15 posts tagged “california”
So with the regular mountain biking I've been doing, I was feeling pretty good about my ability to keep up with others. Until this evening. I was invited to ride up Roundabout, a beginner trail at Heavenly with a neighbor and some of her friends to see the sunset. It's a standing Friday night ride, and everyone rides at their own pace up the sandy fireroad to the top of Heavenly's Groove chair. It's a little over 1,700 feet of climbing from the Heavenly parking lot within a few painfully long miles. The views at the top are stunning. But the slog to get to it is akin to carrying stones up steep, sandy hills with every step forward resulting in two steps back. And it didn't help that every single person in tonight's ride is a ski instructor (at Heavenly, natch), which gives them magical powers riding up this grunt of a hill - I swear none of the broke a sweat and they were all singing the entire way up. I was dead last within 15 seconds, and I was definitely one of the youngest riders.
Truth be told the views on the climb up are breathtaking too, with more of Lake Tahoe visible around every switchback. The problem for me was that I was sweating so hard that I was essentially blinded for most of it. To top it off, I realized 3/4 of the way up that my hamstrings were screaming because I'd not extended my seat all the way - which for non-cyclists, is a sure way to crippling yourself.
The views at the top were lovely, and the descent was a fast fireroad of sand and hard switchbacks (yes, I was last on the downhill too. Call it a well-honed sense of self preservation, and a long-standing love affair with my brakes). But I realized that I am a singletrack aficionado, and while I'd climb that same elevation in a heartbeat on well-cut singletrack, I'm not so sure I'll ride Roundabout again anytime soon. But that might just be my sour grapes talking, seeing how I got smoked by a posse of ski instructors tonight.
Last weekend we attended the local roller derby team's first home bout. It was a great opportunity for me to see the rules of play in action, since I had seen and read about the game, but not seen it live. Before the bout began the announcer and teams ran through a demo 'jam' to show spectators what the game is about. I got it on film, with my shaky camera hand and all. A better video is the one that was put together by a local website, Tahoeticker. They had music and interviewed Sister Slayer, the president of the team. It's a good group of women who have really welcomed this (tattoo-less) noob, and I'm looking forward to actually playing a bout sometime soon.
This week Lake Tahoe finally received one of the epic storms that results in snow days, road closures and lots of snow shoveling. With 3-4 feet in a 24 hour period, and a storm total of around 8 feet, it's been a huge boon for the ski resorts, tourism industry and water supply. I'm pretty sure lots of locals called in sick yesterday, based upon the enormous crowd at the base of Heavenly's Gunbarrel chairlift. While I did pack my camera yesterday, I didn't take many photos, as I was too busy skiing the 3 feet of new snow. A few are below.
We're off to Mammoth tomorrow for a family ski trip. Heard that mountain got some snow too, so it should be a continuation of this week's fun.
While gas prices have dropped substantially in the past few weeks, I'm still embracing the mindset of minimizing driving wherever possible, especially for non-necessary (read: fun) things. N too. Thus we've begun to look at mountain bike trails that don't require us to drive to a trailhead, which is a seeming contradiction of terms, but was something we used to do more regularly.
Lucky for us, there's an enormous network of access trails that lead to some of the rides we used to drive to. So it's very easy for us to do a 3+ hour ride from our house, with minimal time on the pavement. Like this weekend's adventure. N even did it on his single speed 29er hardtail, which still means he's waiting for me, but now he actually *needs* to catch his breath. But he's still core enough to ride a log. And jump whatever other rocks are in or near the trail.
My sense of self-preservation is stronger than his. And my balance far worse.
While I'm hoping that the snow comes soon enough to make these lower-elevation trails unrideable, I think we'll have a few more weeks of access.
It's been a few weeks since I've gone hiking. Life, work and my boyfriend's injured foot meant more mountain biking and less time to commit to a long-distance nature walk.
So I was excited that I had Saturday to hike, and had grand plans to go to Lake Schmidell, located in the center of the Desolation Wilderness. I hadn't banked on the gray changeable weather that greeted me that morning, but figured that we (the dog and I) would go as far out as we could until the rain/snow/windstorms arrived. The early morning clouds did mean that I was rewarded with an awesome sunrise.
The brief bit of sun was quickly obscured by clouds, and then wind, and then some rain. I decided to turn back a few miles from Schmidell, instead taking a long loop back via Fontanellis Lake. It was there that I bumped into a few long distance trail runners, 2 middle aged guys with their dog who were running trails from Echo Lakes to Barker Pass along the PCT - 20 some odd miles? I was more impressed with their dog doing that run than with them, as that's a long distance for a dog. Soleil was more impressed with her stick than the dog.
While evidence of last week's storm is visible on the north facing slopes, it'll be awhile until Dick's Peak is truly skiable. I'm staying optimistic that we'll see another cold snap this month, as Tahoe's economy, so reliant upon tourism, could use an early and long winter season.
