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.