A last minute change of plans due to permit availability had us going into a different wilderness than originally planned. Rick (the Naviguesser) had invited the two of us along on a weekend to Dinkey Wilderness and I eagerly agreed, excited to check out a new area of the Sierra. When permits were surprisingly long gone when we arrived, we chose an alternate destination, Upper Twin Lake in Kaiser Wilderness.

I had no complaints - Kaiser is another area I've been meaning to check out, and having been there before, Navi assured us that it was a good destination. We twisted out way up into the mountains and watched the temperature outside drop from the car's interior indicator. While almost 100 degrees at 1300 feet at 9:30 am, by the time we reached the trailhead at 8000 feet the temperature was a perfect 72. The only weather concern was the clouds around us, which were building in a way that indicated we might face some thunderstorms.

Upper Twin Lake is a short hike of about three miles from the trailhead we started out from, and we got there quickly. After finding a nice campsite and setting up, Dave and I both tried fishing for a while with no real luck - only a couple of nibbles. A couple of thunder clouds rumbled in the distance but we were never rained on. We tried fishing again a couple of hours later and this time had some luck. Within a short amount of time Dave had caught two rainbows and I had caught one. At about 8-10 inches long, the three made a perfect dinner for the two of us. Cooked in aluminum foil over the fire with wild onions, then lightly seasoned, I didn't need the ramen noodle backup dinner that night!

Chatting around the campfire, relatively warm temperatures, and stars made it a lovely night at the lake. By the next morning Dave was eager to fish again and managed to catch a breakfast of brook trout in minutes. Better than oatmeal!

Pictures from this overnighter are here: Upper Twin Lake, Kaiser Wilderness ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/06/kaiser-wilderness-fishing-and.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/06/kaiser-wilderness-fishing-and.html Photos and Trip Reports backpacking fishing kaiser lakes wildflowers Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:16:43 -0800 Dinkey Lakes Wilderness.  It will be the first Sierra summer trip of the season, so I'm tremendously excited.  We'll be hiking and camping around some great scenic lakes, and hopefully we'll get to feast on fresh trout for dinner.  Pictures when I return!   ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/06/going-backpacking.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/06/going-backpacking.html Photos and Trip Reports backpacking dinkey fishing lakes Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:53:39 -0800 4.2 RC1 release, so if things get a bit borked for a while, please forgive me while I work out the kinks. See you on the other side! ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/upgrading-movable-type-mt-42-r.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/upgrading-movable-type-mt-42-r.html Site News maintenance movable type website Thu, 29 May 2008 19:46:33 -0800

There is a reason that Highway 1 heads inland at Fort Bragg to join 101. The coast north of this point was simply too rough and rugged for a highway to be built, and this stretch is known as the Lost Coast. Difficulty in trail access, unpredictable weather, and roads that make people nauseous just by looking at them on the map are just a few of the reasons that make the Lost Coast a wild and secluded destination.

This year's trip fell on Memorial Day weekend, and I was surprised by the numbers of people who made it out to the Lost Coast other than our group. While it is typical to see only a few other hikers out there, I would say we easily ran across 50 other backpackers over the course of four days (outside of our own group, that is). Paige had organized a great trip for fifteen (sixteen? I lost count) of us, with half the group heading southbound from Mattole to Black Sands, and the other half heading northbound from Black Sands to Mattole, both groups hiking the ~25 mile stretch over four days. We met on the middle night and camped together, also exchanging car keys to make the shuttling situation less painful. We would all meet again on the last day for lunch in Garberville, where cars, keys, and gear would be switched back to the proper owners.

Hiking the Lost Coast is completely different than Sierra backpacking. For starters, it's damp. The sea air gets in everything and gear doesn't dry out as quickly as it does in the dry mountains. You also have to pay careful attention to tides - if you don't plan your schedule around the tides you can find yourself waiting for hours to get around certain points. The other big difference is the beach walking. It contorts your muscles in ways you are not used to (really seemed to bother my hamstrings and hips, more than anything else), it slows your pace, and fills your shoes with sand. So, four days for 25 miles was a great pace - not too many miles to cover (we made it to camp around noon every day), but it gave us flexibility to deal with tides, vary our pace on the slow beach stretches, and dry our gear out during the sunny afternoons.

