• Random and Odd

    Another amazing Saturday and Sunday!



    IMG_20110220_124638.jpg, originally uploaded by Suddenly Single.

    Saturday morning I called Dan to see if he wanted to get in a quick hike in before Alyx’s black belt class. He agreed and we grabbed our gear and headed out to Foresthill bridge.
    I’ve been gathering pictures of the trails to start building a website for our hikes, and this is one we had already done. We decided to go up past Mossy Trail and go the next three switchbacks we hadn’t gone on before. The incline is what I am now calling ‘the ass kicker’.
    There was rain all week so we knew the trails would be squishy, but we weren’t prepared for the snow. We reached the top of the trail and it actually lead all the way to the bridge top. The sense of accomplishment was awesome!
    Going back down the trail was a comedy act. I was too busy focusing on the up incline and wasn’t thinking how brutal it would be coming back down!

    We had already planned a hike for Sunday. Last week we took the girls on a hike and it lead to an outlook, but they were done after the three miles there and we knew the three miles back would probably kill them. We decided that we would carry on to the second part of the trail this Sunday.
    This morning we got to the look out and there was no one there. The first half of the hike was downhill into the canyon to the dam they never finished. We got down to the bottom of the canyon and I started joking that we were so off the Western States trail I could hear banjo’s playing. Right about then I heard a guy coming up behind us. He was carrying trimmers and a big pic handle. “oh god.” We could scream and no one would hear us!
    He turned out to be one of the hikers that was building the new part of the trails and was a wealth of information. He told us all about the failed construction of the dam and all about the trails. His name was Tom and he gave us a new route to take. We had planned on making it to the river and turning around, but he convinced us to go down the river and back up to the other trail and make our way back up.
    We sat down on some rocks down by the river and had our trail mix and Cliff bars. The hike back up would have been worse, but the hike the day before had geared me up for it. We found our trail and started back up. We then met up with someone who had a secret trail we hadn’t been on before. He too gave us all kinds of information as we made our way through the rock walls and down to the waterfall. As we hit another switchback we met another guy who gave us information on the trail and we said our goodbyes and headed back to the truck. We soon realized we were back on the trail from last week and the hike was going to be a brutal uphill climb. The trail was complete mud, but we made our way through it without too much trouble.

    We checked the GPS trail tracker at the end of the hike. 11.7 miles. That was our longest hike so far.
    The trail guide was rather impressed that us ‘first seasoners’ were taking on so much after only a month of hiking.

    I’m so impressed with the endurance level I have now. Just last week I was hurting getting up the inclines of that switchback, but this week I only had to stop a few times.
    Next week we plan to take on a hike from the bridge, up to the look out down to the river, back around and to the bridge. Next week our goal is 15 miles.
    We started the training so I will be ready to climb Lassen in August. I’m already ready and so excited to see where this will take us.

    The second hiker was talking about the two essential hikes of anyone that has put on a pair of boots or trailblazers….Mt. Whitney and Half Dome.

    I have two new hikes to prepare for now!