Hiking Loma Prieta

Remember the big earthquake in California in 1989? In spite of the fact that the epicenter of that earthquake was near the highest point in the Santa Cruz mountains, its effects were felt as far as San Francisco and Oakland. That peak is called Loma Prieta and that was the destination of yesterday's hike.

The view from the top (Pacific Ocean towards the left)

Although SummitPost has an entry for this peak, I must warn you that Loma Prieta is not really a hikers' mountain. We mostly followed this route for the 12-mile out-and-back hike, but I want to add some more information that may avoid other hikers getting slightly lost, like we did.


Getting there:
While the directions here work, we just used Mapquest to find our way to Uvas Canyon County Park. Take US-101 south to Bailey Road. Go west on Bailey for about 3 miles (you will pass an IBM campus) until you hit a T-junction. Make a left onto McKean road. Follow McKean road for about 6 miles, somewhere along which McKean becomes Uvas Road. Make a right onto Croy Rd. Continue on Croy Road and follow signs for Uvas Canyon County Park (you will pass signs that say "Sveadal" and private property). Pay at the machine, pick up a Park map and park at the day-use parking lot to the right.

VJ's lonely car at the parking lot (circa 8 am)

The Hike (all distances approximate):
- Walk along the paved road and cross a bridge (you can ask for the "Youth Group Area" if you encounter campers or a ranger). After passing an information station on your left, look for a gate that will take you into a campsite. Find the beginning of Knibbs Knob Trail at a gate between campsites 27 and 28.
- The first 2 miles of the hike are STEEP, and being within the confines of the County Park, can be easily followed on the map. The first junction is about 1.5-1.7 miles into the trail, where the Knob Trail takes off to the right. Stay straight to continue on Knibbs Knob Trail. At the two mile point, you cross a gate indicating that you are leaving Uvas Canyon Park and hit Summit Road (aka Mt. Madonna Road).
- Turn right on Summit Road. This is a paved road which is open to traffic, so stay on the left side of the road and watch out. The road does not have much shade, and you will find several private property homes along the way. At some point, you are rewarded with breathtaking panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean.
- After about 2-2.5 miles on Summit Road, there is an almost-T junction. While Desai tells us to turn right onto Loma Prieta Road, there is no sign to indicate this. One way to confirm that you are at the correct junction is to just pass it, turn around facing the road you just came on, and you will see a iron pillar/post on the roadside saying "Summit Road". It was probably painted "Loma Prieta Road" on the other side at some point, but that is no longer visible. Also, as you turn right, there are signs saying "Authorized or registered vehicles only" or something to that effect. There was no such warning for hikers, so we persisted and followed the road winding up.
- About a mile on this uphill road to reach the base of the peak where there are at least three roads winding eastward to the peak. Do not take the one most to the right (which tends downward), take the one to the left of it, as Desai instructs us to. Now just continue on this road, past a gate and winding upwards until you get to the top (or just ignore the road and scramble up the hill like we did!). Once you see the peak, identified by the many transmission towers and associated ugliness, you don't really have to worry about routes or trails, any way that takes you up is just fine.
- Retrace your steps back to the Uvas Canyon parking lot.

Total mileage: ~12 miles round trip.

Easy way to identify the peak!

What's that? Where did we get lost you ask? It was right at "Loma Prieta Road", where a helpful man told us to turn left (in the opposite direction from what is described above) to get to Loma Prieta. Thankfully, we met a delightful old gentleman in a pickup, who told us more than we needed to get to the peak, and even warned us not to stay too long amidst all those microwaves! Dig that white beard!

What to take:
- Water! I lugged about 2 liters, but ended about using only about 1 liter. The route can get really hot, so to be safe, carry about 2 liters.
- A light snack (or lunch if you like)
- Sunscreen
- Wear hiking boots, some sections of the hike require good grip.
- If you have knees that hurt when coming downhill, I would recommend hiking poles that will help while returning on the very steep portion of Knibbs Knob trail.