It was a great trip, and my pictures are uploaded here: Lost Coast]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/backpacking-the-lost-coast-fro.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/backpacking-the-lost-coast-fro.html California Coast Photos and Trip Reports backpacking beach coast lost coast mattole sand shelter cove wildflowers wildlife Tue, 27 May 2008 11:20:41 -0800 I just published my Field Report for the Golite Xanadu on BackpackGearTest.org (read it here or start at the Initial Report here).  This is an oddball tent and I felt I needed to say a bit more about it.

The Xanadu is advertised as a four season, 2+ person tent that weighs in at well under five pounds. My measured carry weight of everything (tent, poles, stakes, stuffsacks, guylines, etc) is 4 lbs, 8.3 oz.   The main body materials are Epic (the yellow in the photo) and Silnylon (the grey). Additionally, there are large no-see-um mesh walls and vents.

There are some reasons I am concerned about this tent and its marketing, but it's not all bad.  In fact, it has quite a lot of good things going for it.  I'm incredibly fond of its openness and space.  Everyone who has ever bought a tent knows that when a manufacturer says a tent fits two people, that really means you better like your tent-mate, because you'll be squeezing into space that is, in reality, much more comfortable for one person.

This particular tent is advertised as fitting 2+ people, and when compared to industry standards I think this is a conservative designation.  Many manufacturers would call this a three person tent.  It's incredibly spacious and comfortable for two people, and in an emergency you could certainly squeeze in a third, but that would put it at that 'hope-you-all-used-deodorant-this-morning' level of closeness. 

The Xanadu opens up into an airy palace.  Beneath each silnylon vestibule (one on each side) is a mesh wall that unzips completely.  In the photo to the left the vestibules are open and walls collapsed.  Also, under that flap on the end is a tent-width giant mesh vent.  While this mesh makes for an open and airy environment, it is exactly the reason that this shouldn't be considered a four season tent.

I had the Xanadu out in Lava Beds National Monument a few weeks ago, and the wind was vicious.  I secured the tent, tightly staking it in, tying out guylines, and tightening the vestibules.  A short while later I poked my head in to grab a jacket and everything was covered in dust. The wind would whip up the lava rock dust and blow it through large vents on the end, as well as under the vestibule and through the large mesh walls.  There was no way to close down the tent further - the mesh walls and vents were at the mercy of the wind.  There isn't even a flimsy piece of velcro to hold the vent closed over the mesh. My mind immediately flashed back to a painful night in a snowstorm a couple of years back up near Carson Pass. 

With ~100 mph gusts and ~3 feet of overnight snowfall, the tent we were in at the time did an incredible job protecting us from the elements.  But it had a small mesh vent that was difficult to keep closed, and over the course of the night spindrift would make it through this vent and collect on our sleeping bags and gear.   And if there is one thing you want to avoid on a cold, stormy winter night it is getting your insulation layers wet.

Now, take this tiny vent, make it impossible to close, widen it across both ends of the tent and make two entire walls of it.  Suddenly the Xanadu is anything but a four season tent.  I decided that I would not be testing the Xanadu in true four-season conditions due to safety concerns. And it turns out that my concerns are valid - see here for another tester's experiences in the snow.

My problem with this tent boils down not so much to the tent itself, but in the way that it is marketed.  This is a bad, even dangerous four-season tent, but it isn't a bad tent.  In fact, I see this line of tents as perfect solutions for people who want to give up their old, heavy backpacking tents but aren't ready to commit to a tarp or tarptent style.  I know lots of people who just feel more comfortable in a 'real' tent and are willing to take the hit in weight, and this tent would be a decent (though expensive) stepping stone into lightweight backpacking.

In my review, I compare the Xanadu to tarptents that I have used.  Essentially, it's a tarptent on steroids.  It has some of the features that help save weight with tarptents, along with the corresponding issues.  It is single walled (condensation) and uses a lot of mesh (dust/snow can get in on windy days).  At the same time, the Xanadu provides a much more robust body, poles, and staking setup, and is therefore capable of handling conditions beyond that of a traditional tarptent.

