First Hike In Southern California - Mishe Mokwa Trail

Since moving down to Southern California at the end of November of 2009, I had not had the chance to go hiking until this past weekend. In the intervening two months, my legs have gotten used to not moving much, and I figured that I should get moving again. Consequently, I joined the Thousand Oaks Hikers Meetup group - http://www.meetup.com/TOaks-Hikers/

Frankly, I prefer to hike alone, but I do know that hiking alone does carry some additional danger. Also, since I am not familiar with the trails in the area, I figure that I should tag along and familiarize myself with some trails before I try to hike alone, hence the hiking group.

This past Saturday, February 13, 2010, I went out with the hiking group to the Mishe Mokwa Trail. It's a relatively short hike - only about 7 miles, and a bit over 1000 ft of elevation gain. Still, it was a nice hike on a beautiful Southern California day - about 60~70 DegF, perfect weather for a hike. With the sun out and wind blowing, it was neither too cold nor too hot to hike. I gather that the weather I experienced was the reason that people pay to live in Southern California. While the rest of the country was buried in snow, I was enjoying a Saturday morning hike in perfect weather.

Here are a few pictures of the scenery.







At the first rest stop, we found a tree branch that was swarming with what appeared to be Lady Bugs. Then I remembered reading about the fact that lady bugs don't swarm. Sure enough, after I returned from the hike, a quick search confirmed that these are in fact Asian Lady Beetles.



Here is a closeup of the Asian Lady Beetle.



When we were resting on top of the Tri-peaks, we saw two prop planes doing some mock aerial battle.



I thought that they looked like WWII Era P47 Thunderbolts, but after looking at the close-up, I was not sure what these were anymore.



On the way back down, someone noticed some rock climbers quite a distance away.
I took some pictures - here one zoomed out to show how far away we were.



Here's one zoomed in and cropped to show the rock climbers on the sheer rock face. I didn't bring my Canon DSLR camera on the hike, since I wasn't sure that I wanted to take the DSLR camera hiking. So I took the Canon PowerShot A640 instead. I was surprised that these pictures turned out as well as they did from the point and shot camera.



Overall, it was an enjoyable hike. I will go on another hike with the same group in March. Then perhaps I'll strike out on my own hiking alone again.

MR2 Furniture Mover

It's been nearly a month since I moved into my new abode in Thousand Oaks, CA., and I've been living with very little furniture, since I gave away most of my furniture in San Jose. Anyways, after many hours spent planning a trip to Ikea, I finally decided to go and pickup a dresser and a couple of book cases.

I am guessing that the task of buying furniture from Ikea is not typically a big deal to most people. However, it's quite a trek and an adventure for me, because I drive an MR2, and it's challenging to move stuff with an MR2.

Anyways, after some planning and luck (it barely fit), I managed to get: Two six-foot-tall book cases, one six-drawer dresser/chest, a two drawer file cabinet, and my grocery purchase from 99Ranch all to fit into the MR2.


Well, "fit" is not exactly correct, but I did manage to get the whole pile of stuff home. Note the trunk lid is tied down because the file cabinet and one of the two boxes for the dresser/chest is sitting in the trunk.

Broken Car Door Lock

After weighing my options, I decided to accept the job offer that required that I move from San Jose down to Southern California - Thousand Oaks, CA., specifically.

A few days after I moved down to SoCal, my 93 MR2T driver side door lock jammed on me. Since I am unfamiliar with the area, I did the brain-dead thing of dropping it off at the Thousand Oaks Toyota dealership. Here's the amusing (and not so amusing) chain of events that follows.

I brought my MR2T in to the dealer, and the service writer told me that it'll be $98 to look at it to get an estimate, which is an hour worth of labor, so if the repair can be done in 1 hour or less, that's what I'd get charged. If not, then he'll call me for permission to go ahead and do the full damage.

I said okay, dropped off the car, and the shuttle service dropped me back at the office. As soon as I sat down, the phone rang, and the service writer asked me if there's something wrong with my ignition, since the car won't start now.

