after that is about 15 or 20 feet of tires to run through which at that point was plenty.  Sure it could have been longer, or have another section of tires to make it even tougher but that was good enough for me.  The good news was that the uphill was basically over.  We ran less than a mile after that and hit the first tunnel crawl, and there’s a technique for these.  You use your hands as skid pads, like a snowmobile and your feet just run while your hands slide across the tunnel.

Two miles later and we get to the hay bale climb, Jared said he got dizzy on this one becaue he went up too fast.  Right after that is the low crawl.  Nothing to this one but to get down on your belly and slide across the silt.  Another mile and half or so of nice long downhills later and you’re at the finish line looking like you just got beat up by a gang of tree huggers.

Here are the Mountain Warfare Training Challenge Race results.  So for next year I need to drop 11 minutes on my run and I’m going to do it.  Either that or the three of us join in the team category and take an easy 2nd or 3rd place finish.  Either way, I’m getting one of those sweet medals that Gant has a habit of wearing around.

You’ll notice on those results that the good Dr. Gant did finish third in his category.  Of course he did this with his usual flair for faggotry beforehand by saying, “I’ve only run once in the last 3 months” “My leprosy is really acting up today I don’t think I’m going to do very well” “I am a huge fan of Matt Damon’s body (of work)” and other such nonsense.  Then after all this crap he’s spouted like a fountain of feces he goes and dominates.  Seriously though, congrats to him.

We hit up lunch in the pickel chalet and what a view that is out the window.  If for nothing else, you should do the race to eat here and see the sights.  After all the racers were done we went to the PX and got some souvenirs.  We waited around for the raffle and again, Gant dominated by winning a bag of goodies.  Much to the dismay of all the little childrens waiting to win raffle prizes, he took it.  So now he has a child’s size MWTC sweatshirt and a calculator and some crayons I think.

On the way south for our next night of camping we stopped by Bodie.  It’s a ghost town in a state of arrested decay as I understand it and was neat to see.  We hiked and looked around for awhile.  Gant didn’t disturb any of the remains of the town as he’s a good steward of California’s cultural heritage of course.

After all this was done we left and headed down to get our campsite and dinner.  We wound up cooking up some sausages in the community park in Bishop due to daylight constraints, but it was good nonetheless.  We then continued on to Grandview campground up in the White Mountains.

Bridgeport, CA.  MWTC

There were four of us and a truck bed full of gear leaving Gorman.  Truck being one of the key words in that sentence with gas prices being well above $4 a gallon for the entirety of the trip.  This was a big trip including five days of camping from the Sierra Nevada to Death Valley and excursions ranging from sand dune climbing to hiking around the remains of what used to be the second largest city in California.  We played catch in hundred degree plus temperatures and found a secret canyon in Death Valley with a plethora of petroglyphs.  The trip was based around going to run the Mountain Warfare Training Challenge 10k in Bridgeport, CA.

We left Gorman at a pretty decent hour on Friday.  We drove to Bishop and stopped by Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light gallery then ate dinner at the mexican food place just behind it.  After dinner we continued north, Gant has some buddies who are camphosts up at Convict Lake in the Sierra Nevada.  They had arranged to have one of their nicest sites available for us to use the night before the race.  We pulled in, found our spot and setup camp.  Convict Lake was a really nice campground, though it’s obviously popular and overpopulated for my tastes in general.

We went for a little dinner digestion hike around the lake until we were blocked by snow on the path and then called it a night.

Death Valley Marathon

I’ve never wanted to run a marathon. There’s a few reasons for this; 1) I don’t like running. 2) Running for 3+ hours seems particularly onerus to me. The Death Valley Marathon/30k has some good points that counteract my dislike of running. 1) The run takes place in Titus Canyon, a beautifully narrow, remote section of DV. 2) With the exception of one section, which was probably about 2 or 3 miles long it’s all downhill, 15+ miles of downhill. 3) It takes place in beautiful Death Valley. So, after weighing the pros and cons being and some cajoling from Gant and Jared I signed up and decided to go for it.

