Gear Links at Two-Heel Drive
My friend Tom Mangan has been steadily plugging away at creating the must useful hiking blog in Central California, and he has now added a gear page to the site. Tom tracks and lists lots of great deals on outdoor equipment. Don’t miss the rest of his site either – tons of great stuff there. I recommend subscribing to his RSS feed like I do.
Today's Hike – New Almaden Quicksilver
Since school is out (yes, teachers look forward to that, too!) and I have a major pack trip coming up later this summer (more about that later) it is time to get serious about whacking the old body back into some sort of shape. Although I’ve always felt that the best conditioning for backpacking is the first three days of the trip, as I get older I find that I’d rather start those first three days from a little better position if possible.
So, today I decided on a “conditioning” hike that pushed me both in terms of dealing with heat/sun and climbing. I started at the New Almaden entrance to the Almaden Quicksilver County Park and ascended past English Camp by way of the Deep Gulch trail. Deep Gulch is a less-used route that has the disadvantage (or, for my purposes today, the advantage) of being rather steep but on a hot day like this the fact that it is in a, uh, deep gulch means that it is also very shady. After English Camp I continued on past the site of the old mill on the ridge via the Castillero trail to join up with the Mine Hill trail, which I followed back down to the parking lot.
I certainly do not recommend this route in these conditions to anyone out for a pleasant little stroll. It was 90 degrees when I returned to my car and portions of the hike near the highest point are directly in the sun – and I was there right around noon. On the other hand, it seemed like I had the entire park almost to myself. During the several hours I was there I saw exactly five other people.
My Backpacking Photography Gear
Since the season is upon us, it seems like a good time to post the link to my article on equipment for backpacking photography – at least for the kind of photography I do while on the trail.
I discuss some specific equipment that I use along with some general ideas about equipment and techniques. The post includes information on cameras, lenses, accessories, how to carry the stuff, and compromises you might or might not want to make on the trail.
A strange time of the year
I now enter that strange limbo called “the last weeks of spring term,” during which I wish that I could be out and about but instead need to keep whacking away at the end of the term grading… but console myself with the knowledge that I’ll have a lot of time very soon.
Over at my photography site – another epic two-day sierra shoot
I spent the weekend shuttling around areas ranging from Yosemite Valley to Mono Lake to Mariposa grove. The story is posted at my photography web site.
Support California State Parks
The Governator of California, among a number of other bizarre recent “decisions” has recommend closing almost all California State Parks. This is just plain nuts for a whole bunch of reasons. (How do you close a public park? how do you protect the parks from vandals and marijuana growers and off-road vehicles? What happens to valuable and sensitive sites like Bodie? Why close the parks that produce more income and taxes than they cost to run?)
Of course, given that he is also in the process of laying off tens of thousands of tax paying public employees, reducing support for education in the state the already ranks 47th in the nation for per-student k12 education funding, swiping money from local governments… and much more… it is hard for some to get worked up over parks.
But please do get worked up. And then share your opinion. One first step is go go here.
A photo at Yosemite Blog
I somehow forgot the mention this, but Yosemite Blog pointed to one of my recent dogwood photographs from Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Blog is a great source of current information about the Valle and the Park – they are in my RSS reader!
You can see much more of my photography at my photography blog.
Quick note about Tioga Pass and other interesting things
I posted a few times during recent weeks concerning the opening date for Tioga Pass – something that many of us look forward to every spring. Tioga Pass Road did open the middle of last week, and we “west siders” once again have a more efficient (and quite stunning!) route to the east side.
(The pass opened about one day earlier than I estimated it would – I was expecting a Thursday opening. If you are interested in more information about when this route is likely to open and close, there is a history of opening and closing dates on the web.)
Of course, a lot of people are going to be very pleased that the pass opened in time for the Memorial Holiday weekend – not only the travelers who want to cross it but also the businesses on the east side that rely on the traffic. (I’ve been to Lee Vining in the winter when the only access is via a long drive from anywhere else – and things can be very quiet over there.)
As to my plans… a variety of factors are going to keep me from traveling this weekend. I’ll stay right here in the SF Bay Area and I won’t even have much opportunity to get out on the trail or do photography – lot’s of other things to take care of. But I can’t complain. It won’t be too many more weeks until my annual period of “gainful unemployment” as a college faculty member begins, and at that point I’ll try to more than make up for the stay-at-home Memorial Holiday weekend.
May 22 Opening for Tioga Pass?
Edie reports at the Little Red Tent blog that her “sources” say that Tioga Pass is likely to be open by May 22. Apparently the roadway is now clear and some work remains to be done widening the plowed area and working through some hazard zones.
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Dan's Outside 
Close the Loophole
If you are as fed up as I am with California’s dysfunctional budget and tax system (not to mention the roadblocks in the legislature and our, ahem, “governor”) check this out: Close the Loophole.
This is a movement to set right the terrible problems created by Proposition 13 in California several decades ago. I’m not against reasonable control of taxation, but this thing has gone (predictably, I might add) out of control in a whole bunch of ways, including:
Proposition 13 was a brilliant political calculation. It contained features that raised its short term appeal high enough to get it passed, it was offered at a time of great taxpayer anger, it pandered to citizen’s baser instincts and its passage made discussion of any changes the “third rail” of California politics – to go there was political death. But is also locked the state into a downward revenue spiral that continues to get worse and worse. But it has now become so painfully obvious that California’s system is badly broken – that groups such as Close the Loophole now have a chance of provoking much-needed change – and they need support from all of us now.
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July 3, 2009 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | 3 Comments