Other recent hikes:
Black Mountain at Rancho San Antonio Park
Two Ponds Hike at Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve

Happy Hiking!

Memories of Whitney

Remember the Whitney trip? Want to know more? Head on over.

The Rockies Rock!

I finally have something that is worth writing about and that I want to write about - The Rocky Mountains. For the longest time, the Rockies were just one of those places that seem so far away and that you only read about in geography class – just like the Andes and the Prairies and the Savannah. But this weekend, it was a reality – and such a magnificent and breathtaking reality at that.

After battling through several plans for the long weekend, I finally made plans with my undergrad classmates to meet up at Denver and explore the Rockies. We were a group of seven – six classmates and my roommate as well. We all arrived at the (rather deserted) Denver airport on Friday night and headed to a hotel in Aurora, about half an hour from the airport. We were up early Saturday morning and ready to set off by about 7am. We had reservations at Clear Creek Rafting in Idaho Springs, which is about an hour from Aurora. Driving in Colorado is a visual treat – the mountains engulf you. The rafting was awesome - the rapids were mostly Level III and Level IV occasionally. The water was extremely cold and I was drenched (in spite of the wetsuit), probably because I switched places with one of the guys in the front and had a most “exciting” time. The weather was gloriously sunny and so we were not too cold. By the time we had finished and changed, we were all ravenous (skipped breakfast to make it on time at Clear Creek). We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Idaho Springs where we tested the patience of this nice old woman with our “no-meat-no-egg” chants! Since we had not shopped for groceries in Denver the previous day as planned, we found a Safeway store in Idaho Springs and bought all the stuff we needed. Then as per plan, we set off to the National Park area where we would drive along the scenic Trail Ridge Road.

Setting off from Idaho Springs, we found out that Highway 6 was closed and so we had to take Highway 119. This took us to the pretty town of Boulder and we drove through UC Boulder. It looks very much a university town and the campus was very welcoming. We stopped for a coffee and then took 36 heading towards the Park. Estes Park is the town closest to the National Park and Highway 36 took us right into Estes Park. We reached the Park entrance, paid our $20 for a week’s entry, grabbed the Park map greedily and we were on our way. The Trail Ridge road is a winding, windy road that climbs from something like 9000 feet to 12000 feet, which is above treeline. We were awed by the mountains and took a ton of pictures. It was one of those occasions when I felt that any camera would be hopelessly inadequate in capturing this beauty – only the mind’s eye could retain this splendor. Our Camry served us well and we headed back down to Estes Park. We has to retire early because three of us were going to climb Long’s Peak on Sunday and had to be up in time. We located the cabin-like family unit, which was pretty comfortable, ate and slept.

Sunday’s adventure to Long’s peak was the highlight of my trip and it is well-worth another post. I will save it for later. For now, let me just say that a snowstorm at 12,760 feet after hiking up 6 miles is no jolly ride. Anyway, we walked around Estes Park Sunday night browsing through the curio stores and eating ice cream. We had dinner at this Nepali place where they had pictures of the Himalayas everywhere (hmm…). We returned to the lodge and celebrated one of my friends’ birthday with a surprise cake et al.

We had originally planned to drive to Colorado Springs on Monday and explore the gorges, but we changed that plan because of the excessive driving that would entail. Plus one of the guys had a flight out of Denver at 7pm. So instead, we traversed the Trail Ridge road again, but this time, we went all the way down to Grand Lake. I was disappointed by it – it is like any other lake, extremely crowded with tourists. There are some water sports that you can do, but unfortunately, we had no time. We had lunch at this Mexican place which was a crappy experience because we had to be seated in the bar and spent an hour sitting indoors! We then began the drive back along 40, which is again a beautiful drive. As we drove by, it appeared to us that Shadow Mountain Lake and Granby Lake with their meadows were so much prettier and more pristine than Grand Lake. 40 turned out to be way longer than we had estimated and we (okay, maybe just me) were starting to panic as we finally hit I-70. It turned out that there was no reason to be worried as the airport remained as deserted as it was on Friday night – wonder why even a long weekend did not draw people to this scenic paradise! (I am not complaining though). We dropped off one friend and since we had 2 more hours before our flight, we drove back to the “Mile High City” (which is what Denver is called) where we checked out the 16th Street Mall. This is an outdoor mall where there no motor traffic, just horse-drawn buggies and a free Hybrid-Electric/Alternate Fuel shuttle bus. It is nice hangout place. We tasted some chocolate from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory and drove back to the airport. The flight back was enjoyable because the three of us from San Jose managed to get adjacent seats which meant that it was non-stop nonsense the whole way! A good night’s rest followed and today it’s back to work.