I told them that since the door lock was jammed, I suspect they've triggered the alarm, and they would have to lock the door with the key and unlock the door with the key before they can restart the car. I was told that they've done that, and that wasn't it.

So he calls me back later and said that the actuator motor for the power doorlocks is jammed in the lock position, and they have to replace the motor, which came out to $600+ for parts and labor to get it fixed. I was a bit perturbed, and thought that I'd figure out another way. So I asked them to put it back together, and I'll pay the $98 and think about it later. He said okay.

Then I get another call 5 minutes later, and said that they still can't start the car, and wonder if my ignition has just died. I said that I've not had any problems starting the car in the last year. I told them that it's probably the security system. So he says that they'll look at the security system.

I get another call back 10 minutes later and said that my wiring system is all screwed up, with half of the wire cut and running to the middle of nowhere, and they don't understand how the car was operating at all. So at this time, I was a bit agitated, and told them to leave the car be, and I'll go in and look at it.

So I get to the shop, and he shows me how they pushed the car some 300 yards into the bay, and now they can't start the car. Moreover, after they put the thing back together, the door is now locked again, so I still have to crawl in from the passenger side.

I told them that I'd like to give it a try. So I pulled out my other spare key, put it in the passenger side, locked the door and unlocked it again. At this time, the technicans said "Oh, you have to do that?" So I said, yes, and I think this is the standard Toyota alarm system for this car, and this is how it works.

So I then crawl into the driver seat from the passenger side door, and put my foot on the clutch and turn the key, and sure enough, my car started up right away. So the service writer seems to have felt rather embarassed, and he tells me that if I just go ahead and drive the car away then, he won't even charge me the $98 for the estimate. Since he knows what's wrong now, if I decide to get it fixed, I just have to call him to order the part and schedule a drop off time, and he can get it done right away. So that was nice of him to let me off without charging me the estimate, but it was still funny that neither he nor the technicans knew how to deal with the alarm system on my 93T.

I then spent the next two weeks crawling through my passenger side door to the driver side door, and looking for a reputable shop in my spare time. I went to a shop that was recommend to me, but they were overloaded. They told me to call back on Monday the following week to see if they had some time to work on my car. Anyways, long story short - I decide to play grease monkey myself, and proceeded to tear my car apart. Since the door was locked, I had to take the driver seat out, rip out the door panel (not all that easy with the door closed) to get to the lock.

After about 40 minutes, I got to the lock, and managed to unlock the door. Then it was 10 more minutes before I figured out that I couldn't unlock the door because this tension spring broke.


So I'm looking at this thing - thinking that the service guys at the dealer was either incompetent or greedy. Neither would be a flattering choice. I proceeded to cut away the broken part of the tension spring, and pulled out another loop of the same spring, and re-attached the spring. The result is that I now once again have a functional driver side door lock. Cost of fix = $0, but a lot of time wasted.

I was thinking about writing a letter to Toyota - but I can't really complain, because the service writer didn't charge me in the first place. If he had charged me, I could have had a basis for complaining and asking for a refund, but since he didn't charge me - no harm, no foul. The only "harm" was that I had to crawl in through my passenger side door for the last 2 weeks, and the dealer had left me thinking that the door lock motor was jammed/fused to the locking position.

Anyways, I am quite happy that I managed to fix the problem without spending $600+. I will have to continue to look around to see where I should take my car to be serviced in the future. I am going to try to avoid this particular dealer if I can.

Hiking Half Dome

In the last two months, I've hiked numerous trails. However, a friend of mine tells me that I should set my sight higher, and aim to hike the Half Dome. So that's what I did. The Half Dome Trail is quite a challenging Trail, as it is 8~9 miles one way, and net of 4800 ft of elevation gain from the trail head to the top of Half Dome. Some people train for months to get in shape to climb Half Dome, and climbing accidents and deaths are fairly common.

http://www.hikehalfdome.com/Accidents.html

Anyways, I knew that I wanted to give Half Dome a shot, and I wanted to try to work my work up. However, laziness got in the way of my training, and one day I just decided to pack myself and drive to Yosemite and climb the Half Dome.


