On the Road Again

It’s been a long time since I last posted, but the weather here in California this fall hasn’t exactly been conducive to blog writing. It’s been so beautiful that I haven’t been able to stay inside long enough to write! Even this weekend, when we were finally supposed to get some rain, the sun forced its way out.

See what I mean? It's too beautiful to stay inside

We kicked off autumn with a weeklong trip to Yellowstone back in September, our big excursion of the year and our first seriously long road trip together. Though we didn’t have much (OK, anything) planned, I wasn’t too worried. Owen always seems to luck out when it comes to finding places to stay and things to do last-minute. The first day we drove through the Sierras over Donner Pass, across the Nevada emptiness, into Utah past the Bonneville Salt Flats, and settled for the night at a campground along the shore of Great Salt Lake. 

En route to Salt Lake City

The next day we drove through Idaho and Montana and into the west entrance of Yellowstone. Within minutes of being in the park we saw bison and a fox. I was immediately hooked. We snagged a backcountry permit, only after watching a twenty  minute video detailing all the horrors we might run into in the backcountry. We arrived at our backcountry site just before the sun set. 

This greeted us at our campsite

The next morning, two park rangers on horses checked our permits. The encounter was great for two reasons: one, Owen and I realized that’s our dream job, and two, they gave us great advice about where to spend our next few nights in the backcountry. Oh yeah, and one of the rangers pronounced “creek” as “crick” which is the first time I've ever heard someone seriously pronounce it that way.

We hitchhiked to a new trailhead in a car full of old fly fishermen and spent the next three days even deeper in the backcountry, hiking along Cache Creek with a mountain looming over us named “The Thunderer.” The first night, we didn’t make it to camp until after dark and were utterly exhausted, so tired that Owen said he’d sleep in the bear box if it was possible. The next morning, along with most other mornings, I awoke to frost on my sleeping bag. Apparently it had gone straight from summer to winter. On our hike that day, I realized how remote this corner of the park really was: we saw more bison than people. The best part of the backcountry hike was the last morning, as we were about to start our hike, a herd of bison crossed the river that we were camped along and continued onto the trail we needed to take. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see wildflowers still in bloom

The herd of bison that beat us onto our trail

As we approached our car, we encountered more and more people and I realized we were effectively out of the backcountry and starting the next phase of our trip: touring Yellowstone’s frontcountry. We hid our dank hiking clothes in deep recesses of our car, cleaned 4 days of grime off ourselves in showers with advertised unlimited hot water, and toured Mammoth Hot Springs that night. We capped off the night by watching a very high strung male elk control his group of females.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs- this reminded me of an orange creamsickle

We attempted to see everything else in the park the next day. It started out great: we toured the Norris Geyser Basin early that morning, then checked out the geothermals along Yellowstone Lake. By the time we made it to Mud Volcano and Sulphur Canyon, we were totally geothermalled out. When we arrived at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, we were utterly relieved to look at something beautiful that wasn’t geothermal. On our drive back to our campground that night, we received some inspiration in the form of a mother moose and her two babies crossing a river.

Hot springs along Yellowstone Lake

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

Our revitalizing moment

The next morning, our last in Yellowstone, we finally saw Old Faithful. Truth: I was more in awe of the Old Faithful Inn (picture a gorgeous log cabin on steroids) than of the eruption of Old Faithful geyser itself. We totally touristed out and explored the Inn and the plentiful gift shops. The last thing we saw in the park and the feature I was probably most excited for, as it graced the cover of our Yellowstone guidebook was Grand Prismatic Springs. The verdict? This was even better in real life than in the photos.

The grandaddy of hot springs: Grand Prismatic

Our route home took us through Grand Teton National Park. We probably could’ve spent a week in that park but we made the best of our half day. We did a short hike along Jenny Lake, enjoyed our first thunderstorm in ages, and got dinner in the town of Jackson. This area truly felt like the wild west.

Travel weary but enjoying our day in Grand Teton NP

Believe it or not, the next day we drove all the way home from Jackson, WY to San Jose, CA. We had planned to camp out near Owen’s cabin in Elko, NV but the place had been completely vandalized. Plus, we were completely over camping after 8 days of it. We were both filthy, as it had been days since the single shower we took on the trip. So, we pushed through to CA. The only thing that kept us awake through the night was reading my sister’s and Madeline’s blogs out loud… for hours. Overall, the trip was unbelievable. But we were both so grateful to be back in our apartment, with soap and running water, not living out of a tent.  