It was Sunol Ohlone Park this Saturday. Following my roommate, Sankari's expert advice, we decided to go to Sunol instead of Monte Bello. It was a good decision. Sunol is very pretty. It is a short (less than 30 mins) drive along I-280 to the county park. The trail is the usual...some trees and rocks initially. It climbs steadily and it leads to a rock outcrop at the summit. Standing there, it's rolling hills. Everywhere. All around you. As far the eye can see. And with the smooth soothing rays of the setting sun, it was ethereal. A moment. You feel glad to be alive, to be able to witness such beauty. We shake ourselves out of it and begin the descent, we need to get down by nightfall. Lunch (or whatever) followed. At 6PM. Awesome chowmein and string beans!

Yosemite Part 2

The cables were nothing like I had imagined. Sankari(my hyper-enthu roommate, who had been there before) had told me that there are cables to go up the last 900 feet and get this, she said something like,"Those cables are basically what you hold on to, and if you let go, it's a freefall to death". Haha...now I saw what she meant. The last 900 feet are up a steep rock face, which seemed to me like it was a 90 degree incline (it is actually around 45 degrees I believe). Two steel cables run parallel to each other and up the rock, with wooden planks every 10 feet or so. You can pick up a pair of gloves (for a better grip on the cables) from the measly looking glove-pile at the bottom (tip - get your own gloves!!!) and head up. We were rather late getting to that point, so there was a continuous stream of people coming down. The space between the 2 cables (which is the "path" you go on) is only about 4-5 feet across, and it's not very convenient when people are crossing you. The gloves are not really of much help and in fact, I kept feeling that they were slipping off. But I guess it is better than no gloves at all! It is scary climbing up Half-Dome on those cables. My hands were aching because I was basically pulling myself up while clinging onto the cables for dear life(literally!). And I dared not look down for fear of psyching out. Even then, I had all my worst thoughts running through my head, and for a while, I had no idea why I was doing that and was not sure if it would be worth it, if you think about all the dangers it poses. But I made it to the top, and Wow! It is not so much the view as the feeling that you made it that exhilarates. But the view is amazing, you see the green valley and some of the snow-capped mountains around. And oh, who do I meet up there but 3 Tamil girls from Madras! :D Amazing!! One of them was even from Santa Clara (very near San Jose). Really small world ...I was struck to hear Tamil on Half-Dome!

I had to climb back down soon 'coz there were folks waiting. The climb down is definitely easier, but one thing that strikes you is how sheer the drop is. And again, I didn't think about it too much, I was just concentrating on the cable and where to put my foot next! And yes, the cable-climb was where my dear sneakers were slipping on the rock-face and I realized somewhere during that fit of panic that I needed to buying hiking shoes if I was going to keep up at this sort of thing. The descent down the rock (the one without the cables) is not that easy either, although it is not as steep as the actual dome. There is nothing to hold on to and you don't always find the steps made out of the rock. Anyways, from then on, it was pretty much downhill (literally and figuratively in terms of our aches and pains). We left the top at about 5:30pm and began the descent. A lot easier, but it still stresses your knees out. Not advisable to be on the trail after sundown, so we basically slipped/slid/tumbled and ran down the trail without a stop. Reached the bottom at 8:30 and we were relieved to take the shuttle to the Parking Lot. The others had very cleverly left us notes on the van telling us that they were at the restaurant. Made it there, managed to eat something and left. I also bought some souvenirs at the store.

