Sept 27, 13th Hike - FINAL EVENT - Mt Cammerer Fire Tower - The Smokies!

We hiked 8.5 hours, about 10-11 miles, on Sept 27 in the Great Smoky Mountains, partially on the Appalachian Trail.
And the group raised $600,000 in all for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Hike On!



This hike and the whole month of Sept was brought to you by these donors, who donated between Sept 8 and Oct 4:
(to fill in...)

This picture is me posing with the "view" from the Mt. Cammerer Fire Tower, at the midpoint (the top!) of our hike. That's after about 2900 feet of elevation gain, so I do look quite sweaty and more than a little spacey!

Here's one of many pages about the Mt. Cammerer hike. And Wikipedia too.
Mt Cammerer is 4,928 ft in elevation, we had about a 3000 ft elevation gain getting up to the tower, partially on the Appalachian Trail. Most of this elevation was in the first two miles of the hike!

On Friday night, we had an Inspiration Dinner at the hotel in Gatlinburg where the team (and Dave, Dave's brother James, his mom Joyce and Aunt Jean were all staying)!
James, Jean and Joyce all live in TN and it was really nice to see them there and during the weekend.
The staff and leaders did a "Archway of Hiking Poles" for us to walk under into the dining room: (Joyce took the below picture after we'd gone through the archway, and I bumped into the woman behind me!):















After the dinner, we gathered for a Silicon Valley Team picture. This was taken by James, who came down to the lobby and took many many pictures with everyone's cameras:














Friday night we had what is apparently a tradition for HFD - the "PB&J sandwich making party". Kathie and her husband hosted in their room, and Kathie was also selling bottled water downstairs from their rental car. One stop shopping!
Back in our room, I tried on the poncho that Joyce had loaned me. It was raining on Friday, and a good chance to rain on Saturday. Luckily I never had to use the poncho!














We were supposed to meet our bus at 7:30 am. Here's the "Mt Cammerer #2" group. This included 4 people from Michigan, 2 from New Mexico, and our guide, John. (Jean introduced me to John the night before at the dinner - they go to the same Unitarian church!)



















This was the first trail sign we came to - leaving the bus we walked along a gravel road for a while and then turned left at this sign. This marked the beginning of the "Low Gap" trail, which we would climb for almost 2000 ft in about 2.5 miles.
Lots of switchbacks, and not as bad as I thought it would be, but it was a steady climb and the trail was rockier than most trails have been in CA.
We had very good training!

Here is a very cool topographic map with points marked. This hiker didn't make it to the Tower, although they marked it on the map (near the top). Not even on their 2nd day of hiking. Wow. He says " A 10 year dream of mine still not actualized."

Here I am posing on a log bridge that I was very happy to see. No stepping across the stream on the slippery rocks today!
Jen said, "I thought of you when I saw that!" Reggie took the photo.


I bought a new hat for this trip at our send-off party at Trailsloggers. I really love it. Here's a picture of Yvonne and I - we both had this similar hat:




















Here are Reggie and Deb with the sign for the Appalachian Trail, although you can't see it very well in the picture.
I think this area where we turned onto the AT is what's called "Low Gap" - this was the top of the first 2000 ft of elevation.


















Here is the actual "entry to the Appalachian Trail" - the trail that we turned onto to get there. I took this picture from the "low gap" where we stopped for a break, but this is also how the trail looked for me for a lot of the hike. Often I would find myself seemingly "alone" (but usually with someone either just behind or just in front).
At those times I usually took the opportunity to think about my mom, and why I was here doing this in the first place. There were also a few times going up the hills where I imagined her hiking with me, which really helped me keep on.




















It was so misty all day - this is Bowman and Yvonne, I think on the AT. You can see how jungle-like it was. It felt like we were absorbing water through our skins like an amphibian.Also how small they look.
Reggie must have been up higher than they were when he took the picture.



Finally we arrived at the Fire Tower!
It was very misty still, so we didn't get the famous 360 degree views. So relaxing to sit and relax and have lunch, though.
The "rocky exposed ridge" part that we hiked up to get to the tower wasn't as scary as it sounded to me in the beginning. Probably partly because of the mist - we couldn't see how high up we were or what was below the ridge we were clambering on!
















