Mt. Diablo

Every time I do something physically challenging, it makes me think of my Dad.

Dad -- Hiking the PCT

(FYI: if it's factually challenging, Mom's the one. In fact, we call her Moogle because when you need an answer, you just call her and she will know!). He used to drag us up and down mountains, to the ski slope on days where the snow was ripping your face off, and into other such situations where we thought we couldn't possibly succeed. I can't say I necessarily LOVED doing much of it, although I don't remember really hating it either (or did I? Dad/Mom? Did I whine a lot?)

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail

However, I did love the sense of accomplishment, of pride, that you get when you do something difficult and live to tell the tale. I did love the view from the top, the one that I got to see because I had pushed myself to the limit (or past it sometimes) of my capabilities. I did love that feeling of strength that it brought.

And I guess that part stuck.

In two weeks, Broski and I (and possibly Dad and Moogle) will go to Mt. Shasta to once again see if we can conquer the high peak another time.

Shasta Summit 2009

For another training session (see the first couple here), Broski and I decided to run up to the summit of Mt. Diablo, the highest point in Contra Costa county, at 3,849 ft (source). We were aiming to do the "5 Peaks of Mt Diablo" which would be about 16 miles and 5,200 ft of total climb. The five peaks are Twin (1,733 ft), Eagle (2,369 ft), Diablo, North (3,557 ft) and Olympia (2,946 ft) (source). In that order.

You know how I always say how I went up and then down and then up and then down? Well this time...I went up. And up. And up. And up! In case you don't know, Contra Costa county is hot and Mt. Diablo is no exception. As my brother said, it's not called Diablo for nothing! We climbed and climbed and climbed and finally made it to Twin Peaks. Then it was up some more to Eagle.

Unfortunately, there was some down between Eagle and the main summit. You can see it there, right around mile 3. And it was HOT. After the problem I had with dehydration last time, I made sure to drink about 2 - 3 liters of water before we left, plus I ate breakfast AND a snack, plus I carried 3 liters on me. However, even with these precautions, I was pretty tired by the time we started heading downhill from Eagle Peak. In fact, I remember looking at the trail and at the elevation on my Garmin, knowing that I was going to have to do a lot of climbing due to this downhill, and thinking "S**T, I don't wanna!".

Broski on the down between Eagle Peak and the Summit.

I really wanted my sandwich. I had stuffed two of them in with my icy water in my hydration pack, as a sort of cooler system. I was craving that sandwich and some shade, but neither were in the cards just yet.

We make it to the summit, but it was a long, dusty, hot, shadeless, scratchy, poison oak filled 7.6 miles. It was one of those hikes (/runs) where you were trying to look out for snakes and not touch the poison oak and try not to twist your ankle on the rocks all at the same time.

Remember what I said about loving to see the view because I pushed myself? Well, ironically, the summit of Mt. Diablo is one you can drive to. So we made it to the top and it is filled with people, trying to find parking spaces, snapping obligatory photos and wearing white cutoff shorts and cute tank tops and flip flops.

We ate our still cold (and must I say, completely delicious) sandwich pretty quickly and then started to head back down. In fact, looking back now, I realize we did not even take an obligatory summit photo!

The trail went straight down. In four miles, we dropped almost 3,000 ft. It was hell on knees; welcome to Mt. Diablo. After about two miles of this, we decided to skip peak 4 and 5, not because we didn't want to hike up them, but because we didn't want to hike down them! We were tired of downhill already! So we took a shortcut and got the heck out of there.

Still fresh -- this was before peak #1

We finally got to the trailhead and drank some nice cold water and dreamed about ice cream (which I never got. Pity). So, I had plenty of water this time, but I still think that the heat really takes it out of me! I think I will go back to this mountain, as it is yet unconquered, but next time I will do it in January!

Total miles: 14
Total time:4:54
Total elevation gain: 4,300 ft

Well Dad, I think we are ready for Shasta. Who's in?

What gives you a sense of accomplishment and pride in yourself? What obstacle have you faced and beaten? Do you prefer mental or physical challenges?

Hood Mountain & Mt. Tam

My family likes to scale tall things. I have mentioned before how my Dad and his friends like to climb to the highest points in each state, but we also like to climb anything tall. Or taller than something else. Or not tall at all. So...pretty much anything.

For instance, we have climbed to the top of Mt Shasta before. The last time we did it was June of 2009. So we figured we were about due for another trip. (However, I just read the recap from last time and I realize it's funny how easily we forget how difficult things are!)

Base camp is at approximately 7,000 ft. The top is at 14,179 ft. It really is pretty much straight up on the way up and if you are lucky, it is snowy, and you can glissade (slide on your butt) half of the way down. That's an approximate elevation gain of 7,000 feet. After races like this, it would seem easy, right? It's not. The high elevation really takes every bit of energy you've got out of you.

