Calipidder

Half Dome Permit System Preview

Calipidder — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:14:30 +0000

Last month Yosemite National Park announced a new permit system for weekend climbs of Half Dome. Today they opened up the reservation site for preview (it is not active yet - the reservation window opens on March 1). Check it out here. There is also a screenshot-heavy instructional pdf available here, for those who need lots [...]

Big Basin Waterfall and Mt McAbee Loop

Calipidder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:23:22 +0000

A new house purchase has had me quite busy lately so I’m a week late on this post, but better late then never, right? With all of the recent storms we knew the waterfalls in Big Basin would be great, so we took the first good-weather opportunity to get out there and hike. Our route was [...]

New Half Dome Permit System

Calipidder — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:33:57 +0000

If you plan to hike Half Dome this summer, you’ll have to plan ahead. Like Mt Whitney, Half Dome is moving to a quota system on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and holidays. Granted, that quota is still an enormous 400 people per day, but they say that is half of the number they usually see [...]

Redwood Peak and the Bay Area Ridge Trail

Calipidder — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:13:36 +0000

Redwood Peak is an easy little peak that’s a stone’s throw from the nearest trailhead. Not one to take the easy way, I decided to approach it from a trailhead several miles away in Chabot. Let me back up a second - I actually started off the day with a goal to hike a segment of [...]

Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2010

Calipidder — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:12:30 +0000

Unfortunately I was unable to make it to the OR show this year, so I’m enviously following along with the conversation on Twitter and various blogs. At least I have an excuse to go to the Summer show now (I usually miss it because I’m on the trail in August). I thought I’d throw up [...]

Lassen in the Snow

Calipidder — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:56:51 +0000

Just a quick post tonight to share some pictures. We headed up to Lassen last weekend to get in a quick overnight car snowcamp and some cross country skiing before the big storms rolled in. We got some beautiful fresh snow overnight and got to enjoy some fresh trail-breaking on a ski loop on Sunday. [...]

Christmas in the Eastern Sierra

Calipidder — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:56:20 +0000

For the first seven years I lived in California I always flew back to Michigan to visit my family at Christmas. Each year I would inevitably face midwest snowstorms, holiday travel crowds, cancelled flights, etc. But it was always worth it to visit my family. Last year was the first year I skipped the holiday travel [...]

Gore-Tex Experience More Community Challenge

Calipidder — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:15:33 +0000

Back in October I had the exciting opportunity to attend the Gore-Tex Blogger Summit on the east coast. One of the reasons for this summit was to launch their Experience More Community. I have registered and poked around the site a bit, enjoying reading the posts and experiences of other community members. Admittedly, I haven’t [...]

Best Gear of 2009: Calipidder’s Top Ten

Calipidder — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:51:05 +0000

No matter how much gear we collect, no matter how experienced we are, there always seems to be a reason to accumulate more. Some people call it an addiction, an obsession, and others call it wasting money. I call it part necessity, part keeping up, and part, well, yeah it’s an addiction. 2009 was a year [...]

Kicking off 2010 in Yosemite

Calipidder — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:09:59 +0000

Snowcamping, Yosemite, and friends. What better way to start the new year? We drove out to Wawona on New Year’s Eve to meet a bunch of friends at the group campground. After celebrating the new year with a warm campfire, cheap champagne, and lots of laughs, we got a good night of sleep before heading up [...]