Here's Jen and I inside the Tower. People were sitting with their backs against the wall, eating, talking, and just hanging out in there.
I read that people do stay overnight there, even though they're not supposed to.




















Here's Jen and Dana, one of our honorees, eating lunch on the rocks outside the Tower.














Here you can see what the rocks were like a little better. There were a few other hikers here, but these guys are all from our HFD group:















Nathalie and Reggie hung back a tiny bit when we were leaving and managed to get some of the "view" as the fog rolled back.













Here's a picture I grabbed from the Web that shows the view on a clear day.


On the way down it was not as hard as the way up - but it seemed to go on forever and ever. We posed again at the bridge near the trailhead. Nathalie found a salamander in the stream after this picture was taken!















As we hiked back to the bus, it started raining! Nice! It waited until the end of the day to start!
We jumped on the bus and were tired hikers on the way back to the hotel. I got a chance to talk to Liz from New Mexico who was my seatmate on the bus. In the picture above she is the lady in the top row wearing the blue shirt. I also talked to Marla from Michigan on the trail a little bit, she is fourth from the right in the picture above.

Dave was waiting for me as we walked into the hotel after we got back. Kathie saw him coming down the stairs in the glassed-in stairway, and said, "Solveig, there's your husband!"
It felt really good that he was there to support me.

We went to the Celebration Dinner with Joyce and it was quite fun. I was so hungry!
Afterward, most of the people on the team decided to go "out on the town" in Gatlinburg and we wound up in a bar/restaurant on karaoke night!

Actually there were very talented singers there. Dave and I vividly remember two men singing the medley of Grease songs (playing both parts!), and the older gentleman who flirted with our table and had some very impressive dance moves. (Someone took a picture of this guy, I don't know where it is).

When Deb got up to talk to the karaoke guy, we thought Dave and I would have to sing. But it turned out she was requesting a dance song, and the guy announced who we were and that we'd raised $600,000 to fight blood cancers...

So here we are dancing!

Nathalie, Deb, and it looks like Bob in background:















I love the light in this picture, it really shows what it felt like that night for me at least. Great celebration shot! Jen's hair looks great too.
I think Bowman took this with Reggie's camera. And look, it's Dave too!
















Also below is me with Deb and Joy. Eyes open for once! Picture taken with Joy's camera by someone!















Other fire tower experiences from the web:

* a comment on this page says that at high elevations - not including this but including Clingman's Dome - there are flying squirrels!!! Got to go back!

* I was amazed when googling for Mt. Cammerer at work the night before we left for the hike -- an interactive fiction piece about this exact hike!

* Here is a topo map with map pins, of the Albright Grove Hike

Sept 20, 12th Hike - Edgewood Park

This was our last hike before setting off for the Smokies on the following Thursday!
It's the beginning of the "cool-down" period to give our bodies a little rest before the event hike, so it was only 2.5 to 3 hours.

Diana met me for this hike - I was very happy to see her. She arrived before I did, but I was able to quickly get my boots on and hustle across the road to meet for the mentor-led hike. I wish I had taken a picture with Diana because we were also celebrating the fact that we've known each other now for 16 years.
We met at Cardenal in FloMo at Stanford, sometime in the beginning of our freshman year (we got there on Sept 24, 1992!)

Edgewood Park was my first hike with the group, and it was fun to see how much easier it was now!
We kind of improvised with the trail map because we took a couple turns different from the route, but we just kept hiking until the end of the time period and it was fine.

Sept 13, 11th Hike - Forest of Nisene Marks

This hike, along with Big Basin, was probably one of my favorites. This site has a ton of QuickTime VR panoramas of the park!
Cool, green, dark, hiking in the forest. We did have to ford the stream several times and I was probably a bit too slow there, but I got through it with much appreciated help from Jen.
First picture here is Kelly lunching on a stump. Kelly was very well prepared, she also had a garbage bag to sit on too. I really love how comfortable it looks. (She said it was actually comfortable!)

