Mount Tamalpais

I had made a mistake and assumed I was leaving for Peru on Saturday :) Instead, it is 1am on Monday morning. This leaves room for a full weekend of awesomeness in the bay area.

We headed to Mt Tam to try out this hike I had heard so much about for the past few years as the best hike in the bay area! And sure enough, it was pretty awesome. We followed the route suggested by bahiker to go up from Stinson beach on the Matt Davis Trail and down on the Steep Ravine Trail.

I had never seen this kind of climate on a hike in the bay area yet - there was low hanging fog/clouds which were drifting past us.

It felt dampy and rainforesty - so beautiful assortment of trees and plants.

It wasn't hot or too cold either.

Randomly on the hike we saw a kid dressed up as a knight. And a lady with a crown. Which added to the enchanted forest feel to the hike. It's too bad that the cloud never went away to reveal the golden gate bridge and stinson beach view but...yeah I definitely enjoyed this hike.

I'm heading off to Peru tonight and then an epic hiking/camping roadtrip up along the west coast. I'm sure there will be many pictures and stories to share.

Old vs New

Ewwwwwww. Who is that girl?!?!

June 2006


June 2009

Yosemite

Well, I'm back from Yosemite and the sunset hike trip to Half Dome didn't go exactly according to plan but what I did experience was priceless.

- Full rainbow and a cool shower along the falls.


- Full sky covered with stars and shooting stars and UFOs.

Instead of arriving to start the hike at 12 to get up to Half Dome by 8pm, we were late and did not anticipate the hour wait in front of the gate or the hour drive through the park. We arrived at the trail head at 4pm!!

So sunset was in 4 hours. Team 1 aka Mules named Marvin and Mike hustled and did indeed get to the top of half dome in 4 hours in time for the sunset. Julian also made it to the base by then and not far behind was Tim.

They got to see the Sunset :)


Team 2 was led (more like held behind) by me at a pace of a 20min/mile with plenty of breaks :) Dustin and Chris were super patient and feasted on food while waiting for me.

We made it half way in the meadow before the sun set and it quickly became pitch black.

That damn sign that says 2 miles to Half Dome gives you really false hope.


We struggled onwards to the saddle, which is the start of the last mile. It was pitch black and my legs and muscles were done...and there wouldn't be anything to see on the top of half dome....so we met up with the group lying there looking at stars. That was at 10pm. (so it took 6 hours to get there...and I'm sure 8 hours if we made it to the very top)

What a beautiful sky. I've never seen that many stars in my life. We saw a shooting star that slowly projected through the sky, it was unreal. We saw satellites, planes, UFOs, planets I'm sure. It was indescribable and priceless.


The descent down in the dark was treacherous. I couldn't walk in a straight line and would constantly stop myself from tripping. We sang to scare bears away and were all scared when seeing glowing eyes of deers. The Nevada falls in the dark was a little scary as well. I felt pretty safe with our group of 7 as we only made a few wrong turns. About 2.5 miles to the bottom, I hit my knee on a rock and that was the end of my knees. As I hopped and wobbled down the rest of the way, the others had to wait. (nothing to worry about, it was just a bruise and recovered a few days later!) We got to the bottom around 4am.

The drive to the hotel was also really taxing since it was about 2 hours away. Finally after check in into the hotel at 6am and a nice hot shower, everyone was passed out by 7am.

I probably wouldn't do a hike in the dark or recommend such a long one. I've heard that you could see the same stars at Glacier Point, where you can DRIVE there. I guess since I didn't actually DO all of half dome, I'll have to repeat this again in the future...as a sunrise or a day hike.

Baked Salmon with Fava Beans

On Friday I wanted to clear my fridge of farm vegetables so thats what we did! We bought some fresh salmon and lemon.

I marinated the salmon with olive oil, pepper, salt, pine nuts, pepper flakes, rosemary, thyme and lemon slices. Baked it at 350 for 25 min. It came out super tender and juicy.

I had some help with the veggies - Dustin peeled the Fava beans and we boiled them for about a minute before taking them out to again de-skin. I followed Alice Water's recipe to add half olive oil, half water and garlic and rosemary. We threw in the fava beans, some chard, and a zucchini and green onion and let the water evaporate.

In the background I also cooked up some of my 8 grain of rice. Everything really went well together. Panda timed his arrival just in time for the feast! Top it off with a Cabernet from Kunde and the company...it was a perfect dinner.

Mushroom Burger

Not wanting to spend yet another meal eating out, I willed myself to go to safeway today and buy food.