Owen's cabin

A few weeks later we were itching to camp again. We headed to Yosemite on a three-day weekend in October to try to snag permits to hike Half Dome right before the cables came down for the season. Unfortunately, we were thwarted yet again, but instead we backpacked around a lovely area called Ten Lakes.

After a several mile long uphill grind, we finally spot a lake

As Owen likes to say, this state is God’s etch a sketch, and Highway One through Big Sur had been closed until recently from last year’s storms and fires. With it finally open again, we headed down last weekend. We pulled into our campground at the fine hour of 1 A.M. (Owen had been on a National Guard mission until late Friday night) and spent the weekend relaxing amongst the redwood trees and driving the coast. We saw surfers braving the gnarly waves, whales, and the famed McWay Falls, which cascades directly into the ocean.

Besides our latest trips, things are going well with me: I’ve finally started trail running again after a months-long hiatus and work is chugging along nicely. Unfortunately, Owen's department changed direction and terminated his position. He’s still figuring out exactly what he wants to do next. In the meantime, it has been nice for us to be able to meet up for lunch, to both ‘work’ from home on Fridays, and to overall spend more time together. He was also able to help out the National Guard with two missions recently, one of which involved driving a tractor trailer through downtown Los Angeles. Go figure.

  He

I will end on this note: at Point Reyes National Seashore a few weeks ago, we spotted this fox lounging in the sun in an old farm building. What a way to spend a sunny fall afternoon. I might do something of the sort next weekend. 

Come One, Come All

Since I posted last in June, we’ve been going almost nonstop, starting with letting my little sister crash on our couch for six weeks as she worked remotely for a summer internship with Sprint. Owen and I led her in a crash course in all things California. A few highlights:

Early one Saturday morning in July, we arrived in Yosemite and nabbed a coveted first-come, first-serve backcountry permit. That allowed us to give Kelli the grand tour of Yosemite while (mostly) avoiding the crowds and traffic. That first day we spent a pleasant few hours meandering through the forest and ran into almost no one. That night we camped caveman style- under the stars, on a rock on the edge of this huge ravine with a river down below and had a big roaring fire to keep away beasts. The next morning we hiked out to the Yosemite Falls overlook. The views of the falls were so gorgeous that at one point I shrieked so loudly that Kelli thought I had seen a dead body. After we finished the quad burning hike down to the valley and stumbled back into civilization, we didn't know how to behave ourselves. So we bought, and consumed, an entire half gallon of icecream. The culmination of the trip was successfully hitchhiking 30 or so miles back to our car whilst getting an open air tour of the park: one of our rides let us/told us to sit in the bed of their pickup truck.

Overlooking Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Falls

Free, open air tour of the park

Another weekend in July, Kelli and I went to Lake Tahoe. Things worked out very well on several fronts. The day before we were set to leave, we still hadn’t found a place to stay, but then Kelli performed nothing short of a miracle and found a campsite. We picked up a hitchhiker, and he turned out to be a kind, mellow PCT hiker. We did minimal research on hikes and selected the first one we came across- it was grueling but worth every minute. That night in our campground, we were awoken by an air horn signaling a bear in the vicinity, but luckily the chapstick I kept in the tent wasn’t enough to draw him in. Oh, and I almost forgot- while in town, someone parked thisclose next to my car, so close that I actually was too afraid to try to get out of the spot because I thought I’d hit the car. Two random men walking by helped direct me for about five minutes, to move forward, back, left, right, until I finally made it out. What a weekend.

There's nothing finer

Summitting Mt. Tallac

Something I’d wanted to do for a really long time was to go camping. On a weekday. I finally fulfilled this dream while Kelli was here. Owen, Kelli, and I met up right after work at a County park. We did nothing out of the ordinary: went for a short hike, drank some cold ones, grilled up a few hot dogs, and wolfed down s’mores. It all felt so novel though, because it was a random weekday. One new thing we did do was sleep in a fairy ring (a circle) of redwood trees, under the stars. It was a truly magical feeling to wake up in the middle of the night and stare up at those trees. The next morning, it was back to reality as I washed my face and brushed my teeth in the bathroom at work. I don’t think anyone was the wiser that I’d slept outside the night before.

