Hiking in the woods is freakin awesome!

The most exciting thing that happend to me on this trip was seeing a bear in the wild for the first time.
We hiked near the Merced River on day 3 of our Backpacking/half-dome/anniversary trip. I woke up with sore muscles from the Half-dome climb the day before. We decided to do a hike up towards Merced Lake instead of climbing to Clouds Rest. It was 8 miles? away and was such a beautiful hike. We thought it would be "easier"..there didn't seem to be too much elevation--but it ended up a 13 mile trip, 8 hours total! With only a brief rest. I'd say it was the prettiest hike. We were very alone, only passing a hand full of people in the whole 8 hours. When you hike from Little Yosemite to Merced Lake ...you realize why it's called Little Yosemite. One mile into the hike we were in a valley. Granite wall on the left, Granite wall on the Right and lots of green grass and wild flowers in the valley...just like Yosemite valley. There had been a fire here at some point because most of the trees were black with char.
Little Yosemite
The trail follows the Merced River. We came upon atleast 2-3 slides that reminded us of the slide before Vernal Falls.
slide This smooth granite was made by the glaciers. There are so many places you can see slide marks on the granite and very smooth spots. If anyone has the opportunity to visit Yosemite, there is a great 'history of the the glaciers' exibit that shows what the whole Yosemite area looked like before, durring and after the glaciers.

Anyways.. we hiked about an hour before we saw our little friend. The river was on our right. The granite wall of Moraine Dome was about 20 yards to the left. There is large and small boulders in between the granite wall and the trail. We went around a bend in the trail and up on a large boulder to our left was the cutest baby black bear! We did not stop to take pictures because we only saw baby and not Mom. We were talking loudly as we passed...so as to not startle any other bears that could be around. The baby was looking out at us as we passed by. I had the most exciting feeling. After we had walked past I just kept saying 'I can't believe we just saw a bear!' It was more exciting and less scary.
The bear wasn't there on the way back (it was hours later)..but we took a photo of the rock it had been on...imagine it's little body was black fur and it's snout was light brown.
bears rock
We hiked further up the river and had a snack overlooking the narrow-fast spot in the river. We ate cliff bars and had water.
our snack spot.
Everyday in the afternoon we heard thunder...today we went to it. The farther we hiked-the closer we got to dark clouds. It looked awesome! We could see Voglesang peak in the distance--it was dark with clouds.

vogelsang

We got to the first of two bridges and decided that, because of the time and weather, that this would be our lunch spot and then we'd turn around and head back. We pumped water with our filter and I had sandwiches ready. It was turning windy and before we finished eating...water dropplets were falling all around. Then it turned to a good amount of rain.
getting rained on

I was a little nervous about getting struck by lightening...so we hiked back at a good pace. My legs were more sore by now..and some of this was down hill. I had my hiking poles(which helped alot). We hiked out of the rain and back into the sun...and then back the way we came. We looked for the bear(s) but they were gone.
But...about 2 miles from camp we saw this big guy...



this time I had my camera ready. He was digging around some fallen trees--probably eating termites. He looked up at us and looked for a few seconds and then he turned his back to us and went on with what he was doing. He was pretty big.

A mile from camp we realized we had cell reception and called home to talk to my Mom and our kids. The kids seemed to be having a good time with Grandma.

Back at camp we pumped more water from the river and made dinner. We made chicken breast with mashed potato, the freeze-dried backpackers food. I'd heard mixed reviews of the chicken...but we really liked it. We had the freeze-dried green beans with dinner. They were very good also. Food tastes soooo good after a whole day of hiking.
dinner

The river near the campsite is a communal spot, as everyone has to pump water to drink and cook with. I ran into a lady that had passed us on the trail (right after seeing the baby bear--we told her where we'd seen it so she would be aware). She said that when she passed the spot...she saw 2 babies and the Mom!

1st backpacking trip EVER!!!

