A day in the Foothills

Cooked myself a nice pre-marinated juicy steak from JJ&F's at Foothills Park for a barbecue organized by Joe and Angela. After leaving there I decided I needed to do some exploring, so I headed up Page Mill Road a little ways to Foothills Open Space Preserve. Lucky for me there was one parking spot left of the two designated for this small preserve. Coincidentally, I happen to have my GPS and knew of two geocaches in this preserve. The half-mile trail leading to the grassy knoll was easy enough, as was the first cache.



The rest of the trail leading to the second cache was, shall we say, not currently maintained. It was obviously a well used trail at some point in time, judging by the well worn rut, but the dense brush and trees that had since grown over it made for an interesting hike/crawl. My GPS batteries gave out while crawling through an overgrown tree about 500 feet from the second cache. By this point I felt committed to finding it, or rather I wanted something to show for all my scratches and scrapes. I figured I could roughly gauge the distance on the trail and that with the dense foliage it couldn't be that far off the trail, if there was a trail left by then. Thankfully right about the time I was ready to turn around, or try bushwhacking a new route back, I found it. I opted for the known route back and found it fairly uneventful, except for the baby rattlesnake I nearly stepped on.

In The Studio

Laid down lead and rhythm guitar tracks on Angie's song Movin' Out. She's been recording several of her songs at A&D Studios in Sunnyvale with Andy Deguara. I had a lead part all worked out but ended up having to make up most of it on the fly because the initial rhythm track was already recorded in a previous session. Re-recording a new section would be too hard to match the tone. After that Angie laid down some conga percussion on two other songs of hers. Andy was really great to work with. I may have to record some of my songs here to add to a Dirty Edelweiss album.

White Water Rafting

Ahh Yeahhh!


Ready to put in at Coloma.
l to r: Dave, Julie, Katie, Adrian, Glen, Erin and myself


Dave, Katie and I jump around.


Chillin' at the end of the run.
l to r: Adrian, myself, Julie, Erin, Glen and Katie


A little deflated afterwards.

Condors at Pinnacles

Volcanoes were one of my favorite subjects in elementary school and Pinnacles National Monument is one of my favorite places currently, partly because Pinnacles is half of an ancient volcano (the other half is somewhere near LA) and partly because this is where I got hooked on rock climbing. But this adventure to Pinnacles with my mom and two brothers John and Steve was to hike to a spot where we could hope to see some California Condors.

Currently there are only 280 California Condors in the world. Of these, 135 are wild and of those, 15 are flying around Pinnacles. Today was a release event open to the public for up to five more juvenile condors but unfortunately they didn't feel like leaving their pen today. Fortunately for us there were several wild condors flying around near the pen.

At first it was hard to tell if we were seeing any condors or not as we looked through our binoculars to the ridge across from the viewing area. With a six foot wing span, Turkey Vultures are big birds and look very similar to a condor. But with a nine foot wingspan for the condor, it was easy to tell what we were looking at when these two birds glided around in circles near each other.

A little Kelvinite

Well my good buddy Kelvin has gone off and become a daddy. The good news is that he picked a good woman to be the mom, Susie. The result of this great adventure is little Simon Andrew Ning. All this puts a big smile on my face and I look forward to seeing the little guy soon.

Super Diamond

GO SEE SUPER DIAMOND!!!

Now some might say, "Surely, he can't be serious?"

Yes, I'm serious. For reals. Serious. ...and stop calling me Shirley.

It doesn't even matter if you like Neil Diamond or not (be forewarned though, you may find yourself checking out iTunes after the show). These guys rock and they know how to put on a show. That's all there is to it.

They're from San Francisco, they've been around since 1993 and I can't believe no one made me go see these guys already (major props to Colleen for putting the email out about this show). So I feel I must shout out to the world one more time,
GO SEE SUPER DIAMOND!!!

This show was paricularly choice as Bay Meadows was having their dollar night so the ambiance and the venue made the show all the more surreal (how often do you see a show that breaks every 20 minutes so everyone can go outside and watch a live horse race?!). To make it even more surreal and truly random, I kept thinking the bass player looked really familiar. It wasn't till around the second to last song that I noticed he was playing a five string bass and I remembered him as one of the counselors from boy scout camp, Camp Oljato. I'd brought an acoustic guitar my senior year and I remember jamming with this guy, Andy, because he had a five string bass. Random!