We made it back to the car right before the drizzle began in earnest, and while the Bayview parking lot had a number of cars in it, I only saw 3 groups of hikers - all in the last 3 miles - all day. Which exactly why I love hiking in the autumn.
It was only Monday last I looked. How did it become mid-September already?
The wind from our Labor Day trip to Mammoth must have pushed the time by all the quicker. It's quite versatile, that wind. Not only did it exfoliate my face with the help of the pumice that's native to Mammoth, but it kept thing exciting at our hotel, the Tamarack Lodge, by rattling windows and trees and gusting to ridiculous speeds (I heard 95 mph on the local weather).
Despite the unusual weather, it was refreshing to get out of Dodge for a weekend and enjoy some cooler temps, different scenery and see old friends. N had spent Saturday morning doing maintenance on the Ski Club Lodge (a keeping it real quonset hut perched on some prime Mammoth real estate), so we stole a few hours in the afternoon to do a short hike. That meant Mammoth frontcountry, which is polluted with people, many of whom have no clue about hiking etiquette. N had words with some retards who insisted on cutting the trail, and the idiots acted contrite but continued to do so until he caught up with them again. However, there was a lake within short distance which meant the dog could swim, so we suffered stupidity for her needs.
She amused the various groups of Japanese tourists (there were many) who weren't familiar with a dog prancing with a log.
Most people just hike to and from the lake, but we continued another half hour up the trail to the Mammoth Crest, which is well worth it for the views.
The best part of the hike was the descent - it took only 20 minutes to descend what took an hour to climb, and got us back to the Tamarack Lodge in time for cocktail hour.
It's been a smoky summer at Lake Tahoe, and the shifting winds and haze have made planning playtime a bit of a challenge. So when we saw that the weather was slated to be clear last weekend we agreed a longish mountain bike ride was in order. Since I'm not feeling all that bike-fit these days, N suggested a ride he termed as non-epic - ride the Tahoe Rim Trail from Stagecoach Lodge at Heavenly south west to Armstrong Pass and then head down to the lake and ride home - entirely on trails. The views are spectacular, with sweeping panoramas of Nevada at the beginning...
to wildflowers, gnarled juniper and murky lakes as we got farther along. As riding goes, it's not all that technical, just a lot of sand and quite a bit of elevation gain.
It ended up being around 28 miles with a mere 2,500 or so of climbing (this is not my definition of a non-epic ride). And while I surprised myself on all the climbs, by the time we hit mile 21 I realized that I was spent. And not all that interested in being in a bike saddle anymore, having spent nearly 6 hours in said seat. Let me tell you, getting off the bike when we reached the house was nearly as awesome as the hot shower right afterward. Nearly.
The east side of Tioga Pass road opened this week, allowing backcountry skier's access to hundreds, nay, thousands of acres of high-altitude terrain. With this annual rite of spring comes the requisite stop or stops at the Whoa Nellie Deli, perhaps the best gas station cuisine to be had in California, if not the Western U.S.
Thanks to a meeting change for N, we were able to get down there this weekend, and while the weather gods chased the sun away sooner than we expected today, we still found terrific corn snow off False White. And it's hard to complain when you start the day out like this.
Today is environmental blog action day, a day where we bloggers are drawing attention to the environment through our posts. Since I'm cynical and don't really see a viable solution to the mess we've created on this planet, I'm not one for solutions (don't procreate? vote democrat? neuter your pets?). I just play outside a lot and talk about it.
This weekend was no exception to my getting outside philosophy. With the faux in-laws in town, we headed down to June Lake for some good eatin', fall-color watching and bonding with my mother and stepfather who drove up from LA to meet us. The Eastern Sierra is absolutely glorious at this time of year. Vivid colors, cool temps, and in the case of this weekend, a dusting of snow over the peaks made it all the more spectacular. While N took his parents and my stepfather into Yosemite, my mom and I had dog duty, so we took the mutt for a hike in the Ansel Adams Wilderness via the Silver Lake trailhead. It was a 2600 foot climb to Gem Lake, and you can see how high you are for most of the trail, as it's entirely above treeline. With big peaks above us and large lakes below, combined with the odd glimpse of Mono or June Lake, we were awed by the expansive views that the Eastern Sierra is renowned for.
As happens in this part of the world, we encountered a few interesting characters on the hike back, including the South American guy who looked like a real junk-show, wearing a hard hat with headlamp and toting his possessions in various stuff sacks and handbags looped over his body. He must have been the one to drop his container of lighter fluid (?!) on the trail, which I promptly picked up to avoid encouraging stupidity in the backcountry. Even though fire danger is no longer extreme in this part of the world, campfires are verboten in wilderness areas, though many people blatantly ignore that rule.
