Sunday, December 14, 2014

Rivers in the desert


Doug And Joannie.
My lowly packrafting skills need some practice so we spent the day out in the Nevada desert searching out opportunities. We were successful on muliple levels. Hard to predict the spring flows but in addition to finding likely navigable water, we saw an old unusual irrigation ditch (abandoned) that penetrated through the mountain in several locations, mine adit style, beaver dams that will force portages, along with their tracks in the mud and mountain lion tracks preserved in the hardening ground.

Irrigation ditch that goes through the mountain.

Joannie on the ditch

The abandoned ditch




One of many beaver dams

Cat tracks
  
Another dam pond
Later in the day the weather changed its mind.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Mountain Biking Tahoe - Tyrolean Downhill and TRT > Tunnel Creek road

Yup its good. Tahoe Meadows to Diamond Peak parking lot. Doug And Joannie.
Park at the TRT at Tahoe Meadows (bikers access at west end of meadows). Follow the TRT to the top of a short climb. A few feet past the top, take an unmarked trail that drops off to the west. Enjoy!





The Tyrolean downhill


A couple days later we went back up to ride from the meadows to Tunnel creek.
TRT to tunnel creek

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Vegas Baby!

This is not the Vegas you are looking for...move along, move along.





Topaz Gone Wild

Topaz demo's Ruffwear gear

A little video edit from our trip through the Escalante backcountry 





Sunday, October 19, 2014

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Central Oregon and California's Lost Coast



A trip to Oregon and a short stay on the Lost Coast area of Northern California gave us an opportunity to not only hit the mountain bike trails around Bend, but also do some rock climbing at Smith Rock, paddling off the cascade lakes highway and finally, riding the Paradise Royale trail near Shelter Cove. Gotta find a good way to load/unload kayaks on the camper. As it was we had a great time paddling our Alpacka's around the various lakes of the Cascade Lakes highway. We didn't get to all of them. We plan to return to both areas.

The Video tells the story



Joannie also did a short mud run (Kiss Me Dirty) with Betty, my brothers wife while visiting my brother and mom in Eugene. They had to drive up to Portland for the run. Gary played chauffeur while I stayed in Eugene. The girls returned still laughing over the whole episode.


Great fun, Great trip!


Sunday, August 24, 2014

Mammoth/Yosemite Week

Hiking, climbing, riding, rafting was on the menu. It seems we covered the bases.

Fairview Dome. I've climbed it previously via the regular route (5.9) and Lucky Streaks (5.10d) Lucky Streaks is my favorite Tuolumne route and I like it better than OZ (5.10d) on Drug Dome. Anyway, we just cruised up the descent route 2 days in a row to enjoy the views of the Cathedral range and Tuolumne Meadows. The afternoon was spent paddling our packrafts around Tenaya Lake.











The following day was planned for climbing Unicorn peak out of Tuolumne Meadows. It was a relatively short day so there was no need for an alpine start. There was a really short couple moves of exposed class 4 to make the north summit. South summit was just class 2 talus hopping. Beautiful views of the Cathedral range was the reward for the hike.







We saw that Cam Zink who had gone to school with our kids was setting up an attempt to break the world record distance on a dirt to dirt backflip on a mountain bike at Mammoth Mountain. We decided to alter our plans to ride at the bike park so that after riding we could attend the event being held at Canyon Lodge. The decision held beny's for me!






And finally, we decided to drive over the pass and spend the day in Yosemite Valley. We rode around the valley on our bikes which I highly recommend as the premier way to see the valley.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

MMBP! (Mammoth Mountain Bike Park)

Since getting back into mountain biking we have ridden here quite a bit. Ok, not entirely human powered, but then I'm not really an idealist. Its not the destination, its the ride.

Joannie's video edit



Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Puttering about locally

Horsethief canyon hike 6/27

10 miles and about 3000 ft elevation gain hike hike to the top of Wade peak. Topaz pulled a fast one on me. She snuck her snack into my pack so she didn't have to carry hers...


Granite Lake Hike 6/29 

4 miles and not much elevation gain.

Joannie pointing out a previous hike she had done.


Granite Lake





Bear Valley kayak and mountain bike 6/30 -7/1

Doug got away solo for a couple days of mountain goodness.




I think we are even going to join the 4th of July crowd up at Tahoe on the trails this week!??



July 4th, Emigrant Trail ride

Fourth of July ride near Truckee.



July 6th
High Meadows Loop via Cold Creek, Star Lake, Freel pass, Armstrong Pass, Cedar Trail and Powerline back to High Meadow TH.

Tough ride.






July 22
Stagecoach to Monument Pass out and back