My 'REAL' Blog is Back in Business

I recently encountered some technical problems on my long-standing dan's outside blog which forced me to temporarily post here while I investigated alternative hosting options. I have now moved that blog to a new hosting service and I think I'll put a hold on updates here for now. 

So, please visit...

outside.danmitchell.org

If you have been reading this site at blogspot please wander on over to outside.danmitchell.org to see the "real thing," and subscribe to the RSS feed once you get there.

Thanks!

- Dan

Tuolumne Campground Opens

Yosemite Blog reports:

Tuolumne Campground Opens for Season - Tuolumne campground is now open and in operation. Sites are available on a first come-first served basis until July 14th when 1/2 the campground will be open for reservations.

Looks like good timing since I'll have some time during the first weeks of July.

A Backpack for Your Backpack

I saw post at Trailcraft today about the idea of taking a daypack along on your pack trips. This is not as wacky an idea as it might seem, at least if you take a few layover days and explore the surrounding terrain.

I used to carry pretty heavy "old school" internal frame packs. (Before that I used to carry really old school external frame packs, but that ancient history is a story for another time.) My favorite from that era was my gigantic Mountainsmith Crestone II - a capacious single compartment pack that was excellent in every way... except that it weighed around seven pounds. One nice feature of this pack - a brilliant feature, actually - was that the large top pocket converted into a functional fanny pack that could be used to haul just enough gear on most day trips away from base camp.

After I finally "saw the lite" and began to move to lighter equipment I picked up my current favorite pack, the Mountainsmith Auspex. Although not a true ultralight pack, it is about half the weight of the Crestone II. Its capacity is smaller, but sufficient for multi-day trips. Much of the weight savings comes from simplification (no side pockets, etc.) and lighter materials, but it still has an excellent, fully padded suspension system. When pressed, it can handle significantly more weight than the lightest ultra-light packs.

This pack is easily roomy enough for a 5+ day trip, but beyond that things get tight. Fortunately, Mountainsmith produce a small, attachable companion pack, the Boogeyman. It weighs in at only 1 pound, has a minimal but decent set of shoulder straps, and attaches nicely to the back of the Auspex. It is truly a minimal pack, though made of decently sturdy material matching the Auspex - there are not pockets whatsoever and a no stiffeners. But it is sufficient for summer day hikes away from camp since it can handle extra clothes, food and water, and a few other essentials.

It attaches to the back of the Auspex in a somewhat cumbersome manner, but it nicely extends the capacity of the pack such that I've done trips of up to 9 days with this setup and I think I could go longer. (I'll find out this summer on a 10-12 day trip in the southern Sierra.)

Unfortunately, the Boogeyman pack is no longer made, and I'm not sure that the Auspex is around any longer either. But there are other similar options out there that work more or less the same way, and I can report that it is a good strategy for both extending the range of your lightweight backpack and for carrying gear away from base camp.

Random Collection of Weekend Stuff

Outdoorsy thoughts on this early June weekend... that I'm spending indoors.

• About that "indoors" business... Two factors are conspiring to keep me inside on this beautiful feels-like-summer spring weekend. First, we're nearing the end of the term at the college where I teach and the grading and other work has been stacking up. So this weekend I did a grading marathon (almost finished!) and took care of some of the other administrative tasks needing attention. I thought I might get out for at least a brief urban hike, but alas.
  
• Two of my kids are graduating during the next week - a daughter from college (Go Kelsey!) and a son from high school (Go Jameson!) - so I'll be spending a lot of time on related family stuff during the next few weeks. It's all good!
  
• The foregoing aside, school is out at the end of June and then the summer is mine!
  

Meanwhile, in the blogging world...

• Tom at Two-Heel Drive posts another dry run for one of his upcoming articles in the Mercury-News this one about hiking at big basin state park. His newspaper articles tend to be quite short, so catch the pre-story at his site - it is more extensive and includes a lot of photographs...


• Speaking of which, Tom's photography has really improved a lot. I enjoyed his trail snap shots from the beginning, but his recent photographs have become quite nice as photography. Nice work, Tom!

OK, I'm done now. Back to grading. :-)

What is Fun?

A post at my favorite oboe player's blog got me thinking about the notion of fun today and why I love to do things that are sometimes quite hard and challenging:

I don't always go to movies to have fun. I don't go to concerts to have fun either. I have fun when I go to Disneyland. (And I admit I love Disneyland ... sorry to those of you who don't get it! I become a little kid the minute I walk through that gate!)

I go to movies, concerts and operas to be moved. I go to learn something new. I go to somehow be changed. I go for a variety of reasons, but fun isn't usually one of them. (Okay, maybe when I go to see goofy movies, but those are fairly rare for me.)

I want to be left with something when I am done with whatever event I'm attending. I love it when, days later, I'm still thinking about what I saw or heard. And I want to feel something ... even if it's anger. I don't like to walk away thinking, "Whatever" or "So what?"

It occurs to me that is pretty much why I'm willing to carry a large, heavy backpack up and down over high and difficult mountain passes, sometimes for more than a week at a time. If the definition of fun is "smiling broadly or laughing outloud because, gee, I'm just plain having a good old time," then backpacking, most of the time, doesn't qualify. (Though sometimes, with the right group of friends, sitting around in the evening doing whatever it is we do does qualify as plain old fun!)