The three of us were to meet up in DV somewhere on Friday night, check in and run early on Saturday morning and then spend the rest of Sat/Sun/Mon exploring. Jared and Gant both got there much earlier than me and being the high performance (read as: high maintenance) racing machines that they are, both brought race support crews to handle such tasks as pampering and pandering their fatigued little feet. So, with a full night of restful relaxation under our belts, Saturday morning dawned on Death Valley.

Seemingly on cue, when there’s a solution in need of a problem Gant came up with some unnecessarily complicated, not to mention blatantly illegal plan to get trucks and people here and there. He thought that we all caravan out to the end of Titus Canyon and park two trucks, then all seven of us pile into the last truck, with only six seat belts, hence the illegal part of the plan and drive to the beginning of the race. Somehow this was going to save us some time, somewhere along the trip. I’m not sure if it did save any time anywhere, but it did almost cost Jared and I a bus ride saving us 8 miles of running (which may have been his goal?). 99% of the competitors just took the bus ride to the start and at the end of the race took the bus ride back. Us three being that other 1% as far as I can tell. Gant’s plan pulled through though and we all made it to where we needed to be by the slimmest of margins.

Gant ran the full marathon while Jared, I and the rest of the 30k’ers were bussed up to White pass about 8 miles ahead of Gant and the Marathoners. With this head start we began the race. That extra 8 miles the marathon runners had to cover didn’t look all that interesting or fun to me. To start with it’s uphill, it’s not in Titus canyon, it’s on the approach to the canyon and it just looked drab to me, so I was personally glad I didn’t have to run it. Starting on White pass we started off downhill for about a mile or so and then began the only climb up to Red pass.

That climb was a bitch. There was snow on the ground, as we were topping out above 5,000 feet and it was cold as balls out there for the first hour or so. On the climb up to Red pass Jared left me in the dirt and I ran alone until the end of the race, 15 miles later. Once downhill on the backside of Red the entire race is a downhill or downslope. The snack tables were well placed and well stocked. The canyon was breathtaking. The requirement not to wear headphones while at first seemingly an arbitrary assholish move by management turned out to be quite nice. The canyon is so narrow at points you can hear the echo of your breath and your footsteps on the canyon walls.

This was the farthest either I or Jared had ever run. Our longest training run was 14 miles and it was rough. 18 miles went much smoother than I thought it would. When the canyon abruptly ended and we were on the final 3 miles I got my second wind. Jared was no more than 100 yards in front of me and I was flying to catch him. We ran together again for a few minutes and then I took off for the finish line. I came across the line so fast that Liz didn’t even get a picture of me doing it.

2 hours and 41 minutes after starting I was done. I felt great. Jared finished 1 minute behind me. I was 37th overall and 3rd in my age group. I am happy as hell about those results. When Gant finished at a brisk 4 hour and 10 minutes we sat around and waited for the racers to clear out the way so we could go get to the trucks that we had parked earlier, at this point I’m sure that Gant’s plan was as well thought out as my decision to enlist in the Corps.

Cut to acouple of hours later and we finally got our trucks and got out of Dodge. We went to spend the night at the Mesquite springs campground.

Here are the results.

Ubehebe crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack

Sunday morning came too early, a bit too cold and with some light rain. This makes three years in a row that it’s precipitated on us in some form when visiting DV, from a snow storm on Telescope peak to snow at the Racetrack. Either way, it smelled like wet sagebrush and a new day. After another lengthy and laborious decision making process we decided to go to Scotty’s castle for the tour and then decide where to go from there after the tour.

The tour at Scotty’s castle was interesting. The castle itself was amazing and the guide did a nice job of passing along his knowledge to us. The only warning I would give is that the little deli there only takes cash, which is odd since the gift shop that shares the same building takes any kind of card.

At the Castle while Jared was trying to impress some random Rangers with his marathon exploits, without bothering them with the relatively inconsequential details like the fact that he ran the 30k, not the marathon. During this whole conversation he somehow worked some strange Palmdale desert magic and got some great information on an unpublicized canyon with the greatest collection of petroglyphs in the park.

