First hike of the year: Castle Rock State Park - 03 Jan 2009

It was a gorgeous Saturday, and a bunch of us decided to hike in Castle Rock to grab a few caches including the new GC1KCZH-Castle Rock Cable Co. by Bullit, who was part of the group.
The park was beautiful, with great views of the Monterey Bay. No rain that day, but it was so cold that I was happy to wear my gloves.
The hike was about 6 miles long, and the elevation gain was about 1200 feet.
The group was made of Bullit, CC, Calipidder, Drunken Marmot, Nazgul, and myself.

My photos are here.

Interactive track log:

2009 resolution - A new beginning

I haven't updated this blog much last year as my interets progressively shifted from geocaching to hiking and backpacking.
I had a lot of fun in 2008 exploring the Great Outdoors with good friends and I want to share this fun again.
So, as a new resolution for 2009, I am going to dust-off this old blog and will try to keep it up to date with track logs, photos, and trip reports.
Stay tuned for upcoming updates...

Chesbro Reservoir

On Sunday, we went out to visit a cache in a very interesting location : Chesbro Reservoir, tucked in the hills west of Morgan Hill, South of Almaden.
The reservoir is almost dry and this caused an almost forgotten bridge to appear...
In 1937, 18 years before the Chesbro Dam was constructed, a small concrete bridge was built over the Llagas Creek. The dam caused the waters to submerge the bridge and gave birth to what is now known as Chesbro Reservoir.
This is a perfect time to come and discover this hidden bridge. In a few weeks, the bridge will be under troubled waters. Of course, there had to be a cache on this bridge :-)
And it is also a good time to check out tarantulas since it's the beginning of the mating season (and it's close to Halloween). We spotted two.

More pictures here

Atlas of Big Sur...

The highlight of the weekend was the hike to Atlas, another Big Sur cache by Touchstone. The meeting point was at the trail head, at 7:30 am.
Big Sur is a 2 hours drive from San Jose and to avoid waking up very early, Vero, the girls and I decided to spend the night in one of the local campgrounds. Camping along the river is very relaxing. It's a nice way of getting away for the weekend.
The hike was about 7 miles round trip, with about 3000 feet of elevation gain. Quite strenuous but not as much as the past three ones.
The weather was very cooperative. It was sunny but not too warm, partly due to the early start, partly due to a gentle breeze coming from the ocean.
Of the three Touchstone caches that I have found on the Big Sur ridges, this one was the easiest.
The trail was steep at places but the steep sections were not too long so we could easily catch our breath without having to stop too often. Also, the number of switchbacks is very reasonable (unlike the hike to Transcendental Elevation).
Near the cache, we spent some time at the "Atlas" rock. Initially, I could not figure how to see Atlas in this rock. But looking at my pictures now, I think I see an arm.
Poor Hotshoe got stung by a wasp near this rock. I have no idea who started it, her, or the wasp, but Hotshoe sure was upset. No serious reaction from Hotshoe other than a few bad words.
There was a picnic table AND a barbecue near the top (Timbertop). This is where we enjoyed a nice rest, Touchstone's cookies, and our a bug nets as the bugs were starting to bother some of us.
Note to self: Lift the net before eating or drinking.
The climb down was very quick. Even though we took our time, I think it took only 1.5 hours.
Another well spent day out :-)
Pictures are here...

Mount Tallac

This weekend, we joined a couple of friends for a camping trip in Lake Tahoe. The highlight of the stay was for me the assault on Mount Tallac. Not many caches there but climbing Mount Tallac and "grabbing" Kolly Wobbels #24 Mount Tallac (or at least its part II) seemed like a nice goal. There was also a virtual on the trail, marking the entrance of Desolation Wilderness.
The climb was pretty challenging for me but was totally worth it. The views from the summit are breathtaking. And I really like this kind of high altitude (nearly 3000 meters at the summit) hike were you start in the forest and end up in just rocks.
The hike was more than 9 miles long with about 3200 feet of elevation gain. A very healthy exercise!

From Skyline to the Sea

I embarked on a very cool adventure with a group from the GBA : an overnight hike starting at Saratoga Gap on Hwy 35 (Skyline Boulevard) and ending up at Waddell Beach, 30+ miles further down and going through Big Basin where we would spend the night.
This was my first backpacking experience and I had a blast.
It seems to be all downhill but we actually climbed more than 1700 feet total.
The first day was the mot challenging one, with most of the uphill and a very long downhill to Big Basin HQ on some exposed trails and hot sandstone formations. Only 2 caches found since I already found most of the caches along the trail months ago.
The camping part was very enjoyable. I learned a lot from the "pros" there.
The second day was a nice stroll in beautiful redwood groves, past Berry Creek Falls, and along Waddell Creek. It ended up in the marsh near the Ocean. We all grabbed the dozen or so caches along the way, including the "Big Basin to the Sea" challenge cache from 50sumtin who was hiking with us the second day (he actually initiated this section of the hike before it turned to a backpacking trip for some of us).
The weather was perfect, I was tired at the end but was feeling rather good. I'm totally ready for the next one!

1000

I found my 1000th cache this weekend.
For this milestone, I chose to hike up to Trenscendental Elevation, a cache at the top of a Big Sur peak, by Touchstone. Brutal was a word Touchstone used in the cache description, and brutal the hike was...
BuckyD, Kealia and British Invasion decided to join the fun. In short, the hike was about 11 miles long and featured an elevation gain of about 4300 feet. It took us about 9 hours. It started along the ocean on US 1, followed a very peaceful creek with lots of huge redwood, before it climbed to one of the ridge overlooking the creek. The elevation gain quickly became quite important and switchbacks appeared... An enormous numbers of switchbacks just to reach the Old Coast fire road that would lead us to Anderson Peak. Thriving poison oak and bugs made it even more challenging. It took us 4 hours to reach the road.Once there a nice easy walk led us to the cache. We left the road 2 hours after having reached it and did the whole hike down to our cars in about 3 hours. This was fast and fun for the first 2 hours but the last one was a real killer. The bodies were extremely tired, knees were no longer collaborating, minds were on autopilots and cramps appeared. After having waken up at 4:30 am, and hiked to the peak and down, the sight of our cars was really comforting.
This was a beautiful hike with gorgeous views of the ocean. A perfect memorable cache for an important milestone.