Over the Thanksgiving break, some friends and I went camping over on Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay. It’s quite a unique experience, camping in amongst so much city/so many people, yet being so isolated. We caught a ferry from SF over to Tiburon*, and then another from there to Angel Island. Once on the island we checked in with the ranger, then backpacked (via North Ridge Trail) over to our spot (campsite #3, on the East Bay side of the island).
We were greeted with a pretty amazing view out over the East Bay, which continued all night as it remained clear and cold. The lights were thoroughly impressive and provided enough light for us to night-hike up to the top of Mt. Livermore (once our eyes had adjusted). The view from there was even more impressive, providing complete 360° views of the entire bay area.
Not having a fire there was pretty rough (only charcoal fires and camp stoves are allowed, due to fire hazard), so we had to have a nip of whiskey to keep us warm instead. We also got to see a few pretty big shooting stars while we were sitting out chatting at night.
In the morning we took our time to get up, enjoy some breakfast (more Thanksgiving leftovers!) and then hiked back down to Ayala Cover, where you catch the ferry. 2 ferry rides later and we were back in the city again.
*Note: During summer it would be much easier to just catch a ferry direct to Angel Island, but because it was off-season and the day after Thanksgiving, the ferries were running on holiday schedules, so we had to do it this way.
NOTE: This post has been sitting in draft for a long time, and I’m finally publishing it. I actually attended Tracker School in May 2010.
About 9 years ago, I picked up the movie The Hunted from an ex-rental discount bin. I hadn’t heard of it, and didn’t know what to expect, but it had Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro in it, so I figured it would be at least decent. Instead of being just decent, I loved it. Apart from becoming a favorite movie, it started me down the path of discovering Tom Brown (who was a technical consultant on the skills and knife used in the movie) and a field of interest that continues today.
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This weekend I got together with some friends and headed down to Big Basin State Park to go camping for the weekend. We headed down on Friday, taking our time by going down Hwy 1 (beautiful coastal drive) and stopping for lunch (Burrito Friday!) in Moss Beach, then going through Pescadero and visiting Harley Farms Goat Dairy (awesome!). From there we wound our way in to Big Basin and secured our 2 camping spots, which turned out to be fantastic. We got a pair of walk-in spots right next to each other, all the way in the back of the available sites (away from the parking lots/noisy people).
Apart from all the awesome food we ate (we really ate like kings!), we went on a most excellent hike on Saturday that wound up (for Rick and I) being around 11.5 miles. Here’s very very roughly what it looked like (I recorded a few waypoints using MotionX-GPS, then pieced this together on Google Maps):
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Earlier this year, my brother got me a pair of Vibram FiveFinger KSO‘s for my birthday. They’re pretty freaky. Here are some random notes on my adventures with these shoes.
Picture by yoavf
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A few weekends ago, we went camping at Mission Peak, in the East Bay here near San Francisco. We drove in to the Sunol Visitor’s Center and then hiked from there to the Eagle Springs camp ground, which is just off from Mission Peak. The hike was pretty tame, and a lot of the way it was on quite well-made fire roads and unpaved private roads. Personally I prefer to hike (and camp) in more densely wooded areas, but I guess this was an interesting change of scenery.
Getting prep'd
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Over the weekend, Robin and I traveled with a group of friends (most of whom I know through Krav Maga) to Yosemite National Park here in California to hike Half Dome. I had done some research so I knew it was going to be a tough hike, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. What follows is as much detail as I can remember from the trip, for my information as well as yours. It looks like this guy hiked the exact same route that we took (updated Half Dome guide from EveryTrail!), although he did it while there was still some snow around.
Total distance: Approx 16 miles, Elevation gain: 4,796 feet, Round trip: 13.5 hours
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