The facts: 17 miles (27.4km) round trip, ~4400 feet elevation change, conquered in 10 hours. Half-Dome is 8842 feet above sea level.

We stayed that night at this super-cool, totally comfortable mobile home. All of us were too tired to do a post-mortem of the day's events and just went to sleep, grateful for the comfort. We decided to take it easier on Sunday and went to Mirror Lake. It's a 1-mile hike to the really pretty lake. You can see a reflection of Half-Dome on the lake (hence the name). We also spotted a really graceful deer (or is it a stag, I don't know, it had antlers though) run by us. Got to cross the lake, freezing water about knee-deep. We also sat on some rocks and played a round of Pictionary before we accepted the fact that it was too uncomfortable a spot for that, considering that I was sliding down the rock every 2 minutes and might end up sliding down all the way to the lake taking the Pictionary board and who knows what else down with me!

We left Yosemite National Park, barely managing to avert a tank-empty fuel disaster! The drive back was fun too. We had some great music from Jaggi's real cool iPod! And I must say, Ashish and I were good DJs (do I hear applause?)! Soon, cell phones started working, and everyone went into the inevitable zone of returning phone calls. Made it back in decent time, had dinner at Rajjot, and reached home at around 10:30pm. Renuka and Kritika actually decided not to walk more then 20 steps a day to make up (or is it make down?) for the excessive walking that was done during the weekend! :-)

I don't think I can do justice to all the myriad encounters and all the Quotable Quotes that were a crucial part of the trip and drove us into hysterics at times. Each one of us has our own anecdotes (or different versions of the same anecdotes!) to narrate.Kudos to everyone for planning and executing the trip with so much enthu! Great company, great time!

Yosemite Part 1

Another exciting experience to share...another trip report. All junta who claim my posts are too long, I might as well warn you, this is one of "those". Ok, let's start at the very beginning. As you may have guessed by now, there is an ultra-enthu gumbal (gumbal=gang) here and we spend our time planning weekends and executing those plans! This weekend was Destination Yosemite. For the uninitiated, Yosemite (pronounced Yo-say-mi-tee) is a National Park about 200 miles from here. From the time I came here, everyone has been telling us that it is a must-see. I understand it is the Sierra-Nevada mountains that are up there.

The people involved are Renuka (aka Nunu/Nuke/Anoha), Kritika (aka Kiti), Jaggi (aka Jag, Jaggubhai), Ashwin (wonder why we haven't aka-ed him yet, for now let's say the driver) and keeping the group together was Ashish Garg (aka Gargi boy/Gangadharan/aog(read ugh)/God) and me (of course, I'm not going to tell you what I am aka!). We rented a minivan on Friday afternoon. We had planned to take off at around 2pm; we had a Caribbean party at work Friday afternoon and so, could afford to leave early. But surprise, surprise, it was 6pm by the time we hit the road. We reached Yosemite, quite eventlessly at around 10:30pm. The guys had booked a tent. We drove to the site, it was a canvas tent with a couple of beds, quite decent. Had dinner and slept tight in our sleeping bags. That is bear country and there were apparently some screams from the rangers who were trying to scare away approaching bears that night. But I slept blissfully through all of that.

We were up and raring to go by about 9:30am Saturday morning, after nice hot showers and sandwiches for breakfast. Would have been better if we were ready earlier, but what the hell - it's a vacation! We had planned to hike to Half-Dome, touted by many as "the" trail to hike at Yosemite. Look at
http://www.nps.gov/yose/trip/valleyhikes.htm#halfdome
for more info, Half-Dome is at the bottom of that list. We were at the trailhead by 10am and started up. It is an uphill climb almost all the way. You get to see the Nevada Falls plunge into the chasm at about 3.5 miles up the trail. It is a very scenic spot and most people stop the hike there. We sat by the water's edge. It is an uplifting feeling to stretch your legs and watch the river hurtle down, with the sun on your face and water lapping your feet. Oh yeah and the methi and aloo parathas helped too! :-) Not for long, we had a dome to climb, or atleast half a dome.