I’m not going into details here, but we did scout the approach later that day and took a picture from afar. It’s an obscure little canyon, hardly looks like much but from what it was described as I wanted to make the hike despite the pain coming from my legs. I was outvoted and we went to Ubehebe crater and the Racetrack.

So, Ubehebe was cool. Scouted out little Hebe crater for the first time. Then after everyone got a good look at the crater and saw the location of Gant’s death defyingly dramatic descent and accompanying asinine ascent, some of us were caught napping. When everyone awoke we continued on the horrible, horrible road to the Racetrack .

Some of us climbed the grandstand , while others looked for moving rocks, and of course there was that 1% that stood around showing off medals to anyone and everyone that was looking, which I believe led us all to eventually split up. I took pictures.

Jared, Liz and I left after all that and journeyed back to a snowy Gorman. Gant and his crew stayed late into the night with raging bonfires, alcohol and hot dogs. I’m slightly jealous of them.

We are already planning a trip back to XXXXXX Canyon, in the next month or two. All in all, I loved the run and will be returning next year for it and would reccomend it to absolutely anyone, even if you don’t like running.

Album of pictures from trip

PS. I would be remiss if I did not mention the abundance of awesome that Gant produced in his Burrito Bar.

Thirty degrees and windy.

There were five people invited to White Mountain, October of ‘07. This was a short lived tradition I had to hit WM every October to celebrate my birthday. It has always been cold up in the highlands in October, but I do personally enjoy the cold so it has always been fine by me. Of the four invitees, two showed up. Of the two who couldn’t make it, one actually let me know ahead of time. The other one just ignored the entire situation, and as a matter of fact on our summit day was fawning over himself, as usual. Of the three of us who were there, none made the peak.

We knew it would be cold, we knew there would be snow on the ground and we knew that Scott had never been higher than Telescope peak at 11,049 feet. This hike would be starting higher than that. Scott’s been training hard for this trip for a while now, while Jared and I are still up at a pretty good level after getting ready for the triathlon last week.

Jared drove us all to Grandview, it was dark and freezing by the time we got there. I started the fire, Jared setup his rarely used 6 man tent and realized that zipper on the door wouldn’t zip closed. Scott, meanwhile was trying to put on more layers than a polar bear. After the three of us were done with our respective tasks we started cooking. Scott had rigged up a nice little contraption made of tape and sticks to roast his food on. At 10pm it was 34 degrees and dropping. The tent door wouldn’t close and we had a long, cold way to go until the sun was up again.

Dawn eventually came, with Scott not sleeping much, but Jared and I putting down some good Z’s with the new cots. After warming up by the fire and a light breakfast we made our way to the trailhead and prepared for the hike.

There are essentially four uphills on the way to the peak. The first one is short and steep, and starts as soon as you get out of the truck and continues for about a mile. The second one is shorter and steeper, the third one is long and slow and the fourth and final one is very steep and sort of short. We ran across our first substantial patches of snow on the second uphill and took a nice long break at the telescope. The temps were in the forties so it didn’t feel too bad when we were hiking, but during breaks we would get cold very quick.

As we continued on the air got thinner and the snow got thicker. Still nothing that would really impede our progress, but it was there. We were above 12,000 feet and Scott’s first time up high was getting tough. Jared was cruising right along and passed us up. Along came another herd of Bighorn sheep and Scott made a very mature decision to turn around. Scott sat down while we waited for Jared to come back.

So, we hiked back; tired, hungry and cold. Scott’s new high point is about 13,100 feet or so. When we got back to the truck, we decided to bypass Scott’s promise of cooking up some steak fajitas in order to get down to town and get some food, as fast as possible. After the food, we also decided to stay in a hotel with a working door.

Good trip, good fun.

Album of pictures from trip

No CF card present

So, Jared, Gant and I had a plan to go up to White mountain and do some high elevation training prior to the Triathlon at the end of the month. Gant couldn’t make it for various reasons unfortunately. So it was just Jared and I this time.

