sha v 4.0 » hiking

Backpacking in the Desolation Wilderness

Sha Sha — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:51:49 +0000

For a few weeks, Amanda, Sara, Jeff and I had a backpacking trip planned for this past weekend. The original plan was to stay two nights, but all four of us were busy with work, so we decided to cut it down to one. Friday night, Amanda and I headed up to Sacramento and spent the night at Sara and Jeff’s. While packing our gear, we decided to save some weight by not taking the rain flies, since Jeff and I both checked the weather forecasts, and they never made any mention of rain. (This, dear readers, is what we call ‘foreshadowing.’ Pay attention.) After everything was packed up (including Dora’s doggy backpack), we picked up some sandwiches for lunch, and headed out. We got to the trail head around 1:30, and after a slight off-brand hydration pack debacle (damn you, North Face,) we were on our way! The hike was pretty strenuous, but it didn’t bother me too much because 1) I think I might actually kind of be in shape, 2) my pack was the lightest out of everyone’s (hooray being tiny!), and 3) the scenery was totally mind blowing and distracted me. The weather was beautiful, and the trail took us through the forest, across creeks, scrambling up rocks, and around several beautiful lakes, and I had a blast taking pictures. I decided to take my 20D instead of my 5D both to save weight, and so I could use my (crop-sensor-only) 10-20mm lens.

After about 5 miles, we reached a potential campsite, and Amanda, Sara, and I took a rest while Jeff went to check out a different campsite at slightly higher ground. As we were resting, the wind started to pick up, and a bank of ominous looking clouds started to blow in. After a little while longer, it started to sprinkle. Eventually, through a series of indecipherable hand signals, Jeff told us to come up to the higher campsite where it was a little more protected from the wind and rain. By the time we got to the second campsite, we were pretty soaked, but decided to try to wait it out before making a final call. After 20 or 30 minutes, it became clear that it wasn’t going to let up, and none of us really wanted to sleep in a non-waterproofed tent, so we turned around and headed back to the car. On the way back to Sacramento, we stopped for pizza, and all basically passed out once we got home.

Sunday morning we slept in, made a delicious brunch, then went wine tasting. Quite a change from camping and backpacking, but I didn’t hear anyone complain.

Despite the rather abrupt change of plans, I had an awesome time, and I really hope to go back to the Desolation Wilderness again. Next time I’ll take a rain fly.

Photos ahoy:

Auburn Hike Photos

Sha Sha — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:18:29 +0000

A few pics from a hike near Auburn. It was meant to be a loop, but in my case, “loop” means “doing part of the loop, getting lost, finding the loop again, getting lost again, and backtracking.”

Throw your hands in the air

Sha Sha — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:38:48 +0000

C’mon, party people!

How was your Thanksgiving? I thoroughly enjoyed my 4 days off, especially because I hadn’t had more than 1 day off for about 2 months. Like my old calculus teacher used to say, “It’s like beating your head on the wall because it feels so good when you stop.” Hooray!

We had FriendsGiving at Yar/Jan/John’s place, and I was in charge of the turkey again. After this year, I’m pretty convinced the recipe is almost impossible to screw up, as we brined the turkey in a garbage bag, substituted some brine with soy sauce, and coated the turkey in the decidedly non-neutral olive oil, and it still turned out great. What wasn’t great, however, was when I spilled all the pumpkin pie filling all over the kitchen floor. Yay me.

The rest of my weekend was great — went on a hike, played some co-op Left 4 Dead, saw Quantum of Solace, got a lil’ tipsy on some Riesling (and no barfing!), and bought a bike! On Sunday night I rode to Yar’s house, (yes, a whole 0.9 miles away) and I thought my heart was going to explode. I’m out of shape.

Garmin Connect

Sha Sha — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:32:53 +0000

I tested out my new GPS watch on a hike this weekend on a nice hike in Bolinas/Point Reyes. I especially like how it maps out the route in Google maps. Ignore the fact that there are two laps — I had some button confusion the first time it auto-paused. The little offshoot to the lake was a short detour to go swimming in Bass lake.

It was a nice hike, but also kind of weird because I’m sort of in shape right now. An unfamiliar feeling…

I’m back!

Sha Sha — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:14:03 +0000

…from nowhere. It’s been a pretty mellow couple of weeks, so not too much to report. The past couple weekends have been nice and relaxing, with having people over for dinner, eating out, hiking, and all-around relaxing. Amanda took me to Berkeley Bowl, which is basically the most awesomest grocery store evar. Not only is their stuff really high quality, it’s cheap! What a great combination. While we were there, I bought some fancy-pants organic grass-fed beef to make hamburgers, and it actually was really good, maybe even worth the extra $2/pound. It also helped that I finally figured out charcoal grilling (I know, there isn’t actually much to figure out, but I’m slow), so everything turned out nicely.

Otherwise, I’ve been feeling in a bit of a slump in a couple different respects recently, and what do we do when we’re in a slump? We buy things! That makes everything better…right?

