Guides and Trips in United States
Trips
Las Trampas Regional Wilderness/The Devil's Hole
San Ramon, California, United States
Hiking | 6.7 miles
Hiking | 6.7 miles
This hike is a real cardio workout and one that is easy to under-estimate. It involves a steep climb up the hill, a sharp descent down the other side followed by (if you ever wish to see your car again, another even steeper climb back up and a cruelly indirect descent (if you can call it that) back to the car. The total vertical was about 3,000 feet.The hike begins on the paved...
During our Alaska Cruise we took a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad from Skagway up to the Canadian border and back. This was the most spectacular train ride I've ever been on. The route paralleled the trail taken by miners heading for Dawson in 1898 and in some places the trail was still visible. The GPS appeared to suffer from a case of high-altitude sickness but even so, the...
With a few hours to kill before our scheduled train trip up White Pass, I decided to get out on my own and do a little hiking in the hills surrounding Skagway. After crossing the RR tracks and starting up the trail it didn't take long for it to occur to me that hiking alone in the state with more dangerous animals per capita than any other might not be the wisest...
This summer we decided to bite the bullet and take a cruise to Alaska. By all accounts the weather was ideal and we all had a great time. The whole 'land of the midnight sun' concept never really sunk in for me until I went four days without seeing a dark sky. I will be posting separate tracks for a hike in Skagway and a train trip on the White Pass &...
Okay, so I'm a couple months late in posting this one. The first couple miles from the east end of the Ohlone Wilderness Trail are a real workout. I've come to refer to it as the Zombie Deer Trail because of the deer carcass that always seems to be in a different location every time I see it. Truth be told I think I'd rather deal with zombies than what I really...
A lazy Sunday ramble up on Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. It's been several years since I've been up there and I have forgotten how stunningly beautiful it is. I particularly enjoyed stopping at the fruit stand for some awesome strawberries on the way home.
Monday was a great day for a hike on Mt. Diablo, even though
the sky was a bit hazy. The temperature was perfect (about 70) and the wildlife
was out in abundance. We saw two different species of snake that I had never
seen except in pictures and even though the grass is starting to turn brown,
there is a tremendous amount of wildflowers that more than made up for it.
I ended up taking so many...
Yesterday four adults, three three-year-olds, and two dogs set out to visit Brushy peak. Stephan & I did this hike back in January when it was fogged in at lower elevations and gorgeous once we climbed out of the fog. Back then everything was green but at some point in the last week or so I must have blinked and the hills turned brown when I wasn't looking. Even so, this was a...
Aside from losing my cell phone somewhere along the way and spending over an hour picking 15 (so far) ticks out of Sheila's coat, this was an unexpectedly neat hike. The trail doesn't seem to be used too much as in some places the grass totally covered the trail. The hills were surprisingly green for this time of year and there were lots of different wild flowers to see. A pair of...
This is our first trip back to Sunol Regional Wilderness since the rains began back in January and what a difference a couple months has made! The hills are amazingly green and the flowers are starting to bloom. The hike up Flag Hill is fairly short but it's good exercise and leads to one of the best views in the Bay Area (that doesn't have a bridge in it). There have been...
Shell Ridge Open Space_Briones/Mt. Diablo Trail - Borges Ranch - Ridge Top Trail
Walnut Creek, California, United States
Hiking | 5.7 miles
Hiking | 5.7 miles
After weeks of rain and cabin fever it was time to get back out on the trail. A group of about 40 hikers from the East Bay Casual Hiking Group headed out to Shell Ridge Open Space for a hike to Borges Ranch and back. Hike leader Andrew guaranteed dry trails and sunny skies so of course we all brought our best boots & gear. Okay, I admit it, despite the mud the...
Short, scenic and semi-strenuous. That, combined with the fact that it's right outside my hometown of Livermore, makes this one of my favorite hikes. A few years back I hiked to Alamere Falls at Point Reyes and came to the painful realization that I was sadly out of shape and in need of some exercise. To get in shape, my neighbor, Stefan & I started hiking this trail every weekend. At first...
A week after climbing Diablo and five days after getting my new eTrex Venture HC, Stefan & I decided to do something a little less demanding so we opted to try Brushy Peak Regional Preserve northeast of livermore. We decided to try the 4+ mile Brushy Peak Loop Trail and started out from the trailhead at about 1:00 p.m., once again in a cold miserable fog. We were encouraged by other hikers...