During the hike, I asked Bowman why the park is called "Forest of the Nisene Marks." I thought it was some sort of religious group of Nisene monks or something, but I learned from him that it is actually "Forest of Nisene Marks" - Nisene Marks was a woman whose family lived in the area and owned this land and when she died they donated it as a park.
See full story on wikipedia:
"The park was named for Nisene Marks, a passionate nature lover and the mother of a Salinas farming family that purchased the land from lumber companies (and others), in the hopes of finding oil. Nisene's children donated the 9,700 acres (39 km²) of land in her memory, to the State of California (with the help of the Nature Conservancy) in 1963 after drilling efforts had failed to find any oil."

I was really moved by this - this was already one of my favorite hikes and then it turns out the whole park was set up in memory of a mother, and I am hiking in memory of my mother.

Here's Jen - not sure what she is doing or why I took this picture:


Here's Reggie showing how to ford a stream with no poles! (We were using our poles for balance but one of mine decided to suddenly telescope in the middle of the hike):

Donor Heidi Roizen Wins FWE&E Achievement Award

Heidi Roizen , last month (on Sept 11 when I first wrote this post) - won the Forum of Women Entrepreneurs and Executives Achievement Award for 2008.

Heidi, who was my alumni mentor at Stanford for a short time, donated to my HFD effort and also gave me several Skinny Songs CDs. I gave most of them to my teammates, and we raffled off a couple of them at our charity mixer night.

Here is the organization's site. There's a video of the interview from that night, on this page.
Angel and I were watching this while we were still at work. It was so inspirational, we could not leave until it was over.

Here's Heidi's site. Congratulations, Heidi!

Sept 6, 10th Hike - Saratoga Gap - Long Ridge

This hike is dedicated to all the donors who have contributed since last week:
Marius (who donated while in Romania!), Antoine, Micah, Rob and Jennifer (again!), Thelma, Carolyn, Shonda, Derek, Greg, Sheridan, Teresa, and Bernie!

And it was a big hike....the group pictured here, plus Reggie (in picture below) - hiked a 14 mile loop together, taking 8 hours.

And almost all of us ran out of water near the end, making it feel a bit like we imagine boot camp would feel, at least for the last mile or so.

Lesson learned for me -- 4 liters plus a liter of electrolyte is not enough for these long hikes!

Picture above is Mentor Deb, Kelly, co-hike leader Nathalie, and me. Sitting on a log having a lunch break.

A ranger came by on his motorbike while we were sitting here eating and we had a nice chat with him. He was checking signs in the park.




Here we are with Reggie in the picture.....














This is the "After" picture. Everyone was pretty tired, drained, thirsty at this point.

Lauren, who is waving, had lemonade in her car and it was the best lemonade ever! Nathalie who is in blue hat in this picture is holding a cup.

Stacey had some leftover water in her car and gave me some, also the best water ever.

Notice to the right of my legs is my backpack where I threw it down to rest!

About an hour before the end of the hike, I ran out of the water I had brought. Luckily, a little later, Kelly gave some of her water to Deb and I, which helped a lot. Before then there were several points where I literally just wanted someone to come and get me!

Deb was very nice and waited with me until I just sucked it up and started off again. I could get moving, if only very slowly.

It might sound cheesy but at one point it wasn't helping anymore to be inspired by my other hikers, and I started thinking about why I am personally doing this.
About my mom and imagining her walking with me. This version of her, since it was hard to picture the 60-year old that she would be today. That did really help, and I kept going, and I finished.


Below is another picture I took at lunch, of our group's boots. Yay for our boots, they have been our constant friends through over 2 months of hiking.


















After lunch we had only walked for a little while more when we unexpectedly found this pond:
















This sign pointed out that it was part of the Jikoji Center which is a Zen retreat. I had seen the sign on Skyline driving down.

August 30 - 9th Hike - Purisima Creek Redwoods

Today we hiked at Purisima Creek Redwoods. Very satisfying hike, I felt like I was really pushing myself again, but wasn't wiped out afterward. Managed to not take a nap and to stay awake after the hike until dinner...mostly because I was so excited about the big donation from

VANDANA M!
(who now takes the Grand Poo-bah of Donations crown away from Ed and Petros, so soon after they had unseated Frank and Pat).