Pioneer

Sha Sha — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:53:04 +0000

We just got back from a long weekend in Pioneer. (Where? Here.) Amanda’s mom has a friend with a cabin there, and we got to stay there for frees. Actually “cabin” is a misnomer, but there’s no word that means “really really nice and well-equipped house that just happens to be in the woods”, so we’ll just stick with “cabin.” The drive up was a bit of a nightmare (seriously, people, stop skipping out on work on Fridays and clogging up the freeways), but once we got there, it was tons of fun. I got to go blackberry picking for the first time, where we filled up two tupperwares with big fat juicy blackberries, and swimming in a lake for the second time. I wised up and wore my Tevas during swimming, though, as I have a bit of a phobia of touching unknown things in water with my feet. Yes, that’s a very specific phobia, but blame bad 80s movies. We also went on a really nice 9-mile hike to Showers Lake, which also happened to be part of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Besides the outdoorsy activities, there was a lot of lounging, reading, knitting (started a new project, but can’t say what it is because the recipient reads this page… could it be YOU?), and watching of Planet Earth.

I have only one more day of vacation before heading back to work. Boo…

Another Sunday

Sha Sha — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:40:00 +0000

…another work day.

We are in the home stretch of our game, and this is the second Sunday in a row I’m at work. Things are starting to come together, but we have a ton of work left. I’m looking forward to getting this game out the door, as it will be my first shipped game as a gameplay engineer. Woo!

Despite the weekend work days, the past couple of weeks have been good. I went to Muir Beach a couple of weeks ago for a small hike. The next day I went over to Erik’s for a Memorial Day BBQ, which was deliciously meaty. I’ve started to watch So You Think You Can Dance, which has kept me sufficiently entertained.

Climbing recently has been okay, but not spectacular. I think my “challenging” level is still around 10c/10d, with my “reach” level at 11a, and my “insanely out of reach” level at 11b.

In other exercise-y news, Emily, Buddy and I signed up for the first half of the San Francisco Marathon. (Don’t worry Mom and Dad, my asthma is doing much better now.) Buddy and I went on a 5-mile run yesterday, which was (at least for me) disappointingly difficult. In our defense, it was pretty dang hot yesterday. But I am definitely need to get going with my training if I want to do this half and still feel good at the end of it.

I haven’t forgotten how to write

Sha Sha — Mon, 07 May 2007 01:36:28 +0000

Hi, friends. Apologies for the fact that my site has been so photo-heavy recently. I thought I’d take this opportunity to get back into the groove of occasionally crapping words onto it, too.

Things have been pretty routine lately. The climbing has been only so-so, which is disappointing. I feel like my endurance has been really poor lately, so I may try doing a bunch of easier long climbs when I go again on Monday.

Work has been steady, but not crazy, which is a little surprising considering we have a major deadline next Friday. In fact, I was able to take this past Friday off, which was excellent. Friday night I went to an amazing Ethiopian restaurant in San Jose, Mudai. The food was incredible and the prices very reasonable. Ethiopian food has recently surpassed Indian food as my current food obsession, so I’m just waiting to see how long it will be until I burn myself out on it. Yum.

Yesterday I went on a hike at Portola Redwoods State Park, which was really nice, but waaaay farther than I thought it was. Not really by distance, but it’s miles of windy mountain roads, so it was about an hour and a half drive from Mountain View. I was even somehow able to make myself carsick even though I was driving, something that until then I always thought was impossible. I guess I’m just awesome like that. The park is really nice, and not at all crowded (probably due to the afore-mentioned reallly long drive), but filled with banana slugs, which was not awesome. We even saw banana slugs dining on piles of horse poo, which you all should be glad I had the sense not to photograph. But you’re welcome for the mental image.

The Return

Sha Sha — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:08:04 +0000

Well, we made it back alive from Yosemite, despite accidentally attracting a bear to the tent site (lesson learned: brewing coffee attracts bears like a mofo). The hike up Half Dome was incredible, and very hard — miles and miles of uphill. It was uber crowded as well, and it took us an entire hour just to get up the cables. But the view from the top was worth it, and I’m definitely glad I made it up. Thanks to Florence for organizing the trip, and to Amanda, Buddy, May Ling, and Domi for making it a super fun time. Pictures up eventually, after I actually finish putting up all my Australia photos.

Oh, and ask me about the ranger who woke up our tent cabin neighbor at midnight to ask him to put his beers in the bear box. It can only be fully expressed in person.

On an unrelated note, I just discovered that Brendan Dixon (hopefully my website still has Phat Google Powerz) has a website now! Woo! Go visit him!

I’m a Beautiful Butterfly

Sha Sha — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:30:48 +0000

Last Saturday Babs organized a Dine About Town lunch at Butterfly on Pier 33. The food was good, and the atmosphere of the place was cool. I had duck spring rolls to start (good, but not very ducky), smoked salmon scramble for my entree (sounds gross but tasted good), and creme brulee (pretty much always awesome) for dessert. I would say “pictures forthcoming”, but even I don’t believe me anymore.

Other than that, I had a good time in Oakland and Berkeley, where I checked out, among other things, the famed Elephant Pharmacy (where you can buy Pee-Pee TeePees for the Sprinkling Wee-Wee) and the Berkeley Fire Trail. The trail afforded wonderful views of the Berkeley campus, which I promptly flipped off. You can take the girl out of Stanford…

Work should probably be stressing me out right now, but it’s not. The calm before the storm and all that.

There are a number of things I’m excited about/looking forward to in the next several months including:

A trip to Australia
Going to Yosemite and hiking Half Dome
Doing actual gameplay engineering at work
A possible Vegas trip with Domi, where table dancing has been promised
AJYM
Camping
Outdoor rockclimbing
If I get off my lazy ass, getting my SCUBA certification

Sweet!

Finally, I want to wish Buddy, Marc, Erik, and Blair a safe and awesome trip to Tanzania, where they are fulfilling one of my Things I Would Like To Do Before I Die of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro! Send me a postcard!