Category: General Hiking

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Complacency Can Get You Killed on the Trail

Search and Rescue personnel remove an injured hiker from the wilderness on a wheeled gurney.
Search and Rescue personnel remove an injured hiker from the wilderness on a wheeled gurney.

Complacency might get to most of us before we head out on the trail, and that’s not a good habit to fall into. I’ve done it myself over things that might seem trivial with the thought that, “Oh, that won’t happen.”

I don’t know what the statistics are, but I’ve heard that more injuries or life threating incidents occur on day hikes more than for backpackers. If that’s true, maybe it’s because more people may day hike than backpack.

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Hiking Old Man’s Beard and Sam the Eagle at Moore Creek Park

A trail is cut through an oak forest foothill during the springtime when the grasses are green and lush.
Old Man’s Beard at Moore Creek Park can be green and beautiful in the springtime.

Like the other hikes we’ve done at Lake Hennessey, Old Man’s Beard and Sam the Eagle trails at Moore Creek Park are pleasant when hiked in the springtime with green hills, wildflowers as the foliage is coming back to the trees.

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Trash in the Snow Mountain Wilderness in the Mendocino National Forest

Trash left behind by backpackers and hikers in the Snow Mountain Wilderness.
Trash left behind by backpackers and hikers in the Snow Mountain Wilderness.

We went backpacking at Snow Mountain in late March, but this is not a trail summary. It’s more of a gripe similar to what I wrote in 2019 about garbage people left behind near the Fleming Trail System in the Eldorado National Forest.

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Blue Ridge Loop Revisited

The vegetation at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve was decimated in the 2020 LNU Lightning Fire Complex.
The vegetation at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve was decimated in the 2020 LNU Lightning Fire Complex.

I haven’t been on the Blue Ridge Loop at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve in a couple of years, and I wanted to check it out again, so I hiked it last weekend. In 2020, in the LNU Lightning Complex fires, the entire area was ravaged, and where there was once some canopy, now there is none. In hiking the whole area, you are exposed on all the trails around. The day I hiked it, the temperature was in the low 60s when we started, and it was just plain hot because there was little wind and no shading.

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Hiking Vasquez Rocks Natural Park Area

The iconic Vasquez Rocks, made famous by Star Trek and other films and television are a fantastic place to hike.
The iconic Vasquez Rocks, made famous by Star Trek and other films and television are a fantastic place to hike.

See and stand where Captains Kirk and Picard once stood. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’ll recognize the Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park where several episodes and movies from the franchise have been filmed over the decades. But it’s also a really neat hiking place. Continue reading “Hiking Vasquez Rocks Natural Park Area”

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Making Mistakes So You Don’t Have To…

Besides “The Hike is the Destination,” my other tagline should be “Making Mistakes So You Don’t Have To,” or something like that. Everybody knows I’m a huge advocate of checking the weather before you go. I was headed to Emigrant Lake today off of Highway 88, and I did check the weather, but I didn’t realize how bad the wind would be. I got about 100 yards or so on the trail and turned back. “F*ck this, I’m out of here,” I said to myself as my right ear began to ache from the cold when I was on the trail. Continue reading “Making Mistakes So You Don’t Have To…”

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The Hike is the Destination

Wildflowers bloom along the hiking trail during the late summer in the high elevations.
Wildflowers bloom along the hiking trail during the late summer in the high elevations.

While hiking along the Tahoe Rim Trail earlier this summer, my tagline, “The Hike is the Destination,” kept coming back to me as I took in the wildflowers, the trees, granite rocks and the mountains around me, the lake and creeks along with the very essence of the forest. In the back of my mind, taking it all in and not getting to the “destination point” has always been what hiking has been about for me. Continue reading “The Hike is the Destination”

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Hiking The Mount Konocti Trail

Buckingham Peak with Clear Lake in the background from Wright Peak on Mount Konocti.
Buckingham Peak with Clear Lake in the background from Wright Peak on Mount Konocti.

Hiking up Mount Konocti to Wright Peak is about a six-mile round-trip hike from the Upper Parking Lot near the access gate on Konocti Road. You will climb approximately 1,600 feet, and along the way, you hike past past walnut and apple orchards, through an amazing Canyon Oak grove to the Mary Downen cabin, which was built in 1903 and preserved. The trail continues up to Wright Peak to the no longer used CalFire lookout tower. You can also hike to Buckingham Peak and Howard Peak, which would make the entire mountain nearly a 9-mile hike. Continue reading “Hiking The Mount Konocti Trail”

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