Left the Falls behind at around 1:30 and continued up. Till then, the climb was not too steep and we felt like we would make it. But alas, the worst was yet to come. There is a flat meadow for about half a mile after Nevada Falls which is the calm before the storm. After that for about 4 miles is a steep ascent through forest-like terrain. But we kept at it. We reached a sign that said "Half-Dome 2 miles" and were spurred on by that. Boy, was that sign misleading or what?! We kept going higher and higher and finally reached a point that seemed to me like it was 2 miles covered. Only to realize that there was this big rock face to climb over and only after that would we even get to the infamous cables that would take us up Half-Dome! That's the point where you start to detest your backpack and your legs feel like lead, been there? Well, as much as I wanted to, I wasn't about to give up then, not after that arduous uphill climb. So we took on the next climb up the rocky face, no trail or anything, just scramble up the rocks with some steps carved out of the boulders at some places. What makes it worse is the fact that there are people coming down and believe me, there really is no room for a two-way lane! The sun shines down harder in the mountains, and feeling hot and dusty we got to the cables. Now's the real fun....

Whew!

Here's the quick synopsis of this weekend: I realized that I needed a new pair of hiking shoes. And at the end of it, some of us felt like we could do with a new pair of limbs! :-) More details to follow.....

Saratoga Gap Trail and more

Hello!

Monday morning! Weekend flew by. Yesterday, we went hiking on the Saratoga Gap Trail, on my roommate's recommendation, and it turned out to be a good trail. It was low-moderate in difficulty, just a few ups and downs, and a few rocks. But some really nice views and huge trees.Trees are always good!

I was then on the phone for like 2+ hours!! But then hey, what are weekends for, if not for chatting with buddies?! Oh and my sister got something for me from her Florida trip. It is a fridge magnet which says "I am smiling because you are my sister. I am laughing because there is nothing you can do about it!". I thought it was nice, and so typical of my sister! :)

Grand Canyon!

Hello! My first posting!

Here's my first hand account of the great Grand Canyon!! Before I go more into what happened, some background info, the Canyon has been formed by the forces of the Colorado River and wind erosion. It has a North Rim and a South Rim. The South Rim where we went is more accessible and frequented. There are easy, relatively flat Rim Trails around the canyon and also the more difficult trails that go down into the Canyon. One can also go rafting in the Colorado river, which is booked 2 years in advance for commercial rafting and 15 years in advance if you want to take your own raft!!! The Canyon is a 4 hour drive from Phoenix, one of the nearest big airports.

I flew out of San Jose Friday night and reached Phoenix (in Arizona) at around 9:40pm. Arun (who had reached before and rented a car) picked me up at the airport. We then went to get (supposedly) 2 of his friends who were also coming with us. Turned out that it was Arthi and one of her Austin friends, Sajosh!!! I was sooo surprised. They had hidden it from us...as a surprise. We thought Arthi was not coming, so it was great to see her again! The four of us then drove to Flagstaff (which is 2.5 hours from Phoenix and 1.5 hours from the Canyon) and stayed there at a motel for the night. We left early next morning for the Canyon. We reached 9ish. Vaishno and Aniket (who had reached Phoenix earlier on Friday) were already at the campsite. They had rented a Mustang and every third word Vaishno said was 'Mustang'! :) I was pretty excited about the Mazda6 we had rented too! We decided to leave all the stuff in the car and start hiking right away.
The Grand Canyon is a breath-taking phenomenon of nature! It is soo huge and absolutely marvelous!! So on Saturday we took on the Bright Angel trail that goes down 9 miles to the river. It is not recommended to go down to the river and back in one day. We did about a 4-mile hike down and back. There are warning signs everywhere, telling you to take enough water and food during the hike. The Canyon gets hot during the day (30C +). There are rest stations at 1.5 and 3-mile points with water and restrooms. Going down is easy, with awesome views all around you! Climbing back up is quite another story...the climb is steep, and you are hot, thirsty and dusty! Vaishno and Arthi did not come down beyond the 3-mile point, but the boys and I went down a little further. We all made it fine to the top at about 5pm. Our shoes, socks and pants had changed colour to the orange-red of the Grand Canyon mud!. Feeling hot and dirty, but satisfied, we went to the campsite and pitched our tent. There are quite nice facilities at this campsite in terms of bathrooms, drinking water etc. We barbecued in the night for dinner (Hari and Shruti joined us at the camp that night). We then crashed for the night, 4 of us girls in our sleeping bags in one tent, just enough space...but was fun!:)