So this hike is dedicated first to Vandana, who must have donated while I was actually hiking.
And also to the other awesome donors since the last hike (most of them except for Andrew just in the last day!)
Ed and Petros, Andrew V, Michael McC, Madeleine M, Marc G, and Sarah Y.

Reggie took the pictures posted for this hike. Above is one I really like.


I like this one too because it makes me think of the "troll under the bridge" legends. Jen dropped her water bottle and went to retrieve it. I love how everyone looks so concerned.


This hike had a nice combination of hills with some sun, and then some nice "cool inner forest" trails, and a whole section walking along a ridge with views as far as Half Moon Bay (at least Jen said it was Half Moon Bay!).

Our hike groups are usually somewhat divided into faster and slower. On this hike, since I'm now leaning toward doing one of the harder options in the Smokies, I decided to hike with the faster group.
I'm pretty proud that I was able to keep up - for most of the hike after the beginning, I was able to stay with the faster half of the fast group. (in the back, but still with them!)

Our "generous" hike leader added in an extra hill added into the 1 or 2 major hills of the hike -- she led us up another trail for 20 minutes to get extra hill training. I decided I was going to try not to stop, and managed to power up it without stopping until the very end (where it turned out I was only a few yards away from the turnaround point).
And then after that there was more hill in the hike, but I got through it!

So it turned out to be a very satisfying hike...and I could look forward to going to the 16 Mile house in Millbrae for Jim's going away dinner. (Try the pork chops, they are awesome!)

People affected by blood cancers - famous and not!

This is the email I sent out late the evening of 8/29 - stayed up later than I should have since i had to wake up for the 8/30 Purisma Creek hike.

Hi All:
http://pages.hikefordiscovery.org/sj/Smokey108/szarubin

I am asking for your help - I am still training for my hike in the Great Smoky Mountains to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, to fight blood cancers!
We actually have a 6.5 hour hike tomorrow at 7:45 am!
If you've been thinking about donating, now is is the time to act. Thanks to lots of awesome support, I am only $1500 away from my $4200 fund-raising minimum goal.

I need to raise this amount by Sept 10.

I will be sending a small thank you gift to everyone who donates $50 and more.
It's been an awesome experience so far training for the hike, getting to know the rest of my team and learning about the survivors who are our team honorees.
I am also so thankful to everyone who has already donated. Even a little bit helps.

I hope you are doing all doing well. Here's some info from the LLS - I didn't know this many "famous" people had battled blood cancers:

Blood Cancers Can (and Do) Strike Anyone! You might be surprised to see who has battled blood cancer... Paul Allen, Cofounder of Microsoft Ed Bradley, CBS News Anchor (60 Minutes) Robin Bush, Daughter of President G.W. Bush Joseph Coors, Adolph Coors Brewing Company Andres Galarraga, Baseball Player Kevin Hearn, Barenaked Ladies Band Member (which is one of my favorite groups....) LeShon Johnson, Football Player Jon Lester, Baseball Player Charles Lindbergh, Aviator Mickey Mantle, Baseball Player Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady Ryan O'Neal, Actor Joey Ramone, Ramones Lead Singer Alan Shepard, Astronaut Mr. T, Actor Bill Walsh, 49ers Head Coach Gene Wilder, Comedian And closer to home... Zeeky - a bubbly and cheerful four and a half year old from the Bay Area. At age two he was diagnosed with leukemia. He is still undergoing treatment but with advances funded by people just like you, his prognosis is thankfully good. And even closer to me... My mom - battled non-Hodgkins lymphoma for many years, and died at the age of 42. We lived in a town of 7,000 people and she often had to drive 60 miles (to Fargo, ND) for her chemo treatments (and then back home again!) Think of that with today's gas prices! Think of a cancer patient who's not able to afford transportation to get the treatments they need to survive. Thanks to your donation today, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society can provide financial aid that offers reimbursement for transportation, some medications, and procedures for those in need, and that's just a small part of their mission: http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_chap I just went to the LLS' Life Mosaic site (a collection of patient stories) and almost immediately found the story of a woman who is 34 years old, like me, and has the same cancer that my mom had: Hilda Milagros Sola-Soto Trujillo Alto Puerto Rico female Living with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for 5 years, 6 months Age: 34 My name is Hilda Milagros. I was diagnosed at age 28. After 13 months of chemo and radiation I am now in remission. I will be finishing my PhD in Chemistry this year and hope to start working in a cancer research area. My best friend also has cancer, testicular cancer. Hope he also gets better. I am just glad to be alive and to have a second chance. Why Does This Matter? Because blood cancers can strike anyone. They're the #1 cancer killer of children and those under 20...yet they also strike 10 times as many adults. Because too many people -- famous or otherwise -- have been diagnosed. This has to stop.

