Carson Iceberg Wilderness
October 6th, 2009See a slideshow with more pictures
About thirty miles south of Lake Tahoe and thirty miles north of Yosemite, the Carson Iceberg Wilderness is a little known gem in California’s high country. Just beyond Bear Valley on Highway 4, the wilderness is past the point at which the road is maintained in winter, making access impossible after the first heavy snows of winter. I led an introductory backpacking trip to Carson Iceberg just before the beginning of the winter season.
The Carson Iceberg Wilderness
Mt. Shasta
June 13th, 2009See a slideshow with more pictures
Fourteen thousand, one hundred and sixty-two foot Mount Shasta is a dormant volcano that rises in solitary drama in the far north of California. A few years ago, I attempted the climb with my father. We were turned back by low snow, poor conditions, and severe dehydration. Over Memorial Day weekend I tried again with a group of friends from school.
Mount Shasta from Bunny Flat
We drove to Mount Shasta on Friday afternoon. That night, we camped at Bunny Flat, the trailhead for the popular Avalanche Gulch route at 6950′. Unusually for May, Bunny Flat was still covered in snow. That was a good sign—everything we’d seen and heard suggested that climbing conditions were significantly better than the last time I’d attempted the peak. We pitched a tent on a flat snow patch south of the road, and some of us slept outside on an exposed dirt patch beneath the stars.
Pyramid Peak
May 1st, 2009At 9,983′, Pyramid Peak is the highest point in California’s Desolation Wilderness. Since it is only about a three hour drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, Desolation Wilderness is the most heavily-used wilderness area in the United States. Thus exploring Desolation during the winter months has a number of advantages—not only do the snow-covered peaks make for spectacular vistas, but most of the visitors that swarm the area during the summer are kept away by colder temperatures and feet of snow.
Hiking below Horsetail Falls
Glacier Point Road
February 8th, 2009One of the most popular winter activities in Yosemite National Park is skiing or snowshoeing Glacier Point Road. The road is closed to cars in winter beyond the Badger Pass Ski Resort, but most of the road is groomed, making the 10.3 mile road a relatively easy ski route. The reward is a spectacular view of Yosemite Valley.
Yosemite Valley from Highway 49
Silver Lake
January 12th, 2009The winter retreat for the Stanford Outdoor Education Program instructors was a back country skiing trip off of Highway 88 near Kirkwood Mountain Resort. We left campus early on a beautiful Saturday morning. Despite a flat tire in Jackson, we managed to make it to Tragedy Springs Road, of which only the first hundred feet or so had been plowed. We parked in the plowed area and distributed group gear and food. Then we strapped on our skis and went on our way.
John points out our route
Peru
December 24th, 2008I flew into Lima in the early hours of December 14. A desert city on the Peru’s western coast, Lima is known for its depressing weather, and sure enough it greeted us with oppressive clouds and fog. A taxi took Kate and me to a hostel in Lima’s Miraflores district, one of the nicer tourist districts in the city. I didn’t really know what to expect, having never been to South America, but Miraflores was definitely not anything like what I would have anticipated. Within a five-minute walk of our hostel were a TGI Friday’s, a Chili’s, a McDonald’s, a Starbucks, and a Domino’s pizza. We spent the rest of our first day trying to fight jet lag while exploring the area around our hostel. We ate dinner at a nice Italian restaurant a few blocks from the hostel—apparently Italian food is a hot trend in Peru.
The next day we were joined by Kate’s friend Divya and her boyfriend Daniel. Daniel, a native Colombian, spoke fluent Spanish and proved to be invaluable in helping us travel throughout Peru. The four of us walked around Miraflores, and we ate lunch at an upscale Peruvian restaurant where Kate and Divya tried ceviche, a quintessential Peruvian dish. We strolled west to the cliffs above the beach, where we were heckled by paragliding companies. Then we walked down to the beach, where we were heckled by several people offering surfing lessons. Declining, we gravitated towards Larco Mar, a new mall built into the cliffs above the Miraflores beach that wouldn’t look out of place in San Diego. It was a surreal experience to stand in an Aeropostale store in Peru, with pop remixes of Christmas carols (in English) playing outside on the mall’s soundsystem and The Killers blasting on the store’s speakers.
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