Outdoor Travel Geek

  • inauspicious positioning

    Once in a while an amazing flight deal comes along, one that’s almost impossible to pass up. It is because of one of these amazing deals that I’m about to embark on a journey that I’ve always wanted to do, a journey that circumnavigates the globe. Back in May I received a message from my…

  • om-d, om-g?!

    It’s been a while since I’ve done a photography post. Apparently it’s been a year, since the last photography post on my blog appears to have been from November of last year. Man it’s crazy how fast time flies. It’s not that I haven’t been taking any pictures. I’ve just been too lazy to write…

  • the summit. whitney. conquered.

    It’s been almost two years exactly since my last trip to Mount Whitney. I failed to make it to the top that time, but vowed that I would return someday and conquer this peak. This weekend I can say that I finally conquered California’s highest peak. The permits make it quite clear that this mountain…

  • healing progress

    It’s been about five weeks now since my crash. For the first week after my crash I was in a hard splint that covered my arm all the way to my elbow. The timing of the crash was pretty terrible because I had agreed to be a groomsman for Jason’s wedding, which was the following…

  • shower’s lake

    This weekend I went backpacking with a group to Shower’s Lake. Originally I was thinking of backpacking somewhere on the Tahoe Rim trail on my own. Since I had a hike to Mount Whitney coming up, I figured the Tahoe Rim would be a better place to train since the hike would be longer and…

  • maude lake

    This weekend I went backpacking with some old friends from my previous job at CalPERS. We went to the Desolation Wilderness, specifically to Maude Lake with a day trip out to Rockbound Pass. When we arrived at the trailhead we met a ranger, and asked him what he thought of Maude Lake. He said it’s…

  • family camping

    For those who read this blog on a regular basis (all two of you), it’s probably pretty obvious that I don’t post very often about my family. I think the last post about family was from Christmas, when I went hiking with my parents. On that day I had resolved to go on a trip…

  • on the road to nashville

    I honestly thought I was done with these sorts of road trips. I think for real this time though, this will be the last one. Of course I said that last time when I helped Ray move to Colorado. And actually before that, when I helped Sam move back from New Jersey, I thought that…

  • davis to san francisco

    One of my biking buddies, Jiro, will be leaving Davis soon. We’ve done quite a lot of biking together over the few years that I’ve known him– probably more than a dozen century rides and even a few overnight bike trips. As sort of a bucket list item, he wanted to bike from Davis to…

  • south FART

    It’s been a while since I’ve written a bike trail post. I bought a new mountain bike as a sort of birthday/Christmas present to myself at the beginning of winter, but haven’t really ridden it much. Now that spring’s here it’s time to come out of hibernation and start biking again. So today I took…

  • rome

    From Milan I took the night train to Rome. I shared a two bunk room with three strangers, one German traveling solo (at least I think he was speaking German) and two Japanese guys. It wasn’t the most comfortable accommodations– the bed was pretty hard and narrow and the ride was bumpy and noisy, but…

  • milan

    My train arrived in Milan late in the evening, around 10pm. I had booked a room from a couple on AirBnb. I was a bit worried that I was disturbing them arriving so late at night, but it turned out that it was the wife’s birthday, and they had gone out for dinner, and so…

  • short time in zurich

    From Paris I took the TGV high speed train to Zurich. I didn’t really have anything in particular I wanted to see in Zurich per se, it just happened to be a good place to stop on my way towards Rome because both the French and Italian train lines connected in Zurich. The Paris Gare…

  • paris museums

    While in Paris I bought a museum pass that was good for four days. I ended up visiting a couple of museums each day, except for one day which I dedicated to the Louvre. The museum pass is kind of expensive, but it allows you to bypass the entrance lines. For me the price was…

  • paris

    Paris is a city that I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. And so I decided that since I’m already in Europe, I figured that I should at least spend a few days in Paris, seeing the many famous sights and visiting the world famous museums that I’ve heard so much about. And…