We were up the next day morning by 5am, hoping to leave for the hike at 6:30am. And we did leave, not too late at around 7am. There are free shuttle buses running to different locations in the Canyon, so we parked the cars at the Market Plaza (where there are shops and stuff) and took the shuttle to the head of the South Kaibab trail. In between bus rides, dear Aniket realized that in his excitement, he had left his backpack in the car. He went back to get it, as a result of which we reached the trailhead only at 9:30am. This South Kaibab trail is tougher than Bright Angel because it is steeper and has no water or shade anywhere on the trail. Which means we had to carry lots of water and food. We started off and went down to the 1.5-mile stop eventlessly. There, Vaishno decided to head back up, and not continue down with us. We also met a ranger there who told us that 3 people had been rescued from the 3-mile stop that morning where they had been found lying face down.... one of who may be a fatality. That scared me a little bit, but we were sure that we'd be fine since we had enough water and food on us. We continued down to the 3-mile point, called Skeleton Point, where you get a first glimpse of the Colorado River. It is an amazing feeling to catch sight of the green river amidst all that red Canyon!! We sat there for a bit to catch our breaths before the trek back up...when we met 2 people coming up. They were coming back from the river. This inspired Aniket to go down to the river, so he and Arun (the 2 fittest people in our group) continued down to the river. We were a little worried to let them go, after all those warnings, but we were also quite sure that they would make it back up fine. We started back up from that point. It is very hot and we had to conserve the water, because that was all the water we would get until the top (no water on the trail!). I made it up in pretty good time of 2 hours; Arthi and her friend came up an hour later. Vaishno was waiting for us at the top and we left there at around 4pm to look around. Aniket and Arun would take much longer to climb back from the river and we had decided to meet them at the campsite. We took the bus to check out some more viewpoints, each one more amazing than the next. We went to the Plaza to buy some groceries and souvenirs. While we were there, Arun and Aniket showed up, they had made it back up in an amazing time of 5 hours! So at the end of the day they had done a 15 mile hike (more than half of it uphill) in about 8 hours. We heard amazing narrations from them about the river trek, and went back to the campsite.

Monday morning, Vaishno and Aniket headed back for Phoenix because they had an afternoon flight. We took a shower (yes, the campsite actually had nice shower facilities), hiked on the much easier, flat Rim Trail and then started driving back to Phoenix. At Phoenix, Arthi and Sajosh had someone to meet whom they knew via a friend at Austin so we dropped them off at her house. We then looked around Phoenix a bit, there's a Lake Tempe there, then had French crepe for dinner and a HUGE ice cream! :) Phoenix is really hot, close to 40C! It was great. My flight was at 9:25, so we dropped the rental car off and I left for San Jose. I didn't want to come back at all...after all that fun! So at the end of the trip, we had a total of around 14 miles in 2 days, half of it climbing up the steep walls of the Canyon...felt good, but now, I am left thinking, what if I had gone all the way down to the river too...hmm...I know I will, sometime...soon.

Now it's soo hard to get back to work, after all that excitement. It was a really memorable weekend...the awesome Grand Canyon visited with some of the nicest people I know; Aniket's wisecracks, Vaishno's irresistible mannerisms and expressions, Arun's meticulousness and sincerity, Arthi's cool attitude! (I don't know Sajosh well enough!) And everyone's enthu!! These guys have taken loads of awesome pictures; I will find a way to put them up soon.