thanks for your help,
Solveig

August 23 - 8th Hike - Big Basin State Park

This week's hike was at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which is California's oldest state park and so far one of my favorite trails of the season.
This hike is dedicated to everyone who donated since the last hike posting:
Andrea C, Angel I., and Diana F.

Our group took a shorter loop for this trip - starting at the park headquarters we took the Skyline to the Sea trail west to the Timms Creek trail, then cut north to the Sunset Trail.
At the turning point there was a fun log bridge across the creek. Lisa took a picture of us going across it, I'll post that here if I find it.
Both the Sunset and Skyline to the Sea trails go out to Berry Creek Falls -- and to the Sunset tent campgrounds..

"Home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco, the park consists of over 18,000 acres of old growth and recovering redwood forest, with mixed conifer, oaks, chaparral, and riparian habitats."

What I loved so much about this trail was that most of it was in the deep and cool forest (no walking around on hot, sweaty, and rocky fire trails). I wound up in the lead of the group for a lot of this hike and it was very easy to imagine myself being all alone, exploring this forest.

Also, there were a lot of interesting trail side features that broke up the hours of hiking. Often a huge tree was across the trail, and they'd cut a slice out of it wide enough to walk through.
There are also tons of fascinating hollowed out trees. I read that these were created by fires burning inside the tree - some of the trees are still alive.
At some point it would be fun to do a backpacking camping trip and run around and look at everything more closely.

August 16 - 7th Hike - Sanborn County Park

This site has some nice pictures of the park - although the trail described is shorter than we did (we were out for 5.5 hours or so)...
This hike was dedicated to all the people who donated between this hike and the last hike:
Frank Pao (who became the co-top donator, tying Pat's donation), Mary S and Lisa C.

One of the notable features of this trail was the PETERSON TRAIL - which had been widely described as a hard hill, previous hikers talked about it a lot, and it was blown up to pretty high proportions...

But it wasn't that bad!
I thought the Fir trail was worse (see earlier posting about El Corte de Madera on Aug 2). The Fir trail was also very steep, but had several switchbacks, and seemed to be never ending!
The Peterson trail just went almost straight up, also for about half a mile. By the time I got to the middle, I could see the top (and the other hikers standing up there who had reached it) -- so I was pretty sure it was the top!

August 9 - 6th hike - Windy Hill

This post and this week's training is dedicated to all those who have donated since the last post:

Emily B, Clover H., Anna L., Nicole P, Shannon R., and Beth M.

This weekend's hike was the first of 3 mentor-led hikes (led by my mentor, Bowman) at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve. These are supposed to be a bit more low-key, and we can invite friends and family to come to these. The other hikes are more tightly run by the team leaders, we have assigned groups, etc.

Above is a view we had when walking back toward the trailhead on the way back.

In the morning it was unexpectedly very cold and foggy (as well as at least a bit windy). Luckily I did have a long-sleeved shirt with me.

These are all pictures from my phone since the batteries on my regular digital camera had run out.

Here's Bob and Stacey, who were in my hiking group this week, posing with the view.

A lot of the trail was more wooded than this, and cooler.

Near the end of the trail we met up with Bowman and Yvonne, and sat on a bench to talk for a bit. Ironically, there was a huge plaque on the bench that said "Bob's Bench" even though Bob had missed it - since he and Stacey had walked back to the trailhead already.

I love my boots!

Also in this picture is the tip of a hiking pole, and the corner of Bowman's boot in upper right. We were talking about Mt Diablo, which we could see in the distance. Bowman has taken his Scout troop up there three times, he said.