Since I had gathered a bunch of camping gear already, I decided to camp overnight at Camp 4, the walk-in-and-pitch-your-own-tent camp site. Camp 4 is a historical camp site, since it's where a lot of rock climbers stayed in while rock climbing slowly grew up to be an acknowledged sport.

Staying at Camp 4 is very economical. It costs $20 for a 7-day pass into Yosemite, and $5 per night for a spot at camp 4. I drove to Yosemite on the afternoon of August 26, got into camp 4 at around 6:30 PM. Fortunately, there were still spots open in the camp site, and that's where I slept for the night. My tent is the dark blue and grey tent in the picture above.


Here's another picture from camp 4 that shows the sheer rock face that's very close to camp 4. That background and setting makes the campsite quite majestic.

I had intended to get up early in the morning to climb Half Dome. However, since I got in late, I had to sign myself in to the camp site, and I had to pay the $5 fee the next morning. Unfortunately, the ranger didn't get in until 8:30 AM, and because there was a line, I didn't get to pay her until 9:30 AM. In hindsight, I should have given the $5 to someone in line to ask them to pay the $5 for me. Perhaps the German tourist right in front of me (there were lots of European hikers. From all the non-English conversation going on around, it seems that roughly 50% of the people there were from Europe). In any case, the delay means that I didn't get to the trail head parking lot until 10 AM, and I started my hike at 10:03 AM.


One thing that I noticed right away was that hiking in Yosemite was quite different from hiking on the trails in the local state and county parks that I've been doing. The big difference was that the background in Yosemite was simply far more majestic. Everything seems to be on a grander scale. Here's a nice waterfall.


Here's another waterfall.

The trail was majestic and grand, but also mercilessly steep. Even more problematic was that the hike goes from about 4800 ft of elevation to about 9600 ft of elevation, and the oxygen content in the air is just far less than it is at sea level. Previously, my hikes have ranged in between 1000 ft of elevation to 3000 ft of elevation, and I had a difficult time adjusting to the elevation.

The net result of the steepness of the climb and the higher altitude was that I would get tired rather easily. Also, I just couldn't generate and sustain power climbs over 30 seconds in duration. On the steep parts of the trail, I found that I would have to rest up for a minute or two every 30 to 50 steps. It almost seemed that I was totally out of shape, which I knew I wasn't. Fortunately, after I rested for a couple of minutes, I was able to resume the climbing, and stamina wasn't a problem. However, the frequent rest stops really extended the climb time. It took me 6 hours and 15 minutes just to get to the cable rails for the final climb to the top of Half Dome.

This is the infamous cable rails that hikers use to get to the top of Half Dome. The cables help hikers climb the last 400 ft over bare granite. The climb here is very steep, and the rocks can be slippery, even with good shoes. When it rains, the rocks become impossible slippery, and people without good gloves and good shoes are known to slip and fall - some to death. So this climb is considered to be extremely dangerous.

Fortunately, I had been warned, so I bought a decent pair of general purpose gloves from Home Depot. Moreover, it was sunny and there were no rain and little wind. So aside from the fact that I couldn't sustain the power to climb for extended periods of time, it was a tough but not all that dangerous of a climb for me. Because of the need to rest frequency, it took me a good 40+ minutes to climb the 400 ft to the top of Half Dome.


Here's a view from the top. Because of my late start, and the fact that I had to rest frequently, I didn't get to the top of Half Dome until 5 PM, some 7 hours after I started from the trailhead parking lot.


Here's a picture of me kneeling on top of Half Dome, at around 5:15PM. I made it.

Because it was already so late, I didn't dare stay too late. I started down the cables on my way back around 5:30 PM. Typically, park guidance for hiking Half Dome suggest that if you don't make it up to the top of Half Dome by 3:30PM, you should head back down the trail, because the length of the trail means that you'll run out of sunlight, and hiking in the dark is not a lot of fun. However, I had been aware of the time factor, and I had brought a head lamp and a flashlight, so I decided to press on and finish the climb. Still, as the sun dropped lower and lower, it got darker and darker. I had to put on the head lamp at around 7:50PM.