It's Sunday, July 26th 2009. I've spent all day preparing for my and Williams anniversary trip. It's finally here. I decided this year was the year we would climb half-dome. I started working out like crazy 1/2 a year ago. I've dropped 60 lbs. so I would be able to make the trek...and now my back is strained. I have an Icy-hot pad on the sore spot right now. It feels good. I know I lifted something heavy at work and It's been sore this week. I was hoping it would be better by now. It's annoying if anything. It will not keep me from my mountain!
We have bought everything(and more) that we'll need to be backpackers...tent, pack (for me-William already had one), a stove, sleeping bag, all the miscilaneous items (I'm actually afraid we're over packed). We purchased a bear vault(food canister that is bearproof-$79 from REI)..then found out Yosemite rents them for $5.00 ... oh well. Come to find out I need to rent one for $5.00 anyways because I packed the one I bought and it's not big enough. William says it's supposed to be good for 10 days. I filled it completely and still need room for 1/4 of the food plus the toiletries that have to go into it.
I worked today packing up the food. I used my new FoodSaver that I got at costco and packed everything into complete meal pouches. I made 5 breakfast pouches, 5 lunch, & 5 dinner pouches. Everything needed for the meal is shrunk into the pouch and made as small as possible by the Food Saver. I put lunches together w/ 2-4 mayo packets, cheese, mustard, bread rolls, tyson chicken in a foil pouch(less packaging) and I shrunk it all together in one pouch. Breakfast, I put coffee for the morning and creamer, I measured out my electrolite drink mix and shrunk those into seperate pouches. I feel like we're as ready as we'll get. 8 hours from now we should be on the road...happiness.
Early this morning William and Liam drove to Yosemite to get our Permit. We've been planning on starting in Tuolumne and hiking to Foglesang then to Merced Lake then to Little Yosemite Valley then to Half-Dome, then to Clouds Rest, then to Sunset lakes then back to Little Yosemite.
William didnt get that permit because the person in line ahead of him got the last one...so now our first night has to be in Little Yosemite Valley. I think we'll hike up the mist trail to see the falls. Camp in Little Yosemite. Tuesday morning we'll leave our tent up and take a day-pack and climb up Half-Dome and maybe hike to Clouds Rest and then back to our tent. Wednesday we'll pack up and hike to Merced Lake and camp there. Thursday we'll pack up and hike to Foglesang Lake. Then Friday we'll hike to Tuolumne. From Tuolumne we'll have to take a shuttle to the Valley, where our car will be. If we hike out and it's to late in the day for a shuttle then we'll camp at the backpackers-camp in Tuolomne and get to the car Saturday morning. We'll be back home Saturday if not Friday night.
That's the new plan. William said he got cell reception this morning from Tuolumne...so we should (hopefully)be able to call the kids every day.
We wrote out a medical release to give my parents permission to make decisions for the kids. We also wrote out a paper that said in the event of our death, we wish the children would be raised by my parents. We talked it over for a while and both of us feel that they would be most loved and cared for with my Mom and Dad.

We leave in the morning and the next post I make will be how awsome of a time we had...how many blisters...how many animals we saw..
so until then!

changes

58 pounds so far.... I don't always realize how far I've come... until I compare the photos.
It's a good start. I'm only 1/2 way done though.

Camping III

Day 3: Like most people in the camp...we packed up and headed home. We had breakfast, packed the cars, got drove down to the State Park area with Dave and Vicki and hiked around the Big Trees.
It was beautiful! We saw the same trees the last time we camped here(3 years ago). It's still amazing to see.

Camping Part II

Day 2 of Camping: We slept very good. William, Riley and I slept in the bigger tent...Liam slept in the 2 person tent. We could have all fit in the bigger 4 person tent but we wanted to "try out" the 2 person tent....see it in action. I'm happy with both tents. The sleeping pads were a bit different to sleep on. I noticed that if they're inflated too much they're hard to stay on. For the size and weight they'll be ok for our backpacking trip. I might want something else for our next car camping trip(we've been spoiled sleeping on a king sized mattress in my in-laws tent trailer.

I have to say...I absolutely love tent camping! It's been a while since we've stayed in a tent and I'm hopping that, with all the equipment we've bought this year, we'll be doing more of this.

Day 2 started with William driving down to the Rangers booth and hopefully pay for Saturday night...

We didn't get to keep the same campsite but he did pay for Saturday..the campsite we were at was reserved so we moved to the site they hold unreserved. It's 1st come-1st serve and luckily we were the first ones. It would have been ok if we hadn't gotten our own spot because Williams parents had reservations for that night. We would have put our tent up on their site. It would have just been a 2-3 hour delay. Check out was at 12 and check in is at 2 and we had no way of knowing when my in-laws would arrive(we had no cell phone service). We were happy to move spots..this way we could move everything over early and go on our hike.
We moved everything over fast.
We only set up the big tent (both kids decided that they wanted to stay in the tent trailer with Grandma and Grandpa).
I made our sandwiches for the hike and drove down to the River.
We did some rock hopping and hiked for a bit before stopping for lunch.

We hiked further up the trail and found a colony of lady bugs. It was probably the most exciting thing we could have come across...We stayed and watched them crawling busily around.


We hiked back to the car and drove back to our new tent site, jumped on bikes and rode around to see if Dave and Vicki had made it by then. We found their trailer and waited a while(they had to drive down to the town of Arnold to get parts for the propane).
We spent the evening together. Had a really yummy dinner and enjoyed a campfire. We celebrated Vicki's birthday with cake & ice cream & smores. I was good though...stuck to the diet plan. I had chicken and salad for dinner and everyone else had steak. I also was good when it was desert time. I had a bite of Williams dessert and a toasted marshmallow.

