Exploration, outdoor adventure, activities, new things
The blaze started down by Cedar Lodge on Friday the 13th, downslope of our neighborhood where it has been growing and throwing threatening looks at our home. Today we got the advisory notice and then the pre-evacuation notice. Depending on what the fire does the neighborhood might move to a mandatory evacuation at any time. … Read more
I always love Yosemite Nature Notes when they come out. The footage is beautiful and the stories are often informative. But this episode is particularly special to me… I was invited to be in it! I feel like I have more to say about how much I love Yosemite’s winter season… but so much of … Read more
It started raining today before dawn and rained steadily throughout the day. I’d made plans with one of the coolest people around to catch up over lunch, and wondered how that was going to go. On a sunny day, we’d head out to the river, or someplace like that, but with the weather, I worried … Read more
The Rock ‘n Roll Yosemite group, organized by Access Leisure has traveled to Yosemite each year for the last 8 years to explore Yosemite by hand bike and do a bit of rock climbing. It was so cool to see them go out and get it, whether it was biking the Valley Loop to see … Read more
I wish I had stopped to take a picture. Really. But sometimes, you’re having so much fun doing what you’re doing, that you just don’t want to stop and dig the camera out… even if you had it stashed in a convenient pocket to do just that. Skiing was Great The Cross Country Center at … Read more
Summer disappeared in a haze of off-set weekend schedules with Ranger Tom, too much work, and unrivaled weekend Valley traffic. It seems we were only just thawing out from our ‘snowpocalypse‘, and now we’ve had our first winter storm of the season. Tom hasn’t even really stopped skiing… he’s managed to get some ski time … Read more
Sometimes it’s easy to get focused on the great things to do inside the park, and as a matter of fact, there are a lot of great things to do inside the park, but there are some great things just outside the park too. With Badger Pass Ski Area closed for the season, a small … Read more
It’s a cold almost-November day, 40 deg and raining, and everywhere I looked this morning, there were photographers, with their big cameras on tripods set up next to the road, wearing their rain gear and happily snapping away. Serious photographers are a unique bunch here – it’s like they bloom when the skies turns dark … Read more
Yesterday, after work Tom and I tromped out to a short piece of rock, roped up and went rock climbing. I tried to remember the last time I did this… last summer maybe, on the East Side somewhere? It’s been a long time. Surprisingly, the mental rust was more noticeable than either my recovering shoulder … Read more
… and breathe… Between a Sisyphusean marketing workload with DNC, a conversion optimization class that operates heavily on the you’ll-get-out-what-you-put-in principle, volunteer activities at the Valley Visitor Center for a full day once every other week, a frozen shoulder that seems to be adamant about remaining stuck, and house construction (Tom’s been going nuts, and … Read more