This tent seems to fit in a weird, narrow niche between a lightweight, 3-season setup and a true, 4-season tent -  too heavy and overbuilt for most conditions, but not robust enough for others.  I actually have a trip coming up on the Lost Coast where it will be a great solution since I expect a lot of brutal wind but not snow.  I don't entirely trust my lightweight shelters in those conditions, but the Xanadu should be nice.

I expect that most people aren't regularly taking tents out into snow storms, and those that do would recognize the limitations that the open mesh creates, but I really think Golite needs to reconsider the branding of the Xanadu as a four season tent.

]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/golite-xanadu.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/05/golite-xanadu.html BGT Reports Gear Testing backpackgeartest four season golite review tent Fri, 09 May 2008 09:18:37 -0800

I almost forgot to post my photos from last weekend! Before it gets too hot, I wanted to visit a new East Bay park. I settled on Pleasanton Ridge and met a couple of others there for a day of hiking and geocaching. It was a good place for wildflowers, but I wouldn't want to hike there in the heat of summer - 80 degrees was warm enough. Pictures available by clicking on the photo. ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/pleasanton-ridge-dayhike.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/pleasanton-ridge-dayhike.html Bay Area Photos and Trip Reports bay area easy bay geocaching hiking wildflowers Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:03:20 -0800
I could talk for days about what I've seen and what I think, but that's not gonna happen here.  I'm currently dead tired and running on fumes (cookies and beer) so this is going to be my big 'Web 2.0 Expo' post for now.  I've had some pleasant interaction with Six Apart, the company that provides the blogging platform software that I use.  Most of the time I'm a happy Movable Type user (when things go wrong it's usually due to my own screw-ups), but lets not focus on the software.  Lets talk about the reasons that Six Apart rocks that have nothing to do with blogging.  Most photos by my colleague Moya and her ever-present Treo phone.

7. They build a mean ad-hoc mini golf course in their office.
I even got a hole in one!




6. They print their T-Shirts on women's cuts too
So did the Web 2.0 expo.  Who knew women used the internet?

5. Payam can fix things
Like this Movable Type wrench thingee.



4. They had the best party of the South Park Crawl
Trust me on this one - we stopped by most of them.

3. I won a bottle of wine by giving them my card and being the lucky person to have it drawn from the fish bowl.
Alden Vineyard Cabernet.  Their CEO's vineyard.




2. Historical truths on their office walls.




1. Vodka, even if it was gone when we were there.
That's what they told us, anyways.  Web geeks definitely do not drink as much as the Outdoor Retailer crowd, however.


]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/seven-reasons-to-love-six-apart-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-blogging.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/seven-reasons-to-love-six-apart-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-blogging.html General Geekery Miscellaneous movable type web20expo Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:51:16 -0800

Thanks to some prodding from Theresa, this weekend we decided to check out an area that's been on my to-do list for a while: Cache Creek Natural Area. Cache Creek runs through the range between the central Valley and Clear Lake, and is generally too hot for comfortable hiking in the summer and too muddy for comfortable hiking in the winter. Our timing was perfect, hitting the area while it was still cool, but sunny and dry. In addition, the wildflowers were at their peak, with purples, yellows, and blues exploding all over the green hillsides.

We were planning on hiking in the short three miles to Baton Flat, then once there we would decide whether to set up camp there and dayhike the additional four miles one-way to Wilson Valley, or continue on to camp at Wilson Valley. It turns out we had no choice - Cache Creek was high compared to normal, making the crossing at Baton Flat possibly dangerous. We set up camp and decided to spend the afternoon lounging around - napping, exploring down the creek, photographing wildflowers, reading, fishing, and wandering. Later, some other backpackers came by and were able to scout a passable route and crossed slow but successfully, but we were already comfortably settled in to our camp.

No fish were successfully caught (though enormous carp were seen), and the wildlife was surprisingly scarce. We saw a bald eagle or two soaring in the distance, a turtle struggling upstream against the current, a frog, rattlesnakes, lizards, and ducks flying up and down the creek. The highlight was the coyote I saw on the drive along highway 20.