Owen's grand entrance

That's Owen holding up a lantern in our humble weeknight camping abode

One weekend in early July Owen and I road tripped up to Salem, Oregon (after a pit stop at Evan’s place to crash for the night) for Owen’s cousin’s wedding. I met some of Owen’s west coast cousins, ran at a gorgeous state park, and enjoyed a beautiful summer night at a vineyard for the wedding. Oh yeah, and I got to sit back and relax as someone else pumped our gas (NJ and OR, represent!). On the drive back home we had a full car- Owen’s parents came with us after attending the wedding to see our place in CA. We had done almost the entire drive up in the dark, so it was nice to actually see Oregon and Northern CA on the way home. The next day we took his parents and Kelli around the Bay Area showing them our favorite haunts and finished the day off at a lookout point in the Santa Cruz mountains to watch fireworks erupt all along the Bay for the 4th of July. ‘Merica!

Silver Falls State Park, Oregon

During this time, I also happened to run my very first ultra! The ultra was also in Oregon, near Ashland, so we crashed with Evan again (we are forever grateful). There were so many feels during the race, but I’ll give just the lowlights and highlights. Luckily, there was only one lowlight. Somewhere around mile 25 I started up the third major hill climb of the race. We hiked up, and up, and up, and it was never ending. My back was killing me, and my muscles started to seize up. I had officially entered what I call the pain crevasse. I invented that term after reading about this phenomenon called the pain cave that ultrarunners are so familiar with. It’s basically this pit of despair we find ourselves in fairly often on ultra long runs. I call it a pain crevasse instead, because the only way I get myself out of it is by digging in deeper. Sometimes the only way out of a crevasse is to crawl in deeper, as terrifying and unknown as that may be. But I digress. On to highlights: it was the most gorgeous singletrack trails I’ve ever run. I passed some PCT thruhikers. I found a runny buddy to chat with for a good portion of the race. My secret weapon playlist helped me blast through my pain crevasse. The very best part was the last half mile: spectators were allowed to run with participants, and Kelli, Owen, and Evan were waiting for me at that point. When they saw me they started screaming and whooping and jumping- they were this huge ball of energy when I had nothing left, and their joy carried me to the finish line. I freakin did it.  

Funky plant called beargrass along the trail

Yay! Friends! I can do this. 

The struggle was real.

Owen and I felt like empty nesters when Kelli first left, but we’ve been keeping ourselves busy since then. Owen’s brother Pat met us in Big Sur and we celebrated Owen’s birthday one weekend this month. As per usual, plans were very last minute but we found a pleasant hike with sweeping views of the coast and scored a last minute campsite at a nearby campground.

Clearly I was the third wheel

Purple sand beach!

Then we hosted my parents for a few days. By the end, they were joking (or serious…?!) that they wanted to move out here, so it’s safe to say they enjoyed themselves. I gave them the grand tour: first, less then 24 hours after they arrived, I whisked them out to Yosemite to show them some of that good old granite. We spent the night in a cozy tent cabin equipped with a wood stove, beds, sheets, and that's about it. Technically, the place was called Tuolumne Lodge, but I beg to differ. For me though, compared to backpacking it felt like all-out glamping. Back in the Bay, we explored my favorite towns, parks, and beaches. At one park, Big Basin Redwoods, we made a new friend of sorts- a man, about my parents' age, was hiking the same loop as us by himself so we adopted him. The best part of the whole thing: my dad had been joking that we were in Bigfoot country and he wanted to see one. While we were browsing the Bigfoot memorabilia in the gift shop, our new friend revealed that his nickname used to be Bigfoot! So my dad got to hike with Bigfoot after all.

In Yosemite, on our way up to Vernal Falls

That's about right

Peaceful morning in Tuolumne Meadows

Our digs for the night

Our hosting duties are over for now, and we are celebrating with a trip for just the two of us: we're road tripping out to Yellowstone! We leave this Saturday, we know where we are sleeping on night one only, but I’m pumped to see where the roads and trails take us.

Into the Mist

A year ago today I woke up in a strange apartment in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I had just moved to California. I had no car, no job, and only a duffel bag of possessions. Little did I know, I was about to embark on one of the best years of my life thus far. From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters California deserts, I’ve seen a lot of spectacular things. But enough of that. What have I actually been up to the past few weeks?