It was difficult to see the trail in the dark, and I got lost twice. Suddenly, I found myself in the middle of large boulders and loose leaves, with no sign of the trail. The first time I got lost, there were still some light, and I quickly found my way back onto the trail. However, the second time I was lost was far more serious, as I was lost for more than 10 minutes. I was stumbling around in the dark, with my head lamp providing a bit of light, looking for the trail. My mind started to wander, as I started thinking that I might have to stay out in the wilderness for the night, and that has its own set of problems - the first problem being that I didn't have much gear or water left, and the second problem is that there are bears around. In any case, I just concentrated on not twisting my ankles or otherwise getting hurt in anyway, as that would just seriously compound my problems. I then stopped trying to go downhill, and instead traveled sideways on the slope of the mountain, toward the sound of the waterfall. Fortunately, that strategy paid off, as I soon found the trail and got back to the business of stumbling down the mountain, this time on the trail.

Finally, four hours after I started down the cables from the top of Half Dome, I found my car in the parking lot. In total, counting the distance from the parking lot to the start of the hiking trail, it was an 18+ mile hike that lasted 11 hours, not counting the half hour I spent on top of Half Dome.

In hindsight, hiking in the dark was a really bad idea, and I would recommend the following to anyone who wants to hike the Half Dome.

1. Get to Yosemite a couple of days early, try to do short hike at altitude above 5000+ ft in the first couple of days. Basically, get your body acclimated to hiking at the higher elevations.

2. Start the hike as early in the morning as you can.

3. Good gloves, shoes and flashlight with fresh batteries are a must.

Hiking the Half Dome was quite interesting, and I think I would go again if I had other people to hike with. I don't think I would want to hike the Half Dome by myself again.

Hiking the Dipsea Trail

On August 7, two days after I returned from the two-day camping/hiking trip to Castle Rock, I decided to hike the Dipsea Trail.

According to the information I found on the internet, the Dipsea Trail is one of the "must hike" trails in the bay area. For more information, see the Dipsea race web page. http://dipsea.org/

I'll say the following about Dipsea Trail.

1. I didn't enjoy hiking Dipsea - parts of the trail is too urbanized.

2. It is quite strenuous, with 2000 ft of climbing to be done each way.

3. The Trail isn't well marked. I got lost several times, including walking up someone's driveway, thinking that was the trail. I'm sure the situation with lost hikers was as annoying to him as it was to me. I can't believe that I'm the first lost hiker that's walked up to his driveway.

Dipsea is famous or infamous for the stairs that begin the Trail in Mill Valley. The stairs are in multiple segments. Here's one of the segments.


Dipsea Trail is over 100 years old, and at one time, the trail must've been considered to be in complete wilderness. However, the first mile or so of the trail is basically in the suburbs of Mill Valley. One of the reasons that it's easy to get lost is that after climbing up one segment of the stairs, the stairs terminates at a suburban street. The next segment of the stairs will be somewhere down the street. The problem is that for a first time hiker who doesn't already know the trail, there's often no sign that tells the hiker to go left or go right on the street to find the next segment of the stairs. The picture above shows that for this segment, the correct answer is "turn left", and the next segment of the stairs is 100 yards down the street, next to the postal truck.

First mile of the trail is sometimes paved, sometimes not. When it's paved, it's part of one street or another. Here the street/trail leads past someone's driveway. In one part of the trail/street, someone put set up a basketball pole, so the neighborhood kids can play basketball.

The craziest part of the Dipsea Trail has to be the 1 meter tall drainage pipe that cuts across the trail. The pipe drains water from the roadway, and it is set up down a 30 degree slope. However, in the process of laying down the drainage pipe, the Dipsea Trail was torn up a bit, and it was difficult to find the correct/safe spot to climb over the drainage pipe to continue hiking. Here the Trail resembled less of a nature hike, but more of a steeplechase course.


About 7 miles from Mill Valley, The Dipsea Trail ends at Stinson Beach. At this point, I turned right around and got back toward Mill Valley.