I bought some
- Morningstar Portabello Mushroom Veggie Burger patties
- Fresh Sour Dough Wheat Bread
- Mushroom Brie Cheese
- Tomatoes

Came home and put it all together with my farm lettuce in the span of 10 min and seriously, it is the tastiest burger I've ever had. No sauce, no oil, nothing. Try it out :)

Mission Peak Sunset Hike

Alright armed with new pants, fleece, shoes, socks, headlamps along with my trusty northface waterpack and mangos we went on our final test hike before Half Dome tonight. We started around 8:15pm in time to see the sunset. Since Mario is equivalent to 2 mules, trying to keep up a decent pace with him was tough. It's probably the fastest I hiked up Mission Peak but his absolute slowest time :)

I think I never realized my fear of cows until Mission Peak. In the dark, these big black lumps with bright eyes glaring at you as you walk past them is freaking scary. Now that I don't eat these animals, maybe they'll be nicer? We also saw large spiders and toads on the trail.

We got down past 11. Yay, I think I'm ready for half dome...as long as I keep it at my own pace. Now...PLEASE DONT RAIN OR THUNDERSTORM.

Bay2Breakers

What a way to wrap up my bay area experience with a sunday morning stroll along Hayes and Fell into the Golden Gate Bridge....observing the creativity, livelihood, and debauchery of thousands of SF Bay area peoples.

This event is way better than Halowe'en since the weather was perfect and any costume (absolutely anything) goes. Lifeguards, inmates, aliens, fighters, cast of 300, Jesus, creepy old nudists, pilots, carebears, smurfs, vampires, borat, cast of Wicked, walking beer bottles, anything you can think of - was there.

The pictures I uploaded might be offensive to some but it gives a good idea of what the party was like.

The experience of watching other friends' destruction from sake and beers definitely shows me that I don't miss alcohol at all :)

Big Basin Hike

We headed down to Big Basin on Saturday to tackle a hike along the Sky to Sea Trail to see three water falls. There are beautiful Redwood/Sequoia trees all over which provided plenty of shade. Because of my lack of navigation skills, we went the complete opposite direction. When we realized this it was already an hour into it and we decided to keep going to the Ocean Summit View. When we got there...well frankly there was no Ocean view :) Probably behind giant trees.

It's alright though, the hike was still beautiful and relaxing. But it proved that my new hiking boots suck and I must return it and break in whatever I pick up next.

Comfort food

I have to admit, the last week or month has been a slump in the healthy cooking at home or even packing lunch or waking up early. Lemme try to get myself out of it.

Today:
Hue Food for lunch - Banh Bot Loc, Banh Beo, Com Hen
Chinese for dinner - Bok choy and other veggies, Fish, Chicken

Yesterday:
Burrito in Alviso for lunch - ok fine I had beef tongue + beans + rice :|
Pluto's in Palo Alto - gigantic salad and garlic fries
Red Mango - small frozen yogurt with mango and blackberries

Tuesday:
Pasta Pomodoro calamari spaghetti with salad and bread
Quickly frozen yogurt and Fried stuff

These were definitely 2000 calories/day with 50% fat - but oh so good.
I don't even wanna update that scale on the top of the page, as I'm back at 139-140.

Ricky/Lobster you might be ahead now...but just you wait.
Time to get back into the healthy swing of things!!

Point Reyes to Strawberry Falls

My friends just got back from an epic snowboarding winter in Colorado so I was excited to come up to Sausalito to spend the weekend catching up!! They planned out an awesome hike in Point Reyes to Alamere Falls - I didn't realize until half way in the hike that the special treat was THREE waterfalls - the last one falling right down into the pacific ocean. We started at 1pm and took our time exploring Bass Lake, Pelican Lake and finally through a maze of wild flowers we relaxed on the waterfalls which we renamed to be Strawberry Falls (which it be forever known to be the place where we ate TwoSmallFarms fresh Strawberries).

I'm kicking myself for not bringing a camera but it was such a perfect day, perfect variety of trees, lakes, water, falls, wild flowers and just good company. On the way back we wandered into this swamp which we've renamed as Turkey Jerky Swamp as that was the food of choice when we stumbled upon it.

I LOVED every part of this hike and highly recommend it if you're lucky enough to find a sunny not so breezy day in Point Reyes. The variety of things to see was great, there was not much of an incline and the views were just incredible.

The day ended with a delicious meal of oysters, salmon, scallops and sea bass. The night ended with me sleeping in a "shack" with a floor to ceiling full view of the bay and Angel Island (and a full moon - which seemed orange and not the same as the moon I had seen the day before)

Sunday morning started off with a sunrise view of the bay and home-made:
- Egg white omelette with cream cheese and smoked salmon.
- Multigrain chocolate and nut pancakes
- ACME Olive Bread
- Fage Yogurt with Strawberries.

Yummmy. Life is so simple on weekends.