California Hiking

Of all the climbs in the world, the most significant to me is the one towering over Fremont, California, a town of 200,000 where I lived for seven years. Mission Peak, after all, is where I’ve hiked a couple dozen times with 40 lbs on my back to train for Mt. Shasta and Mt. Whitney, and gone up during the middle of the night to celebrate the Winter Solstice.

It’s also a place where I have (randomly and not-so-randomly) encountered old friends. And so it felt entirely appropriate to go hiking there with Bandy, an ol’ buddy from high school, during a brief visit to the East Bay one weekend in September. Continue reading »

With Bay Area temperatures still being pleasant even for hobos roaming the streets, “let’s go hiking!” seemed like a good idea. So Adrian, Evelyn, Sarah, Sheila, and I congregated in Portola Valley for a leisurely 5.6-mile jaunt up and down aptly named Windy Hill. The best part of the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve is that it is dog friendly! So in addition to our friends, Adrian and Evelyn’s Labrador retriever/pit bull (and three other breeds I can’t remember) mix joined us in the fun. Bue was the star of the hike, posing for the camera nice and often with grace and dignity. More photos are here.

“If you come,” wrote Dave, my climbing buddy and former co-worker, “we can climb Snake Dike.”

Usually the mention of the word “dike” and a slithery vernom-spitting reptile would not tempt me away from a home-finding trip hundreds of miles away, but this was different. Half Dome is perhaps the most famous piece of granite in Yosemite Valley, if not the nation. I had summitted it once before in 1999, but only as a hiker. Or “tourist”, as some elitist rock climbers might condescendingly refer to them. Intrigued, I decided to look up more information about it.

“Dave,” I replied after doing so, “I some concerns about Snake Dike. It is 8 pitches, 5.7, and very run-out in many sections. It would make for a very challenging day…” Continue reading »

From Brokeoff Mountain, I drove 6.8 miles up the road to Lassen Peak, intent on bagging my second California County Summit of the day. (Lassen Peak, at ~10,500 feet, is the highest point in Shasta County.) What had intended to be a quick 5-mile round-trip hike up and down the mountain turned out to be a slightly slower-paced, but vastly more fun, experience than I had anticipated. Continue reading »

This hike was not originally on the agenda; however, after having lunch with a friend in Sacramento I soon realized that I was not going to make it to Klamath Falls in Oregon by daybreak as I originally was planning on doing. So I looked at the map to find a closer place to camp, and not caring to return to Mt. Shasta — only because I did that 2 weeks ago already — I decided upon the Lassen Volcanic National Forest area. Upon busting out my California County Summits book I then also realized that there were 2 county summits — Brokeoff Mountain and Lassen Peak — within 7 miles of each other, and each of them should take no more than 5 hours each. Perfect. Continue reading »

More than 4 years after my first (and failed) attempt to ascend Mt. Shasta, I finally reached the summit of this iconic Californian fourteener. Our group included Angela, Dave, Kenny, Paul, Steve, and Wendy. Here are some notes: Continue reading »