The real highlight of the weekend (other than the company, of course), was the wildflowers. Larkspur, Chinese Houses, Lupine...everywhere we turned there was color. I spent Saturday afternoon wandering around and gleefully snapping photos of every wildflower I came across...until I startled a rattlesnake, at which time I was spooked enough to go back to the safety of my tent for an afternoon book and nap.

I'm glad to have finally visited this area. I'm not sure if I'll go back - as mentioned before, the heat is a deterrent for most of the year. I was also surprised that the majority of the other people we saw were hunters, and it makes me a bit nervous to be wandering around in the same area as people with bows and shotguns. The fishing isn't the best, with carp being the common fish (to the best of my knowledge). However, I'd definitely come back for the wildflowers!

Photos are here: Cache Creek Wildflowers]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/cache-creek-wildflower-explosi.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/cache-creek-wildflower-explosi.html Photos and Trip Reports backpacking fishing wildflowers Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:40:09 -0800

Russ, the famous winehiker, invited us for a Tax Day night hike of Mission Peak. It was a training hike for some people planning a Shasta climb over Memorial Day, so it was no slow stroll in the park - the intent was a good workout, and a good workout is what we got. I managed to snap a few photos before the sun set, leaving us hiking by moonlight and headlamp.

The funniest part of the hike was a group of turkeys harassing a cow. The turkeys would sneak up behind the cow and start tapping at her back legs. The cow would then turn around and chase the turkeys, who would respond with a loud 'gobble gobble gobble'. Satisfied that the turkeys had been taught a lesson, the cow would go back to nibbling on the grass, unaware of them wandering back into her space, starting the process all over again. Entertainment like that on the trail is hard to come by!]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/a-tax-day-night-hike-of-missio.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/a-tax-day-night-hike-of-missio.html Bay Area Photos and Trip Reports animals bay area mission peak night hike wildlife Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:36:46 -0800
It came to my attention a while back that the comment submission procedure on Movable Type 4 (and specifically this blog) was less than elegant.  So I turned off the default registration-required settings and set it to allow for anonymous Captcha-filtered comments.  But it turns out that this was even a worse idea because the Captcha didn't even show up on the comment submission form, leading to unpredictable errors when a comment was submitted.  It went something like this:

Step 1:  Comment Submission: "Hello, I'm submitting this comment on an entry and there is no spam checking - wow!  There isn't even a Captcha image!  I'm going to tell all of my pharmaceutical distributor friends!"

Step 2: User clicks submit, with evil spam plots brewing in the back of his or her mind.

Step 3: Movable Type processes the comment and checks whether the entered text matched the generated Captcha.  Here's the problem - the end user never saw a Captcha image.

Result: End user gets an ugly message and runs around in circles in frustration, their evil plans to spam-bomb me having been defeated.

Meanwhile, I'm pleased that I'm not getting any comment spam, but I'm feeling a little rejected because I'm not getting any valid comments either.  I'm thinking that I might welcome some spam.  I know people are reading - I get several emails a week asking follow up questions.  I keep thinking to myself, why don't they just enter a comment - maybe someone else can help? 

The Five Minute Solution: Take out all of the screwy if/else statements from the Comment Form template so that the Captcha will display no matter what.  Since I took out all of the other authentication methods these statements aren't needed anyways.  This seems to work, so comments are working (for now...)




]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/comments-actually-work.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/comments-actually-work.html General Geekery Site News comments geekery movable type website Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:33:55 -0800 John Muir Trail trip - it's a picture that brings back happy memories of one of my favorite nights on the trail. 

I'm still tweaking some CSS (the fonts don't want to play very nice) and I've also added a link to my new wildflowers page in the top navigation (also a work in progress).   There will likely be a few more changes since I'm not entirely happy with what I've done in a short period of time, but at least I am now unique and no longer using a default Movable Type template.

  ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/blog-your-own-blog.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/blog-your-own-blog.html Site News movable type website Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:55:32 -0800

"What wonders lie ahead?"

This is how Dave started us off on the trail every day of our six day trip into the Grand Canyon. Our group, (me, Paige, John, Dave (Paige's Dave), and David (my Dave)), spent an incredible week exploring some remote corners of the Clear Creek canyon, while also enjoying some civilization at the Phantom Ranch down along the Colorado River.