But the experiences do teach me (often about myself), move me, stay on my mind, and most certainly leave me changed in ways that are worth any amount of sweat and pain.

Well, almost any amount... :-)

Two Riders, Calero Hills

Two Riders. Calero Hills, California. June 2, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

Three Trees and Trail, Calero Hills

Three Trees and Trail. Calero Hills, California. June 2, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

Purisima Creek Redwoods and More

At Two-Heel Drive today, an extensive post about hiking at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. And the best part? The prettiest photo of an outhouse I've ever seen. Really. Follow the link to the article to see what I mean.

Deep in the woods at Purisima. Summertime's upon us in Silicon Valley and I've finally gotten it into my had that it's not necessary to spend every weekend sweating through dusty trails on hills that have gone from green to brown. Along the Santa Cruz Mountains nearest the Pacific Ocean, everything's green as all get out -- heck, there's even mud on the trails in a few parks.

One such park is Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, a few thousand acres of second-growth redwood forest that is one of the coolest hiking locales in these parts, temperature-wise and vibe-wise. It's on Highway 35, Skyline Boulevard, west of San Mateo, a bit of a haul from San Jose at over 30 miles, but worth the drive... [Two-Heel Drive]

A Couple Noteworthy Two-Heel Drive Posts

Tom of Two-Heel Drive shared a couple of posts that caught my eye yesterday. First, he reports that...

The Walkies. Elizabeth King, keeper of the Walktopia blog, dropped me an e-mail this morning reporting she had named Two-Heel Drive the Best Hiking Blog...

Congratulations, Tom!

Then, he tips his dusty and a bit sweaty hiking hat to one of my favorite Pacific Coast (heck, American) authors, Wallace Stegner and includes some of Stegner's words about the value of wilderness...

Found this link to his "Wilderness Letter" at the WTA blog.

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. Without any remaining wilderness we are committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life, the Brave New World of a completely man-controlled environment. We need wilderness preserved--as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds--because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it. It is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our insane lives. It is important to us when we are old simply because it is there--important, that is, simply as an idea.

John Muir's Footsteps

SFGate:

... a Santa Cruz couple are hoping to restore some popularity to one of the classic early views of Yosemite, reopening a 19th century door on what Muir came to regard as a holy vista -- the "sanctum sanctorum of the Sierra."

Donna and Peter Thomas, a husband-and-wife team of artists who spend most of their time producing hand-bound fine-press books, have rewalked a long-forgotten trail from San Francisco to Yosemite that Muir took, also mostly on foot, for his first Sierra visit in 1868. The couple spent two days last week on the last -- and certainly most spectacular -- segment of the trail into the valley, the culmination of a guidebook they're writing to help others follow Muir's footsteps.

Eventually, they'd like to see directional signs and even overnight accommodations along the 300-mile route they are calling "John Muir's trans-California ramble" -- as reminders of the continuing power of Muir's legacy and his infectious love of Northern California's outdoors.

"In 20 years, hundreds of people could be doing at least parts of this trip, maybe thousands," Peter Thomas said as he and his wife walked the last portion with a Chronicle reporter and photographer.

The full article is worth a read... and the whole trail sounds like it might be worth the walk!

Putting their lives on the line to keep others safe in Yosemite

A story in SFGate about Yosemite Search and Rescue:

Once little more than a rag-tag group of climbers who volunteered to help rangers in emergencies, a separate search and rescue program was established by the park service in Yosemite in 1974. It is now a force of at least a dozen highly trained technicians, with support from 20 expert rock climbers, nearly 100 park rangers and dozens of specialists -- from scuba divers to search dogs -- who are on call when circumstances demand.

There is plenty of demand. There were 219 search and rescue operations in Yosemite National Park last year, 216 in 2005 and 207 in 2004. That's approximately 40 more missions every year than a decade ago, park officials said.

Three Trees, Calero Hills

Three Trees. Calero Hills, California. June 2, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

A photo from my National Trail Days hike.

Greenland ice melt speeds up

SFGate:

NASA scientists reading signals from a satellite in orbit, and flying aboard a low-flying plane over Greenland, are finding fresh evidence of melting snows and thinning glaciers in vast areas of the massive island.

Their observations confirm the climate's warming trend in the far northern reaches of the world, they say, where changes in the circulation of waters feeding into the Arctic Ocean are altering crucial patterns of ocean currents there with effects that are increasingly uncertain.

The pace of glaciers sliding into the sea along Greenland's southwestern coast "is speeding like gangbusters this year," said William Krabill, leader of a NASA team that has just ended a three-week airborne mission probing glacier dynamics with lasers and radar.

National Trail Day - No Excuses!

Tom Mangan posts a reminder - and a call to action:

Reminder: National Trails Day is tomorrow. ... For all you Nor-Cal folks, the Bay Area Ridge Trail organization has a bunch of stuff happening tomorrow. The Santa Clara County Open Space Authority also has a little shindig happening in south San Jose.

Here's a Goggle News search of Trails Day events.

Now you have no excuses not to be hiking tomorrow. [Two-Heel Drive]

I see that there is some sort of event in the South Bay at a park I sometimes visit - I may just pop over there via a little hilly route from Calero Park.