So Broski and I are "training" a bit. We never intended to train, but I had a free day a few weeks ago, and he and I decided to hike what we thought** was the tallest mountain in his county, Sonoma County. This is called Hood Mountain (#1), and is about 2,733 feet.

1: Hood, 2: Tam, 3: Diablo

It was approximately 3 miles each way and the day we did it, it was about 100 degrees. We did not bring enough water and there was no water along the way. To top that off, I ran into a poison oak bush with my face near the top and so we ran down to try to get to a stream to rinse it before the oils set in. However, it was a pretty cool hike. From the top you can see Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley and the Pacific Ocean. (**note: the tallest one is actually Mt. Saint Helena at 4,342 ft. Boy were we off by a few feet!)

View from the top of Hood Mountain

Next up was Marin County, where the tallest is Mt. Tam (#2), at 2,574 ft. As a sidenote, there is a really famous trail race called the Dipsea, which I will actually probably tell you more about tomorrow because otherwise this post is going to be way too long... Let's just say that we took the long way to the top of Mt. Tam (via the Dipsea trail), so our hike lasted all day. It was a great hike though, taking us past the ocean, through the redwoods, and to the top of many a grassy knoll. If we would have went straight up, it would have been about a 2,500 ft elevation gain, but we took a detour, which caused our climb to be about 5,000 ft instead. This hike took us about 9 hours, since we did the detour, which caused our total mileage to be about 22 miles.

This time we brought enough water. In fact, Broski carried about 8 liters (and two beers!) and I carried 2.5 liters. We were so paranoid after the dehydration from Hood Mountain! However, there were places to fill up your water this time. But we were really glad we brought our own because we froze all the bottles so we would have cold water and it was so nice, since it was about 90 degrees that day and was really dusty to boot!

From the top -- with view of the TINY city in the background

Up next is Mt. Diablo (#3), the tallest in Contra Costa county, at 3,849 ft (source). We are ready!

I am not sure this will truly ready us for the thin air of Mt. Shasta, but it's worth a shot and it's fun to do regardless of whether or not it's helping! Of course it's much easier to hike with a tiny Nathan hydration vest rather than a 40 lb pack!

Do you like hiking? Do you have a favorite type of hike? What is your weekend hobby?

Memorial Week

Since I had Memorial Day off from work, I decided to take a couple extra days and go somewhere!

After a few hours in the air (and a great sunrise view of the city),

The City & The Headlands

I was here:

West Bay

I am not going to bore you with stories of lazing around on the beach, reading, or overeating. Instead, let's talk about the ways you can attempt to stay fit while on vacation. I feel a little list coming on!

Beach Running: I tried to go every day, but there were a few obstacles. First, it was HOT and HUMID. I kept going earlier and earlier but once the sun was up (around 6 am) it was pretty much scorching by then. Also, running in sand is hard. According to this article, running in sand is 1.6 times harder than running on solid ground. So I am going to take that to mean that when I ran 2 miles, it was really 3.2. That way it sounds like I really did something! No really though, you supposedly expend 1.6 x more energy. Coupled with the heat, I would say it's closer to 2 times more!

Swimming: It was so nice to go for a few laps in the clear water (see photo above -- that was my lap pool) every morning after my run.

Diving: According to this website, you burn more calories diving than you do walking fast!  It states that I burned about 200 calories in a half of hour! Also, if you are interesting in scuba diving, I wrote a post a while back about my favorite places to go diving.

Sunset walk

Kayaking: Coupled with the swimming, this made me have some tired arms at the end of the day! I always say I am like a T-rex: strong legs, weak arms. I need to work on that!

Walking: Where we stayed was about 2 miles from "town" although we did have plenty of restaurants and bars nearby. We walked to town every day and if we could, we also walked back. This was also on the beach, so I wonder if walking in sand is also 1.6 times harder? I am going to go with Yes.

Carrying Water:  We really take tap water for granted! When you can't drink the water, you spend a lot of time buying and lugging around big bottles of water. I drink so much that I buy it a gallon at a time, and that weighs about 8 lbs, so I got a bit of a workout every time I bought a bottle (and especially if I had to carry it from town)!

Dancing in the Sand: This a great way to burn some calories and to have fun, but it also gives you really sore calves the next day! I suggest the Samba. Along with this song. It will really get your blood pumping. By the way, there is actually a specific dance to this song; you can kind of see it here. It is pretty fun! Las Manos Arriba!

What's your vacation strategy? Do you just give up trying to be active or do you make time somehow? Do you plan vacations around activities or activities around vacations?