View the extended entry for the trip report and links to pictures. It's a long one, but I decided to keep everything in a single entry instead of posting a separate entry for each of the six days on the trail. ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/grand-canyon-backpack-six-days.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/grand-canyon-backpack-six-days.html Desert Southwest Photos and Trip Reports backpacking desert grand canyon wildflowers Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:26:54 -0800

Anyone from the Bay Area is familiar with that cone-shaped peak just outside of Morgan Hill. You know - that one just west of 101. As a hiker, this peak has been calling to me for years, just asking for me to stand on top of it. Unfortunately, this peak (El Toro) is on private property and the only legal way to climb it is to participate in the once-annual Morgan Hill Historical Society sponsored hike. At 1,420.3 feet, it's a Bay Area 'Fourteener'.

We met Tom and Russ, fellow hiking bloggers, before 8 am and joined the throng of people just itching to summit El Toro. After a brief lecture from a geologist the hike began, and hundreds of people swarmed towards the peak.

Gaining about 1000 feet in a mile, this isn't an easy hike by most people's standards. It's steep, gravelly, and has poison oak just waiting for you to make a mistake. There's no warm up stretch - it's just straight up and then straight down, no time for breathers unless you stop. I'm glad I just got back from a good strenuous backpacking trip - made this hike seem a lot easier than it would have been if I was in my normal sluggish winter form. They even have ropes up for the last gravelly stretch to assist people on the slick gravel.

My pictures here: El Toro, Morgan Hill

Tom's report of the harrowing El Toro Ascent here: The Fourteener of Morgan Hill ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/el-toro-in-morgan-hill-that-pe.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/04/el-toro-in-morgan-hill-that-pe.html Bay Area Photos and Trip Reports bay area climbing dayhike el toro morgan hill peak wildflowers Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:20:29 -0800

We headed up to Lava Beds for the cold easter weekend with Paige and Dave and their kids. It was a fun and simple trip - car camping in the cold (17 degrees on Friday night) which kept the park quiet and uncrowded. We pretty much had the caves and the park to ourselves.

Time was spent playing tourist - we've seen so much of the park and so many of the caves, it's fun to pick and choose from our favorites to make a nice short weekend of it.

The itinerary included:

• Cox Ice Cave
• Golden Dome Cave
• Sentinel Cave
• Skull Cave
• Captain Jack's Stronghold
• Petroglyph Point
• Valentine Cave

It has been four years since the Northern California Hikers formed and met for the first time. Dave and I had been backpacking in California for a few years but hadn't connected with any other people who enjoyed it like we did, and I was looking for other people who shared our interest. A post on the backpacker forums about forming a hiking group for people in Northern California caught my attention, and I joined up with the group right at the beginning.

Our first meeting was for a dayhike in Henry Coe, and a short time later we did an overnight backpack in the same park to Los Cruzeros. I knew right away that we had connected with a great group of people, and the rest, as they say, is history. The initial small core of people has grown over the past four years and we've gotten to meet many incredible people. We've made great friends, shared amazing adventures, and created hundreds of fantastic memories. Thanks, guys!

This weekend Paige managed to pull off a dayhike plan that would get eighteen of us together in one place - a near impossibility. Maria, Theresa, and Heidi were camping at Coast Camp, so Paige asked if anyone wanted to do a nice long dayhike loop through the park to visit them in camp on Saturday. There ended up being fifteen dayhikers and it was great to see several people that I haven't seen in a while - it was kind of like a high school reunion.

While it rained and was ugly inland, the sun was shining in Point Reyes and we had perfect hiking weather. The rain started to fall only at mile 12.6 of a 12.7 mile hike - within sight of the cars. Pictures of the hike are here: Point Reyes Dayhike Paige's Photos Theresa's Photos Karen's Photos Maria's Photos Frank's Photos ]]> http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/03/dayhike-at-point-reyes-with-th.html http://www.calipidder.com/blog/2008/03/dayhike-at-point-reyes-with-th.html Bay Area California Coast Photos and Trip Reports bay area hiking point reyes wildflowers Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:53:24 -0800