We got up to WM relatively quickly, about 4 hours from my house and went up to about 11,000 feet to Patriarch grove. Going from 3,000 feet at home to over 11,000 feet within hours is a tough transition. But we needed to acclimate for the next day, so we had to do it. At Patriarch we went for a small warmup hike and then ran 3 miles. Lungs just can’t process enough oxygen at that elevation to maintain much cardiovascular activity, and 3 miles was about my limit at that point.

I tried to take a picture, and got the dreaded, “No CF card present” message. I forgot to bring any storage for my camera, absolute moron. So, we went down to Bishop, through the Silver Canyon shortcut, which is a notoriously tough road. I’ve been up it once and never wanted to go that way again. Now we are going down it to get to town before everything closes. I wound up with one flat and high blood pressure by the time we got to town. The only flash cards I could find were 256 megs, which hold about 25 pictures on my camera and cost 20 bucks. GREAT.

After this we went down to Grandview campground, which is at around 8,300 feet to setup camp. Grandview is one of my favorite places to camp. It’s a large, underpopulated campground, each of the campsites have quite a bit of privacy, there’s absolutely no light pollution, and it’s pretty high in elevation so there’s less atmosphere to look through at the stars. It’s a beautiful place to go to look at the sky. This place generally has a few amatuer astronomers scattered about because of how great a place it is. By amatuer I mean guys with telescopes that are bigger than Andre the Giant. They need ladders to climb up and look into the eyepieces. Amatuer might not be the right word for these guys, I’ve never seen telescopes this big and every time I go up there, there’s always one or two setup.

So, we setup camp, lit a little fire and had some kielbasa. Since car camping has no weight issues, we both brought inflatable mattresses, Jared’s was a queen sized one, mine was a twin. Lord I wish I could bring that thing backpacking. In the morning we suited up and got to the trailhead with our mountain bikes. We started at 11,000 feet again and had about 7 or 8 miles of riding ahead of us to get to the top of the mountain at 14,000 feet.

As usual this is a very tough ride. I did it a few years ago, and it’s not any easier now. We both made it with bikes to the top, both completely exhausted. We took some pictures and bailed before Jared felt too naseaus. I saw for the second time ever on White a large herd of big horned sheep.

I also returned to the Bristlecone pines for some more pictures before leaving the next day.

Album

Lets get some pizza.
Another immaculately implemented and executed adventure, or not. The usual three of us had just very vague plans to go out to Death Valley and climb Ubehebe peak, check out the race track and then generally explore and see what else we wanted to do out there. This ambiguity was probably a bad idea for a couple of reasons. Even when we have a firm plan somehow between the three of us we wind up altering the plan based on the zodiac signs and the readings that Gant gets from his Earth Mother Gaia’s tea leaves… So, without a solid plan we were even more screwed, but like always it was a blast.

Day one, we left and made the long haul up to Death Valley. To break up the drive we stopped and climbed around one of the sand dunes. Gant had said that he was making us dinner, and for some reason wouldn’t say what it was and for some other reason I trusted him. Sometime around this point is where the surprise broke and he told us he brought MRE’s. After he told us this, we ate dinner at the little restaurant there in Furnace Creek instead of MRE’s. The restaurant had some staff that I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, but the food wasn’t too bad and not nearly as overpriced as it could have been.

After all this tomfoolery we were still at least 2 hours from the Racetrack which is at the end of a horribly washboarded 30+ mile dirt road. Along the way, we got lightly snowed on, and yes we are in Death Valley again for the first time since the Telescope peak Thundersnowstorm of 06, so snow in DV seems to be par for the course.

Eventually we got to the Racetrack. It was so cold outside that I didn’t really want to setup tent and we kind of decided to sleep (or attempt to as it turned out) in the truck. As I age, I noticed that I’m less able to sleep in a crappy position, seemingly long gone are the days of being able to get a solid sleep while curled up in a ball on the seat of a truck. But, nonetheless it was cold outside so it was carsleeping time.

When we woke up, for the last time after that horrible night of sleep we wandered the racetrack and climbed the grandstand which is a little rock outcrop out in the middle of the racetrack, which is essentially a dry lake bed. Then we went ahead and climbed Ubehebe Peak. This was a fun little jaunt, with a great view especially the day after a small storm. So the three of us got up to the top and just hung out for a bit, enjoying the views.

