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.