Solo Bike Tour

Im going on another bike tour down the coast. I will write about it when I return, but I will update the Twitter feed:
www.twitter.com/redmorningdirt

el canyon de los reyes

After four days of walking up kings canyon, I realized three things:

1) Its called Kings Canyon because its a Canyon, and if you want to get to the high peaks you better be ready to climb!

2) There is no human king that could be the namesake for this canyon, the beauty of this natural place is far more powerful than any human.



3) No matter how bad the economy is, nor how many wars are being fought, the outdoors will remain great in every sense of the word. If you ever feel like the state of the worlds affairs is bringing you down, go outside.



Last week, my longtime friend, Dom and I decided to take a backpack trip to Kings Canyon National Park. At the trailhead, we decided to attempt a 48 mile loop, not realizing how difficult it would be to climb 7000 feet and walk that far in only 3.5 days. So about halfway through the journey we abandoned the entire loop, and decided to enjoy the distance that we had gone.



overall we hiked about 40 miles and climbed 5000 feet. So it was nothing to scoff at. It was hot, and awe-inspiring. the granite walls of the canyon seemed to climb on forever.



We saw three rattlesnakes, one bear cub, and a number of deer, one who nearly ran into the tent in the middle of the night and scared us to death. We met a lot of people who were hiking much longer distances than us (the 211 mile John Muir Trail). We fished, we ate, we swam in the cool sierra waters, we wandered through the wilderness, we pondered life, and overall we escaped into a beautiful enveloping natural landscape.

here are a few more pictures of the trip:


the 10,000 feet dance!


a columbine at Dollar Lake


rattler #3


a refreshing King's river dip


food doesn't taste any better than this


not as tired as he looks


climbing through a granite meadow


after a discussion about politics and the economy


end of the trail.

ad for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow: probably not too appropriate.


Listening to Magnolia Electric Co.
Josephine

In the space between

I havent been posting lately because either:

a: I havent been inspired
or
b: I havent taken the time (I've had the time)

A few notable things that I have done and thoughts I've had over the past few weeks:

• I spent about 11 days in Colorado with Tim. It was beautiful, but hot and dry. I did a few hikes, and spent some good time with Tim, Jill, and Dan, Tims brother.
• I went on 3 solid 50-60 mile bike rides through the santa cruz mountains. On each ride I did a minimum of 3000 ft elevation gain. I'm thinking about doing the Santa Cruz century ride, but it is 12,000 feet of climbing and thats a lot.
• thought about training for a mini-triatholon, but need to be working a lot harder.
• Spent some time on the Delta with my mom. We stayed on a sailboat. It felt like we could have been in the jungles of Panama. I kept looking for spears flying from the jungle, and alligators coming out of the water, but to no avail. It was perfect summer time-- reading, sunning, swimming, eating, perfect.
• Went to a Tom Brousseau show at the Crepe place in Santa Cruz, and even though not many folks were there, him and his female friend completely electrified the small room.
• I aquired and am trying to learn the 5 string banjo. Its not easy, but its not terribly hard.
• I have applied to lots and lots of jobs and only heard from a few, the economic climate for teachers isnt looking too good.
• I decided to try twitter, and have a feed called chasing trains, which I will probably be changing, if you have a good idea with a line from a song or something interesting let me know.
• I want to start a music review/media response blog. I am wondering if I should just change this one around or start a new one. Any thoughts? I was trying to create a blog at the chasing trains url but its taken.
• Have a heavily producing garden, and it is beautiful. I will post some pictures. We have heirloom brandywine tomatoes and a ton of squash producing now. I really love to garden.

Well I'm sure there is more, but you know, thats all that comes to mind, and I have to catch up with my thoughts before I can get really deep in future posts. I will post some random photographs soon. In the meantime follow my twitter:

http://twitter.com/redmorningdirt