Love Is Chemicals

So I was looking online for some good live music in the city and came across my friends' band, Love Is Chemicals. I met a girl named Jenny last week who lives in the city and she said she likes live music so she was a good sport and checked out the show with me at Hemlock Tavern. The opening band was very, shall we say, amusing. I had to wonder if they were even legal to be in the bar. I just smiled and clapped for them remembering that I'd done some pretty embarrassing performances in my time. Love Is Chemicals was painfully (or pleasantly if you were in the audience) more rehearsed of a band than the opener and has come up with some great San Francisco pop material. I'd listened to some of their stuff on MySpace and liked their mellow pop sound. Playing it live they added a nice energy to it. I think the last time I saw them live was when they opened for Civil War Moustache at a new year's eve party back in 2001. They've matured nicely as a band. It's cool to see them still at it and it appears they are gaining some success. They go on a mini tour of the northwest in a few weeks and are releasing another album soon.

Gossip Rock

Me and my favorite jacket

Today's goal was to find the crash site of ill fated United Flight 615 in the east bay hills above Union City. I read about this 1951 plane crash a couple years ago and have wanted to find the location ever since. I found the exact coordinates of the crash site on www.geocaching.com just this past week. I also found coordinates for a brand new geocache nearby that was yet to be found called Gossip Rock. 'First To Find' was still up for grabs, very enticing!

The hills in the east bay are mostly grass and lack the tree cover that the Santa Cruz Mountains have so the views of the bay were spectacular as I gained elevation, rather quickly, hiking through Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park. I chose a ridge I thought was most likely to get me to my goal but after a lot of climbing I began to realize Flight 615 would be on the ridge just to the south of me. As I reached the top of the ridge I was climbing, Gossip Rock was clearly visible not more than a quarter mile south of me on a clear posted trail. I hadn't seen anyone since the ranchers herding cows a mile or so below so I had the whole ridge to myself. Gossip Rock is a big pile of rocks with a nice canopy of trees which makes for a nice shady rest spot on a ridge that is otherwise completely open.

It didn't take too long to find the ammo box cache cleverly hidden among the rocks. I signed the first page of the empty log book and noted how beautiful the morning was with views of the bay below and lizards playing on the rocks around me. I lounged on the rocks for a few minutes and then decided I should head out if I wanted to make it home in time to take a shower before going into work at 1PM. After a slight detour and some birdwatching I quickly made it back to my car. Flight 615 would have to wait for a different day.

It's a boy!

The latest ultrasound pics from Christofer and Devan Bradshaw:

Here's the little guy at 22 weeks.


Yep. It's a boy alright.

Return to Black Mountain

I think Stephanie was secretly jealous of my trip to Black Mountain a couple weeks back so she organized her own trip and was nice enough to invite me. This time we managed to enjoy the sunset while hiking up to camp instead of while driving to the parking lot, mainly due to Daylight Saving Time. Alan covered most of the two mile uphill dirt trail to camp on his unicycle. Bryan still joined us after dark but since he'd been there before I didn't go searching for him this time. Alan tried to introduce us to some card game called Killer Bunnies, but I think we enjoyed reading the cards more than playing game. We strolled to the very top of the mountain and gazed out at the lights of the south bay before calling it a night under the stars.

TNF Product R&D (aka: retail camping)

Claire and I decided to do some product testing at work. She is 5'1" so she wanted to see if the Blue Ridge kids sleeping bag designed to accommodate up to 5'0" would work out. It fit her with barely an inch to spare ...which she didn't.

I tried out the Pyxis sleeping bag inside the Bullfrog tent with a Therm-a-Rest ProLite 3 and Compressible Pillow. The Pyxis, which is filled with PrimaLoft, rated to 0˚F and weighs 3 lbs. 6 oz. kept me quite cozy and toasty. I own and use the ProLite 3 all the time and love it, unless I am sleeping at 10,000 feet on top of snow, in which case I think I would want the ProLite 4 next time. I also think I need to pick up one of the Compressible Pillows for general camping. Keeping my head elevated prevents my zees from preventing a tent-mate's zees ...if you catch my drift.