Perhaps if I lived in Mill Valley, in one of the houses whose driveway I walked by, then Dipsea Trail would be one of my favorite trails. It would be very convenient to be able to do a lot of hiking right from one's residence. However, having driven 60 miles to get to Mill Valley to hike this historic trail, I can't say that I enjoyed hiking the Dipsea Trail. The complete urbanization of the first segment of the trail, with the ultimate symbol being the insane drainage pipe, completely soured me on the Dipsea Trail.

So all I can say is - I've done it, don't think I'll do it again.

Two Day Hike in Castle Rock State Park

I decided to try a more rigorous hike - a two day hike with an overnight stay at a camp site. The overnight stay means that I had to gear up and bring a tent, a sleeping bag, clean clothes, and more food. I geared up and purchased a large backpack, a tent and a sleeping back, and I decided to try to hike in Castle Rock State park. My thinking here is that if this hike goes well, this two day hike can just be a dry run for an extended multi-day hike that starts from Castle Rock, go through Big Basin, to the sea, and back to Castle Rock. This two-day hike however was designed just to be a relatively short affair to see how I stand up under the additional stresses of the backpack.


The map above shows a big chunk of the Castle Rock state park. I started at the main entrance, labeled as point #1, then hiked through the Saratoga Gap Trail to the Castle Rock Trail camp, labeled as point #2. Then I hiked through the Travertine Springs Trail with a rest stop at Travertine Springs, labeled as point #3. Then I hiked on the Saratoga Toll Road Trail and connected over to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail via the Beekhuis Road Trail, labeled as point#6 on the map. Then, 2.6 miles of hiking on the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, and that took me to the Watermap Gap Trail camp, labeled as point #5 on the map.

In theory, the hike from the entrance of the Castle Rock Park to the Watermap Gap Trail camp covers a distance of 9.3 miles. However, that distance assume that you stay on the trail and doesn't get lost and have to backtrack. Of course, I got lost a couple of times, and hiked an extra mile on the first day and an extra mile and half on the second day. Consequently, I ended up hiking a bit more than 10 miles each day.

One thing that I didn't pay particularly close attention to, in the planning stages of this hike, was the topology of the hike itself. However, I noticed during the first day's hike that I was constantly going downhill. So at the end of the day in camp, I stopped to look at the relatively elevations. It appears from the map that the entrance fo the Castle Rock State park has an elevation of approximately 3000 ft. In contrast, it appears that Waterman Gap Trail camp is located at an elevation of approximately 1400 ft. So I climbed down 1600 ft of elevation on day 1, and climbed up 1600 ft of elevation on day 2. Fortunately, due the way the human body adjusts to accommodate physical demands placed up it, my legs were better adjusted for the weight of the backpack on day 2, and the hike on day 2 was only marginally more difficult than the hike on day 1.

I arrived at the entrance to Castle Rock State Park at around 11 AM. Since I've never been to Castle Rock before, I was a bit surprised that Castle Rock wasn't staffed. I pulled out my GPS to confirm that the location (122,05,46 W; 37,13,52N) was indeed the main entrance to the park.
There were no rangers around. Instead, there's a hollow metal tube called the iron ranger that collects self registration fees. I registered myself and my car, placed my fees in the iron ranger, and started my hike at 11:14AM.

I took the Saratoga Gap trail to the Castle Rock Trail camp. Even though I was very fresh, the hike was a bit slow going since I was struggling to adjust to the weight of the 30+ pound backpack, and the sometimes challenging trail. As the picture shows, sometimes I had to scamper up and down some fairly large rocks. With the weight on my back and having to climb up and down the rocks, I just couldn't go very fast.

For the most part, I was going with the goal-oriented mindset of "completing the hike" as opposed to stopping and enjoying the scenery. Then again, sometimes one segment of the canopy covered forest trail just looks like any other segment of the canopy covered forest trail. So I didn't stop to really investigate every segment that looked like another segment. Sometimes when there is interesting scenery, I do stop and take a picture or two. In the case of the Saratoga Gap trail, it's mostly exposed trail with no canopy. The sun wasn't very kind. However, you do get some good view of the mountains.