This is the Windy Hill sign, at the end of the hike. At the beginning of the hike, this was shrouded in chilly fog. Hard to believe the extreme change!

While we were talking at the trailhead, this guy rode in on a trail from the side, on his horse!

He looks the picture of your traditional Californian cowboy, hat, feather in hat, horse eating the grass, etc -- but if you could look closer here, you'd see he also has a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear! Horseman of 2008!

Right after the hike I drove over to Heidi Roizen's house in Atherton - she is one of my gracious donors and gave me several free copies of her CD - SkinnySongs, for our team, plus a few shirts. Thanks Heidi! (Heidi and I were matched up briefly in 1996 by the Stanford alumni mentor program - she also has a bachelor's degree in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis from Stanford, and also a Stanford MBA, which I don't have). Check out her bio, she is one of the early female entrepreneurs and CEOs of the Valley, and recently also a VC.

The last time I was at her house was 12 years ago as a student coming over to hang out for our mentorship talk. I wonder how I got there before? Did I ride my bike? The house still looks awesome of course.

But I wasn't tired yet! So I drove up to Corte Madera to go to a book event for my friend Shannon Rosa's (and Jennifer Byde Myers') project - Can I Sit With You: The Stormy Social Seas of the Schoolyard. Please check out the link - the main idea is that they have self-published an awesome book, a collection of stories that adults have submitted, about their experiences socially in elementary and junior high school.

The basic gist is for parents and other adults to be able to say - we got through it (for the most part). To help kids feel like they're not alone (and to clue parents into the kinds of things that happen). Both Shannon and Jen were very passionate about this as they spoke (see above). All of this benefits the Redwood City Special Education PTA.

Lea Hernandez, who did the cover for their book, was there, and so I got to meet her too, as well as hear Michael's story from the book read again, and to hear Judy and Amanda's stories in person for the first time.

They were nice enough to invite me out for Thai food with them afterward, so I drove down to San Francisco and ate dinner (unfortunately still in my Hike for Discovery jersey, although I had showered after the hike at least).

I guess all that might be more focused if it were on my LiveJournal instead of here.

I guess it shows that while the hike was a little less strenuous this week, I must be doing better with the training if I was able to run around all these places, and not feel too tired until after dinner!

Aug 2 - 5th Hike - El Corte de Madera

This week we hiked at El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, off of Skyline Road.
It was a five-hour hike, and I am dedicating it to the below wonderful people who donated since the last time I posted here: Katherine L, Heidi R., Michelle W, my cousin Doug, and Rob S, with Heidi weighing in as the top donor for the week, and Pat still the record-holder overall.

I actually felt much better after this hike than I did for Castle Rock, even though even here there were a couple of "fun" hills!

Here I am posing in the parking lot before the hike.
Note the new poles, here on their 2nd hike. I'm again glad I have them, because several of the hike choices in the Smokies require poles.
Also note the low-calorie Gatorade drink in the pocket of my pack.
I had bought two of these and was going to save one for next week, but wound up bringing two to help balance out the pack. I was really glad the 2nd one came in handy, as I was able to give it to a fellow hiker who had run out.

Here is Yvonne and our Team Manager, Tifin. Both are in the "medium" hiking group that I'm in (which relates to the speed of the hiking.

We're taking our first break of the hike, at an observation deck near the "Sandstone Formation" as marked on the map. This was oddly similar to the Castle Rock stone formation where we first stopped on the Castle Rock hike.
Note Tifin's cool yellow walkie-talkie, which the staff uses to talk to each other and check on how the different groups (hiking separately) are doing.







The big challenge of this hike for me was the FIR TRAIL - which was about .6 miles of steady climbing. I guess .6 miles doesn't sound like very much but by the time we got to the top and I turned around to take this picture, it felt like at least 6 miles!

At least there were respites of flat ground in between, which we were lovingly calling "deceptively flat ground" because it often looked like we were done. Then we rounded a curve...no! More hill!
Again, I have to thank my poles for getting me through this one. There was also rocky terrain going up (although not as much clambering as Castle Rock) so it was nice to have the poles there for support.





I couldn't take a picture of myself hiking up the trail - here is my fellow hiker Bob, making his way to the clearing at the top where we all took a break to eat and drink.