Our little adventure was going splendidly and we were accomplishing so much valuable product research ...until a customer walked in the store.

Sunday drive

Went to the King's Beach ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the second week in a row. Wonder if anyone recognised me from last week even though I was with a different group of about a dozen friends.

Glen, Julie, Chris and I decided to take the scenic trip home so we headed south on Highway 89 around the west side of the lake to Highway 88 and homeward. We stopped for a scenic lunch above a frozen lake and enjoyed reading questions from the book, 4,000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone and Everyone by Barbara Ann Kipfer.

About five minutes after getting home my mom called to see if I wanted to go to a cello concert. Vicky Wang, a rather accomplished cellist who completed formal training at Juilliard, played a phenomenal concert of pieces by Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Saint-Saens and Rachmininoff. Russ Hancock, who puts together these occasional Sunday evening Ensign Street Concerts accompanied her on piano. It was quite a treat.

...more Tahoe

Another weekend in King's Beach at Lake Tahoe. This time around was a lot less ambitious and consisted of walking along the lake shore with Glen, Erin and Christina, driving Christina to the Reno airport, cruising downtown Reno with Glen in the middle of the day, reading a book about Stephen Hawking, napping (no relation to choice of book), Erin's chocolate chip cookies, homemade dinner with a dozen friends, swimming in the 90˚F pool, every one one of us jumping in the 40˚F lake, running back to the 90˚F pool, meditating in the sauna, dominoes and topping the day off watching The Goonies.

Tahoe

I may or may not have decided last minute to head up with some friends to spend the weekend at Tahoe in King's Beach. Saturday morning Beth, Tiara and I headed out to do some snowshoeing. We stopped at Tahoe Dave's where Tiara rented snowshoes and Beth and I chatted with some guy working there about good places to go snowshoeing ...as we were leaving we realized this guy was none other than Tahoe Dave himself!

We headed up Highway 431 to some meadows that seemed to be the place to sled, snowmobile and hopefully snowshoe. We found some snowmobile tracks heading up the hill and into the trees and followed them for a ways before picking our way up the hill to a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe.

Beth and Tiara decided to head back into town for things like massages and walks along the lake. I decided to head up to the Mt. Rose summit pullout, strap on the MSR Denali Evos and go exploring. Two hours later I was standing on top of a peak just south of Mt. Rose looking at Reno to the northeast and Lake Tahoe to the southwest.

Jasper Ridge

Today I had the privilege of hiking a couple miles around Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Ever since I saw Searsville Lake on a map in high school I wanted to explore the area. Unfortunately for me it is not open to the general public, which is a good thing for the preserve.

Once, in about 1995, when I worked a construction job nearby, I noticed the gate was open as I was driving home from work. I made a quick decision to pull in and park next to several other cars and proceeded to start hiking on a marked trail. I passed a couple Stanford field trips but just smiled and said hi, acting as if I knew what I was doing. I really didn't have much of a clue as to where I was going but I did want to find the dam and I knew that I was downriver of it in a steep narrow little valley. I rounded a turn in the valley and was awestruck to see the steep faced 100' concrete dam in front of me. It seemed so out of place in comparison to any other shallow dirt and rock dams in the area that I had seen. I would have liked to explore more but didn't want to push my luck.

In talking to my mom after this adventure she told me that she brought me to Searsville Lake as a baby when it was open as a local recreation area. Apparently sand was trucked in from Santa Cruz to make a little beach area and there was a concession stand too. I have no recollection of this at all so I'm guessing I was younger than three.

Fortunately for me my new friend Jaimie, who recently joined us at The North Face, did her undergraduate work at Stanford and is a lifetime docent for Jasper Ridge. Which leads to my privileged hike today. After growing up in this area and exploring every bit of local open space I could get to it was quite exciting to hike several miles over a 100' dam, past natural bat caves, along an untouched creek, through redwood groves, up a ridge, across a meadow and through a small delta. All of which I had never even seen before today!