Nearly an hour and half later and 2.8 miles from the Castle Rock parking lot, I walked into the Castle Rock Trail camp at 12:40AM. My black backpack is sitting on the bench. There's potable water at this location, so I needn't have brought all of my water. I could have lightened my load bring bringing only a bit of water to get me to this camp, then filled up here. However, the water here and at the Watermap Gap trail camp do have a bit of the metallic taste, and I don't quite like water to taste that way. In the future, I'll have to figure out if I want to bring my own filtered water and pay the weight cost, or drink the camp water.


Feeling rested, I packed up and left the Castle Rock Trail Camp around 1:04PM. I stopped in front of the sign to investigate which trail I should take. I took the Saratoga Gap trail (the middle trail). The trail here was under canopy and didn't have large rocks to climb over, so I made good progress. Unfortunately, that effort was wasted as I took a wrong trail and walked around in a short loop. At 1:35PM, I found myself walking right back into the Castle Rock Trail camp via the Frog Flat Fire Road trail. I was a bit shocked and dismayed as I saw the same water fountain and road sign that I had saw just 30 minutes ago. Sigh.

Back on the Saratoga Gap Trail. . .


An hour and half later, I walked by the Travertine Springs and decide to rest up. This location has many bamboo-like plants. I'm not sure what kind of plants they are, but they're more grass-like than bamboo I believe, since they are relatively short (5 ft tall or thereabouts), and the stems are rather weak as opposed to the long, skinny but hard bamboo stems. These plants appear to be unique to this location. I didn't see these plants anywhere else in the hike.

I didn't see any water pouring out of the ground, and I wasn't going to take any pictures at this location. However, after sitting down for 10 minutes, I noticed that the sign was rather interesting, since it said "Travertine Srings". I have no idea what an Sring is, and I'm not sure that many people do. More on the misspelling later.

After I left Travertine Springs, I walked down the Saratoga Toll Road Trail. I was frankly a bit concerned and puzzled as to why the trail was called a "Toll Road Trail". Given that they didn't even have the resources to staff entrance to Castle Rock State park, would they have a little booth in the middle of the park with a ranger there to collect toll for hikers walking on a "Toll Road Trail"? Or, could there be another iron ranger in the middle of the trail where you drop your fees into the iron ranger? How would a hiker know to bring his or her wallet into the middle of the park? How would they enforce the toll for a hiker that climbs 50 feet below and around the toll booth? I had a lot of questions. Fortunately, it seems that "Toll Road Trail" is only part of the name of the trail. There were no toll collectors anywhere to be seen.

After less than a mile on the Saratoga Toll Road Trail, I cut over to the Beekhuis Road trail to connect to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail. The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is the trail that connects to Big Basin state park, and eventually to the Pacific Ocean. So if I had the fortitude, I just had to stay another 30 miles on the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, and that would get me to the Pacific Ocean. For this hike, I decide to just stop overnight at the camp and turnaround on the second day.


On the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, I mostly kept my head down and marched on the trail. However, around point #4 on the map (not exactly sure, I only know that it was 1~1.5 miles from the Watermap Gap Trail camp), I was startled by some movement in the slopes below the trail. I looked down and was surprised by three deer scampering about. Even more surprising was that they were apparently resting next to an old abandoned car on the slopes below the trail. I was at first surprised to see a car in the park and wondered where it came from, but it was only a few seconds before the sound of the traffic in the slopes above the trail reminded me that this part of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail runs mostly parallel to a very twisty highway 9. A driver that loses control of his or her car can easily drive off of the road and end up in the park. However, I was surprised that the park didn't make the owner of the car pull the car out of the park, but instead left the car there to rot. Then again, it appears from the age of the car that the car may have been there for a while, so perhaps the powers-that-be didn't have the power at the time to get the owner to tow the car back out and the car remains there to this day.

At around 5:18PM, I stumbled into the Waterman Gap Trail camp. I dropped my backpack next to a tree, and went about to set up my tent.