And here we are taking our break! Our group hung out for a bit with the "faster" group - and we were all kind of spread out so I had to get a little ways away to get everyone together.


There were so many mountain bikers in this park - it was kind of crazy to see them hurtling down (and up) such rocky trails.

In the middle of the hike, on the Resolution Trail, we saw part of a crashed airplane from the 40s. Apparently a plane flying from Asia to SF had crashed there - there's only a few little pieces left but some of them are right by the sides of the trail.

Near the end, before we went up the last big hill before finishing our loop, I was really starting to feel good. We were in this beautiful shady area with switchbacks going back and forth, and it was actually starting to feel more effortless as we powered on to the end.
Then we had to get up the last hill, but luckily there were all these mountain bikers who had run out of steam and were walking their bikes up the hill too.
Made me glad I just had to get me and my body up the hill, and not a whole bike too!

Afterwards we went to Alice's Restaurant which is apparently the in place to be for outsdoorsy folk - bikers (motor and pedal), hikers, horse riders, etc (and anyone else up on the mountain) on the weekend. Everybody all hanging out. I guess this is a tradition that the HFD teams come to Alice's when at El Corte de Madera and the other parks in the area.

We're over $1000!

$1130 donated as of right now! (Wednesday night, 7/30).
Thank you so much, everyone!

When I wrote my last post, Brian was the donation leader. Since then Ms. Pat (otherwise known as Temporary Grand Poobah of Donations) has jumped ahead! Thanks Pat!

Also, several others have joined Brian's level of donation, including Eddie, Carrie, Linda, and David and Nell.
And every bit helps - Maryann, Susan, Patrick, Heidi P, and two Anonymouses (Anonymi?) all donated too.

July 26 - 4th Hike - Castle Rock State Park

This post is dedicated to everyone who has donated so far, but especially to Sven, because he donated while I was writing this post, to Carlos the Dwarf, because again, his blog post was very touching, and to Brian, who is my top donator so far.

I like the word "clambering".
As in "she clambered up and down over rocky obstacles in the trail, a couple times scooting down on her butt, but not falling!"
I didn't have time to stop and take pictures on the trail very often, since I usually felt like I was going so slow on the rocks and wanted to keep moving when I got on flatter ground.

This hike was at Castle Rock State Park, a four hour hike (8:15 am to 12:15 pm). I was so thankful to have hiking poles, which really helped my balance going downhill (and eased my fear of falling forward due to weird center of gravity).


Here's my camelbak, poles, and boots, all lined up to go in the morning. I left around 6 am and got to my carpool point around 6:45. We piled into one car and for once, I was at the hike meeting point way before the 7:45 deadline, thanks to the peer pressure of the carpool deadline.













We got certificates to recognize that we recommitted to our fundraising goal this week:


This hike was about 18,000 steps (or close to 8 miles) as logged by my pedometer.
This was the first hike that I drank all of my 100 oz Camelbak water "bladder" during the hike, plus 16 oz of electrolyte drink.

Near the beginning of the hike there was a small clearing near Castle Rock where we stopped and stretched, although the pictures are kind of dark and didn't turn out that well.


Then there was a nice overlook to the Castle Rock Falls (or what would be Falls if there was water):














Here I am posing at the overlook (photo taken by Kelly, I think):















This is one of the awesome views, either from that overlook or taken while hiking along the ridge. In the first half of the hike we had the ridge drop off to our left, so just turning our heads we could usually see this view:














A little further on we came to Goat Rock. When Dave saw the below picture, he said, "You weren't supposed to climb a rock that big, right?"
Yes, we didn't climb this rock, but on the other side we saw rock climbers.




This is Reggie contemplating Goat Rock.













As Kelly, Lisa, and Tifin look on.

By the way, I really love how the leaves look in this picture. I was standing uphill a little bit, so the leaves are really in focus.








On the other side of Goat Rock, there were climbers!










This hike was quite fun, and I was very tired at the end!
But still able to rush home, take a shower, and ride with Dave up to our company picnic in Piedmont.
Thanks to Dave for his support and driving because if I had to go by myself to the picnic, after this hike, I think I would have stayed home!