I love the outdoors and I love exporing new places, so thank you Jamie!

Hiking at Monte Bello

Woke up warm and toasty atop Black Mountain inside my Mountain Hardwear down sleeping bag and Kelty tent. Alice, Jared, Amy, Bryan and I fired up some hot water on the camp stove for our power breakfast of maple and brown sugar oatmeal and hot chocolate. Then we packed up and headed back to the parking lot to meet up with a group of eight or so friends who wanted to hike on the beautiful Saturday morning.

Alice, Jared and Amy headed off while Bryan and I dumped our packs and headed out with the anxious group. We did a nice five mile loop down to Stevens Creek, climbed to the very top of Black Mountain and then made our way back to the parking lot.

Camping on Black Mountain

I was hoping to watch the evening's rather beautiful sunset as we hiked the two miles up to the campsite but we ended up watching it as we drove up Page Mill Road. The last bit of light faded as Amy and I hoisted our packs and started on the trail. Thankfully my brand new, unwrapped from the package in the parking lot, Tikka Plus headlamp (batteries included!) was up to the task.

As I scanned ahead for the trail and the reflection of any eyes peering back at us, I informed Amy what to do if we happened to run into a mountain lion (make lots of noise and fight back if attacked). Around the next bend I stopped Amy to point out a set of eyes a short distance off the trail ahead. Then a second set of eyes turned towards us as I barely made out the shape of their heads. Oh deer.

Further on we rounded another bend to see about 20 sets of deer eyes looking back at us from the hillside across a dark ravine. I figured the odds were against us for seeing any mountain lions with this many deer casually snoozing in the open. Oh well.

The campsite was hard to miss with the payphone beside the trail. Dropping our packs in the dark and with no rush to set up camp we quickly tore into our fresh deli sandwiches from JJ&F Market. Oh yeah.

Now that that was taken care of I figured we should maybe be concerned about Alice, Jared and Bryan finding us. None of them had ever been here and there were several junctions on the trail to the camp. We didn't have to go very far back before spotting their bobbing headlamps.

No campfires are allowed in the preserve so we fired up our stoves for some nice warm cups of hot chocolate to go with our E.L. Fudge cookies. Yummy treats, lights of the bay below us, the stars above, good company and good laughs. Amazing what a 20 minute drive and a two mile hike can give you.

Foothills Park

A casual day hike at Foothills Park with my co-worker from The North Face, Lee, and his friends James and Amanda.

Yosemite

So the plan Saturday was for Katie, Kim, Erika, Christina, Johannes, Glen and I to go to Yosemite and go cross-country skiing. If there was not enough snow for that we would go snow-shoeing. But seeing as there was not enough snow for that either we went for a hike to Mirror Lake for lunch. Before that we took a short detour to check out Bridal Veil falls. Johannes and Katie both got their feet wet here. I managed to join the club by breaking through two inches of ice at Mirror Lake.

We stayed Saturday night at The Yosemite View Lodge in El Portal a short drive outside the park and enjoyed amenities such as the hot tub. Early Sunday morning Kim, Katie, Erika and Johannes drove home leaving Christina, Glen and I to sleep in a bit longer. The three of us enjoyed a delightful church meeting at the Mariposa branch of the LDS church on the way home.

HOT!

There's a lot more where that came from...

Erin's Birthday

Erin had a birthday so we decided it would be fun to spend the night at her family's house in Placerville and go skiing. It turned out to be a grand idea and a lot of fun. Erin's parents were delightful, they even cooked us a steak dinner after we got back from the slopes - how cool is that?! The snow was perfect at Sierra At Tahoe and there were no crowds. Katie was out of commission, so to speak, so she stayed in the lodge and made us PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Someone stuck a candle in a Hostess Cupcake and we quickly and quietly sang Erin Happy Birthday!

I'm Going To Be An Uncle!

Here's the ultrasound pics from our first appointment. We are 10 weeks along so our projected due date is Aug. 3rd. The ultrasound tech said everything looks good, all the parts are there.

We love you all

Devan And Christofer