When we climbed down we drove out to the Southern end of the Racetrack to see the racers, which are rocks that move on their own across a flat surface (the racetrack) with the addition of a little bit of water and a lot of wind. This was a good trip turning great so far. So, we drove back up that horrible road, passing by Teakettle junction, and Gant’s first sight of Ubehebe Crater since his self inflicted quasi-suicidal climb out of the crater on it’s eastern rim. So, we kept on driving after this and then went out to check out Scotty’s Castle and were in the process of planning what we’d be doing the next day.

We were near the eastern boundary of the park, so we kind of decided to head out into Nevada and get gas, maybe pizza and then come back into the park through a one way canyon. Well, we got to Nevada and got gas but didn’t find any pizza places. However, we did see a sign for a nearby town, Las Vegas which was only 100 miles away or so. Ahhh, why not let’s hit Vegas and get some pizza.

Now keep in mind we got crap sleep the night before, it’s about 6pm now and we are driving to Vegas on a small one lane highway, so we arrive around 8 or 9. We didn’t get any pizza we just ate in a nice sit down restaurant, and since we were camping I ordered hot chocolate. After this hearty meal we hit the casinos. Jared and I sort of lead Gant down the path of gambling. End of the story, Jared was up probably 500 bucks or so at least twice, I was up the same at various points and we both lost all of it, Gant’s ATM card declined him from withdrawing anymore money after repeated trips to replenish his wallet.

So, after all this letdown it’s 3 or 4 am and none of us wanted to get a room for a hundred bucks for just 6 hours of sleep so we drive. This was nuts, no sleep and carsleep the night prior.

Thankfully we made it home safely though broker than we should have after a simple trip to Death Valley.

Again, photos in a seperate album.

In the dead of November, Scott and I rolled up to Henry Coe for a little car camping trip.

Saturday

I left Socal around 5am, for my 5 hour drive, Scott of course was still sleeping.  5 uninteresting hours later I pulled into the parking lot for the largest Safeway in Santa Clara county (WOOOT!!).  Despite the fact that Scott lives about 390 miles closer to Morgan Hill than I do, I was on time and he wasn’t.  We got some last minute supplies from Safeway and drove up to Coe.

I used to bike from my house, to the entrance of Coe, 16 miles or so up (severely up) hill, then bike down. To this day this is one of the most difficult physical exertions I have ever completed and I used to do it daily.  It was this schedule that got me into such good shape that when I got to and through boot camp I actually came out in worse shape than I went in.

So when we got up to camp, we hiked up to Eric’s bench, Sierra view, Monument, Sada’s pine, Manzanita point and then back to camp.  Basically it was just a little 8 mile day or so, with perfect weather; overcast, a bit chilly, very slight breeze and no one else out there because of the occasional drizzle.  We did alot of catching up during the hike, so the time went by pretty quickly and the scenery, as usual was classic Coe.

After the hikes, we got back to camp, Scott started cooking and I setup the tent.  After a few hours of burning wood and melting bottles in the firepit we went to the tent where Scott demonstrated some shady card dealing techniques by beating me at 21 and Texas hold ‘em as well as some other dumb game.  I did however wipe the tent with him at Uno, take that chump.

Sunday

I woke with the sun and hiked up to Sierra view to get some sunrise shots while Scott gets more sleep.  I had a run in with some of the wild pigs of the park, got a bit too close and they growled me back.  I gladly stepped back to make them happy (by gladly I mean I basically ran backwards until I was out of breath).

After I got back to camp, we cleaned up, had some breakfast and tried to contact his parents, no luck with that.  So, we drove down the hill back to town.

After we packed up camp, we headed down the hill and to town where we tried to find a Street Fighter game to play so I could demonstrate to Scott the fact that he still has no skill.  However, we were out of luck as Morgan Hill seems to be out of arcades nowadays, I have no idea what kids do after school now, but it must suck.

Since we found nothing to do in town, I took another five uninteresting hours to drive back to Socal and so ends the story.

All pics from trip (not many & not good)