Calipidder

Ahjumawi Lava Springs Kayak Camping

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:54:39 +0000

Somewhere around ten years ago David and I spent a day at Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. This is a small and quiet park that is only accessible via boat since other than its lakeshore, the park is surrounded entirely by private lands. Ten years ago we rented a canoe and paddled about a mile [...]

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Granite Mountain Wilderness

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:41:28 +0000

About twenty miles east of Lee Vining and Yosemite National Park there is a small high desert mountain range known as the Granite Mountain Wilderness. There are hundreds – thousands – of these small desert ranges across the western states, and frequently they are driven by at highways speeds, from a distance appearing brown and [...]

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Yosemite Hetch Hetchy Waterfalls: Video

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:13:14 +0000

Last weekend I backpacked in to Rancheria Falls in the Hetch Hetchy region of Yosemite National Park. Is Yosemite ever anything other than incredible? Wapama Falls crossing: Rancheria Falls cascade: More pictures from the backpack.

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The Hoo-Rag: The Ultimate Multi-Use Ultralight Gear

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:12:51 +0000

One of the most important doctrines of ultralight backpacking is the principle of multi-use. If an item can be used for more than one purpose, it means carrying less single-use gear. Simple. I want to talk about an item that I think best exemplifies this principle, the Hoo-Rag. Hoo-Rag sent me one of these to [...]

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Liberty Cap and the Rockslides: a Weekend in Yosemite Valley

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:50:08 +0000

April is a somewhat unpredictable time of year in terms of weather in Yosemite, so when I made campground reservations a few months ago I had no idea if I’d be snowshoeing or hiking. April is about the latest I’ll go to the Valley since I prefer to avoid it during the busy summer season, [...]

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Easter in the Eastern Sierra: Petroglyphs, Climbing, and Peak Bagging

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 02:37:43 +0000

We usually spend Easter weekend in one of two places: Carrizo Plain (in good wildflower years) or Lava Beds National Monument. This year we decided that a visit to the Eastern Sierra was in order instead. Five months without a Bishop fix was long enough and despite the passes still being closed, driving the long [...]

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Sensitive Locations and Our Responsibility as Bloggers

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:32:18 +0000

A recent comment on an old post about a desert cabin, the terrible crime at the Fish Slough Petroglyphs, and other posts in the outdoor blogging world have got me thinking about something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while. What is our responsibility as bloggers when it comes to sharing special and perhaps [...]

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Review of the Artemis Hoodie from Triple Aught Design

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 23:08:12 +0000

Triple Aught Design (TAD) is a brand I became acquainted with several years ago when my husband was teaching nights up in San Francisco. One of his favorite places to drop by when he had extra time was their Dogpatch store. He would bring home military-style gadget organizers – holsters for his knives, pouches to [...]

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Cattle, Windmills, and Great Hiking at Pacheco State Park

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:49:51 +0000

The list of local parks that I haven’t had a chance to explore is shrinking. One of its final members was Pacheco State Park, a nearly 7000 acre park west of San Luis Reservoir on the south side of highway 152. It is the southernmost parkland on the Diablo Range before Pinnacles National Park, and [...]

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Scenes from an Almaden Quicksilver Trail Run

Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 02:49:54 +0000

I have previously extolled the virtues of Almaden Quicksilver County Park. Today it was the source of sanity after a couple of long and busy work weeks. I’ve been working from home all week due to very early morning phone calls followed by a lot of heads-down work, so by this morning I was suffering [...]

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