About half an hour later, I set the tent up, and laid down on the sleeping bag. I was quite tired and dozed off. The next thing I knew, it was nearly 9 PM.

Feeling a bit rested more alert, I was now bothered by the very hard ground that I was sleeping on. A friend of mine, Russell had lent me some light padding material to place under the sleeping bag, but due to the bulk, I decided against bringing that material. I was now regretting the decision. I had to get up and construct a makeshift padding with my cloths, both clean and dirty. The layers of cloths made the ground slightly more tolerable, but as I twisted and turned, sometimes I slid off of the "pad". I think I will re-evaluate the decision about the pad if I do this again.

I couldn't sleep from about 9 PM to mid-night, but I couldn't do much else anyways, so I just laid down in my sleeping bag, feeling sticky all over, since there were no showers around. Finally, I got up and used a hand towel to towel myself down a bit. Since the water and the towel was cold, I first placed the wet towel in a zip lock bag, then wrapped the bag in a t-shirt and put the whole thing with me in the sleeping bag for half an hour. After that time, my body heat warmed up the wet towels just a bit to be a bit more tolerable. Then I tried to wipe down myself as much as I could. I can't say that the results were absolutely satisfactory, since all I can say was that I was "less sticky" after each wipedown. The problem was that after a bit of time, the hand towel would be saturated with sweat, so I had to wash the hand towel as best as I can, so the whole thing takes a bit of time to iterate.

Sometime after midnight, I finally fell asleep again despite the hard ground and the sticky skin. I had some weird dreams, including one where I "woke up" to find that my tent had been torn apart and my backpack and wallet stolen, and I was filing a report with a ranger, who told me they had arrested some people. Anyways, it was rather strange, and I'll just keep the details of this and other strange dreams to myself.

After I woke up around 8AM, I continued to lay in the sleeping bag until past 9 AM, listening to rain dripping on the tent. It rained a bit in the morning. Fortunately, the tent has a rain fly built in, and I didn't have to worry about getting wet in the tent. However, I didn't prepare for rain, and I was wondering how I would have to deal with hiking in the rain. I started to prepare some scenario where I would leave my backpack and most of the gear in the camp, and just hike with some water and no gear back to my car. Since the trail camp is no more than half a mile from a parking area on highway 9, I could then drive the car to the parking lot, hike the 0.5 miles back in the camp to get my backpack and the rest of the gear. I didn't want to try to hike nearly 10 miles in the rain unprepared. However, after I got out of the tent, it was clear to me that I needn't have worried. It was just few drops of morning rain, mostly from condensing fog. After the sun comes out, the few drops of rain stopped quickly and it was dry again.

I took my time to pack up and clean up, and started on my way back on the trail to my car at around 10:50AM. I saw the same car and presumably the same set of deer were near the car again - they must be nesting close to the car, which is strange considering how close the car is to a trail.

Despite the fact that I was now doing a lot more climbing, my legs had adjusted to the weight of my backpack, and I was hiking with much vigor. However, I missed the Beekhurs Road trail cutover to the Saratoga toll road trail, and it was nearly a mile later before I realized that I had missed the trail. When the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail came out next to a Fireroad right next to highway 9, I realized that I hadn't seen this part of the trail before. So I took out my GPS and confirmed that I was quite a bit off my trail path. Since I had already walked a mile past the cutover, I could continue on the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail, and take the much longer path back to my car, but the much longer path would add another 4 miles to the trek, so I decided to backtrack instead. The backtracking decision turned out to be a good decision, since the elevation climb and the pounding on my feet gradually took a toll on my body, and at the end of the day, I struggled to hike the last three miles back to my car. If I had decide to continue on the longer path back to my car, it would have meant a seriously long struggle to get back to my car.


After getting back to the Castle Rock Trail camp, I decided to take the Ridge Trail instead of the Saratoga Gap Trail back to the Castle Rock parking lot. The Ridge Trail took me next to the Goat Rock, which I presume was named because the rock looked like the head of a goat.