Owen and I pulled off another one of our epic driving stints through the night over Memorial Day Weekend. When most normal people were just settling into REM sleep, we dragged ourselves out of bed and began the seven hour trek up to Redwood National Park. It was worth the wake up though, as we got to the park just in time to snag a coveted backcountry permit to camp for the weekend. We catnapped in our car for the better part of the morning, then hiked out to our backcountry site. Later that night, just as I was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong, Evan showed up at our campsite as planned. We celebrated with some beers and a greasy, cheesy, pasta dish.

I could go on and on about the towering redwoods (they were awesome) but the park had so much more than that. Like the elk herd we watched bed down for the night in a coastside meadow. Or the rutted dirt road and river crossings that our little Yaris somehow navigated. Or the fire (and s’mores) we shared with a group of Mormon, Intel employees from Portland. 

As you may have heard, this was the wettest winter in Northern CA history. Which created the perfect storm (no pun intended) to see some epic waterfalls in the Sierras. Earlier this month, we headed east to Yosemite National Park to do some waterfall hunting. I had my sights set on doing the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls, since I read that it was a good hike if you wanted to get wet. I was picturing some mild mist, and that was about it. Honestly, I was worried that we’d waited too long and the waterfalls would be mere trickles. The raging river we started our hike along gave me some clue to how wrong I’d be, but it wasn’t until Owen and I were shouting at each other as buckets of water drenched us that I realized they were serious about getting wet.  After getting soaked down to our underwear, we spent the good part of an hour drying out and lounging in the sun at the top of the waterfall. Views from the rest of the hike were insanely amazing. Yosemite is this utopia place that I never want to leave, but alas, we did drag ourselves away. Til next time. 

Looking down into Yosemite Valley

In the midst of the mist

Gorgeous views no matter which way you looked

Though I’ve been running for a long time, training for my first ultra has made me realize I still have a lot to learn. I’ve known for a while that I need to start eating during my longer runs, but I hadn’t quite mastered how to do that. A few weeks ago, I was doing a loop in Huddart Park and Purisima Creek Open Space Preserve called (I kid you not) the Beautiful Butt-Kicker. For some insane reason, I thought ONE granola bar would be enough to sustain me through 22 miles and 3500+ feet of elevation gain. By the last couple miles, I had bonked so bad it was all I could handle to stumble down the trail back to my car. I promptly inhaled several granola bars and ordered a dozen wings to pick up on the way home.

The Beautiful Butt-Kicker lived up to its name

Lesson learned. On my next super loop run, I ate about 1000 calories worth of goos, chews, gels, and the like. As a gel newbie, I ended up getting it all over my hand. I looked a mess. I also had dirt streaked over my legs from falling, and I was covered head to toe in spider webs that had been built across the trail. And my legs were itching like crazy from running through a bunch of tall grass. Thankfully the trail crossed a few streams and I cleaned myself off so I only mildly looked like a wild animal.

This makes the 5am weekend wake up all worth it

Found this gem in the middle of the forest 

Made it all the way from the Santa Cruz mountains to the Pacific!

As much as I like to rant about trail running, I really am lucky to live in a place so close to so many trails. When Dusty, my running partner, and I sneak in workweek trail runs, I feel like I’m getting away with something.

Peaceful post-work trail run

Hiking, running, and now one more hobby to add to the mix…a few weeks ago, Owen decided he was ready to let me ride on the back of his motorcycle with him! I quickly secured a borrowed helmet from a coworker, and we went on two rides up to the Santa Cruz mountains near us. I fell in love, so much so that I recently plunked down a small fortune for my own motorcycle jacket and helmet. I have a feeling this is going to provide for many adventures in the future...stay tuned. 

View from our ride

Wildflowers and Women of the Night

Staying true to my style, I’ve spent the past several weeks doing what I do best: hiking, running, camping, and exploring new places. And I’ll get into that soon. But perhaps the biggest excitement recently: Owen bought an adventure motorcycle! I haven’t ridden with him yet, but eventually we will ride “two up” and hope to take it to some wild places.