Riley and I had showers. The showers take quarters and are nice and warm. The floors are a bit dirty--so it makes it hard to put on clean clothes. It always feels so good to get the dirt off and go to sleep clean.

Camping (part 1)

It's Sunday night now. We just got home from our camping trip to the Calaveras Big Trees.
It was a very enjoyable family trip!
We camped for a total of 3 days and 2 nights. Arrived Friday afternoon in Calaveras and set up our camp with our new tents. We were very lucky to get a spot because the campgrounds were full. I had managed to go online(this week) and pay for Friday night but Saturday was sold out. We asked about staying and the Ranger (that checked us in) said to check back the next morning to see if anyone had cancelled. ...No one had but we did get to stay because they keep open spot # 116 as a walk-up-non-reserved spot. It meant that on Saturday morning we had to pack up our first camp and moved to 116 spot.
Friday we stayed in spot 101. It was a good spot. Everyone around us was so quiet. We made taco/burritos for dinner. I used our new camp set and stove
the WisperLite (from Rei) to cook with for the first (meal) time.
It worked awesomely..Cleaning up the dishes I realized I need another bucket or collapsible "sink" bucket. I saw one at REI...but our cook set's outer shell is an actual water tight canvas bucket that will hold water for washing, so I didn't get it. Now that I've tested everything out I want a second container. The stove was perfect and I used it alot.
Our tents were easy to set up. We set up both tents. Liam slept in the small tent and William, Riley and I slept in the blue tent (just feet away). This isn't the best picture...but you can see both tents in the back ground. And I'm using the new stove and cook set to make our dinner.
Riley made friends almost instantly. The campsite next to us had 2 little girls her age. They played and had fun until dinner time.
Liam made Fire! Here he is lighting the campfire.
We roasted mini marshmellows and made mini smores.
Then got the kids ready for bed and then William went to bed (all before 10pm) so I sat by the fire and listened to my ipod (zen and the art of triathlon)for a while before cleaning up the table and getting myself to bed. I had a good view of the stars where I was sitting....it was amazing. We don't see many of the stars from the valley. I saw about 5 satellites in about an hours time.


I can not wait until our big backpacking trip in Yosemite in a few weeks....It's going to be so awesome

Riley

My girl is growing so fast! She is only 6 for 3 more months...then 7.

We were watching an episode of George Lopez a few days ago (me, Liam & Riley). They had an earthquake and were afraid of going inside the house. The son on the show was read an article.. "over 100 thousand(? on the #) people lost their homes" ...pause for sounds of shock and 'oh my God!' .. every year in the world". Liam and I laughed and thought it was funny. Riley stood up..faced us..crossed her arms over her chest..and said(w/ eyebrows scowled) "why do you think it's funny for people to lose their homes"...

She is right...even though it was made into a joke..people do lose their homes...

The stuff she says always blows me away. She notices things no one else does.

I remember one night we got out of the car and saw the moon. She said "mom..are there lights on at the moon?"

Last year at the River she asked where all the water comes from..how does it start and keep going. That lead to a whole rain cloud, snow pack discussion.

This week I was eatting a piece of turkey-jerky and she said "mom...I thought you wanted to lose weight?" I said yes. She said "well dad eats those and he's not skinny"...

Today we met Sammy

We've just had a kid-less week. It went by fast...it wasnt too lonely around here. I worked everyday..and had a bike ride almost everyday. William went on my long ride with me.
Friday was my first day off so we drove to my in-laws in Sacramento to pick up our kids(that have been spoiled rotten for 5 days).

We headded over to the Sacramento REI..they've done some changing since last year. They've rearanged things and moved their indoor climbing wall. I think they've packed more things in -- it seemed more crouded than I remember (and harder to get around). It might have been because this was the 1st day of their summer sale...

I wanted to look at their sleeping bags. I walked that way and there was a clerk helping a couple with sleeping bags. Because of the set up...I couldnt even get close to looking at the bags. It was like a one person at a time situation. There's no moving room and the clerk had laid some bags/pads on the floor so there was no way around. I waited for a long while and finaly when they moved off I flipped through the whole selection of womens bags. I think I was annoid at the wait that I wasnt in the mood to pick out anything. We went over to the packs and I did find a nice pack...same situation though. The aisle was narrow and another couple was looking at packs so I had to wait to get into the aisle. William tried on some clothes and I found some clearance Ts and shorts for the kids and a windbreaker for Riley. We also found hiking boots for William and a cookset, coffee press mugs, and an extra fuel bottle for our Whisperlite stove.

We left that store much lighter in the pocket book! But much more ready for our awesome backpacking trip in July.

We made it to Lena and Jasons house a bit after 12. We got to see Sammy for the first time. He is so adorable. He is 5 weeks old and 7lbs. I wish we lived closer so we could see them more often.
Sammy