Finally, at around 5:20 PM, I got back to the parking lot to where my car was parked. I was rather tired, but I still had some energy to walk around without the backpack. Moreover, I remembered that the posting on the bulletin board had numerous spelling errors that I noticed on the first day. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I saw the sign in the park for "Travertine Srings", I made the mental note to come back and take a picture of this posting as well. Either the rangers are having some fun and making an Easter Egg hunt of spelling errors in Castle Rock, or the California state budget crisis have now forced the park system to forgo hiring rangers that can spell properly.

Exercise of the day: See if you can count the number of spelling errors on the posting in the picture.

After getting back to my apartment, I weighed myself, and I was surprised to find that I had lost 8 lbs in two days. However, I was quite dehydrated at the time, and after some food and water, I gained back 2 of the 8 pounds. Still, the 20+ miles of hiking with 30+ pounds of gear on my back, climbing up and down for two days is probably a more rigorous workout than anything you see on TV. However, I'm still thinking about whether to try a multi-day hike, or just to do long single-day hikes. Call me spoiled, but I can't honestly say that I enjoyed the sleeping on the hard ground or the no-shower aspect of the great outdoors experience.

More Visits to Big Basin

Since my last post on July 14, I've hiked 4 times more - thrice in Big Basin Redwood State Park, once in Sanborn Skyline County Park.

In Hike #3, I tried to extend the hike to a 15 mile hike. I hiked in the Big Basin Redwood State Park again, and I started on the Sunset Trail and went down on the Berry Creek Falls Trail. However, instead of cutting back across the Skyline to the Sea Trail, I tried to follow the Howard King Trail up to the Hihn Hammond Road and go up to the Mount McAbee overlook.


Unfortunately, as I followed the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail, I missed the trail turnoff to get onto the Howard King Trail. Instead, I followed the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail for an hour. Then, realizing that the Howard King Trail is supposed to be a strenuous climb as opposed to a leisurely hike down a broad trail, I turned back and found the entrance to the Howard King Trail - labelled as #1 on the map.


I was quite unhappy that I missed the trail, but after finding it, I can't say that the entrance was well labeled. Here is the view of the entrance to the Howard King Trail going from North to South. The entrance to the Howard King Trail is to the left. It was hard to see, and I walked right past it.



It wasn't until that I back tracked up the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail that I saw the entrance to the Howard King Trail. As can be seen by a hiker going northward on the trail, the entrance to the Howard King Trail is actually labeled!With the long detour on Hike #3, it was too late to try the Howard King Trail. So I went back for Hike #4, followed the Howard King Trail up to the Mount McAbee overlook, labeled as #2 on the map. Here's the picture I took on July 21 (Hike #4) at the overlook. The elevation for this point is shown as 1730 ft on the map, so the climb from Berry Creek falls to the overlook is from 400 ft to 1730 ft, a solid 1300+ ft climb.

Then, for hike #5, I walked from Saratoga Village to the Sanborn Skyline County Park, hiked up to Biddles Stairway, then back down to Saratoga Village. I think the roundtrip is about 15 miles or so, and the climb from Saratoga Village to Biddles Stairway is a 2000+ ft elevation climb. I was a bit sore after hike #5, but for the most part, my body has adjusted to the requirements of a rigorous hike.

Finally, I went back yesterday (Aug 2, 2009) and did the 11 mile Berry Falls Loop again - this would make it hike #6. It seems fairly ordinary hike, and I think I'm ready for something more rigorous now. Anyways, since this is my 5th time hiking the Berry Falls Loop (or the superset, as in hikes #3 and #4), there wasn't much new to write about. The lone exception was that I saw a Banana Slug in the middle of trail. When I first saw it, the Banana slug looked like a long, thin, sweet yellow bell pepper. I was wondering why someone left a bell pepper in the middle of the trail - seemed like an unusual snack to bring to a hike, and it just seemed a bit strange. Then I realized that the bell pepper was moving. As I knelt down, I see that it had a pair of eye stalks. Since it was just moving slowly, minding its own business, I took a few pictures and continued my hike.