It’s been awhile since I posted, and we’ve been on some sweet adventures. Back in March (wow, it really has been awhile) we finally headed south, way south, to Death Valley National Park. We left at the bright hour of 3am, Owen’s idea, and drove through a desert sprinkled with Joshua Trees and little else. Total no man’s land. We arrived at the park late morning and met up with Doug, a friend from high school living in LA now. Saturday we did the driving tour of the park with a few pit stops for short hikes. Typical weather in Death Valley in the spring is a pleasant 70s-80s but we happened to choose the weekend the temperature climbed to over 100 degrees, which nearly set a record. So some of our short hikes turned into run out of the car, snap a photo, run back into the air conditioned car. At Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, it was brutal. I felt like I was being thrown around in a clothes dryer- somehow the wind made it even hotter. To make matters worse, Owen decided to wear jeans and drink barely any water. Lesson learned there. That night we headed to higher elevation and camped at Wildrose Campground, tucked into a canyon up in the mountains. We had a “lady of the night” experience: some woman tried to come into our tent in the middle of the night! I guess she was just disoriented in the dark and had the wrong tent, but we were all a little shocked when we realized what was happening.

Owen dragging at Badwater Basin (that's a salt flat!)

Feeling better

Hiking to our lunch spot

Sand dunes in Death Valley

The next morning I was waiting for the bathroom and who walks out of it but Tori, someone I had gone to school with back in New York. She’s living in the Bay Area too now- what a coincidence! That day we hiked Wildrose Peak along with two new friends, a couple from Texas who had been traveling the West Coast the past few weeks. I think they were jonesing for some conversation with other people. On the way to the top, we had an impromptu snowball fight. Who would have guessed that one day we’d be in a 100 degree desert, and the next day we’d be in the snow?

Charcoal kilns

At the summit of Wildrose Peak

Our little car doing some off-roading

Another weekend we took Dave, one of my college friends, camping. We went to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, tucked into the Santa Cruz Mountains near us. He’s a relatively new camper, and it was really rewarding to see how basic stuff like making a fire and cooking s’mores was so exciting to him. So exciting, in fact, that he decided to burn all our leftover marshmallows and empty beer bottles to see what would happen. We created a monster! Owen was in charge of the food for the weekend and he outdid himself: we feasted on hot dogs and sausages cooked over the fire for dinner and breakfast burritos the next morning with bacon, eggs, cheese, salsa, onions, and peppers. I think Owen was a backcountry chef in his former life.

I was grateful to see two other friends from high school this spring. Maureen’s visit was relatively short but we did sneak in a pretty gnarly trail run at Wunderlich County Park on a rainy Saturday morning. Kristen visited just last weekend and we gave her the grand tour of the Bay Area: the ocean, the mountains, and San Francisco. The highlight of the weekend was our trip to Pescadero State Beach. Kristen and I saw something/someone swimming in the marsh, and went back and forth about 10 times (it’s an animal! no, it’s a person snorkeling!) before we realized it was, in fact, an animal. Many animals actually. I’m still not sure if we were seeing sea lions or harbor seals, but we watched them swimming and playing for about an hour. 

Wish I could claim credit for building it, but we just found this fort on the beach

Seals? Sea lions? You tell me.

We saw more marine activity on our day trip to San Francisco, and this time I knew what they were: sea lions. They were actually kind of scary; they barked at each other and tried to push each other off the piers. Even scarier yet was our Uber ride across the city: we got dropped off at Lombard Street, known for its steep, hairpin turns. I should’ve been expecting steep streets on our way there, but nothing could prepare me for what we experienced. At several points I was certain we were going to roll right back down the way we came. Later that day we took a boat ride out to Alcatraz, Island, previously home to a federal prison, and actually had a very enjoyable afternoon taking an audio tour, enjoying views of the city, and browsing the gardens.  

View of SF from Alcatraz

One weekend, Owen and I spontaneously decided we wanted to go camping. Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem. But in the Bay Area, if you want to sleep in the woods for a night you have to make that decision months in advance and reserve yourself a spot. I scoured the interweb and luckily found the one place in the Bay Area that was first-come, first-serve at Castle Rock State Park. Owen and I thrive on first-come, first-serve, and snagged a backcountry tent site with no problem. I spent the weekend photographing wildflowers, and Owen spent the weekend trying to push me ahead on the trail.

There is also that thing I do 40 hours a week…I can’t believe I’ve been with San Mateo County for over four months now. Last week I drove out to the coast for a field visit and spent the morning hiking in the hills and walking along the beach with my coworker and her dog. I really can’t complain. 

All in a day's work