Outdoor Travel Geek

Category: backpacking trips

  • glacier point snow backpacking

    My first snow backpacking trip to Yosemite was to Dewey Point almost exactly six years ago. Ever since that first trip I’ve been wanting to do the much longer trek to Glacier Point. This week I was finally cross the trip off my bucket list. The trip was sort of a last minute decision. The…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • swift creek trail

    This weekend I went backpacking with some old friends I hadn’t backpacked with in a while. We went to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I’ve been out to the Canyon Creek trail in the Trinity Alps a few times (one of my favorite places to backpack), most recently during July 4th weekend, but this weekend we…

  • canyon creek trail

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    From my previous posts it’s probably obvious that I like the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I think it’s truly a special place. It’s one of the few places that I’ve come to backpack more than once, partly because the scenery’s nice, and partly because it’s a great place to introduce people to backpacking. Flo and Iris owned…

  • dewey point

    I went backpacking solo for the first time this weekend. It probably would’ve been better to wait and organize a trip that people could join me on, but at the last second I decided to go alone. The window of opportunity for a snow trip in Yosemite was closing and I would be out in Modesto…

  • panoche hills

    The Panoche Hills is a large area owned by the Bureau of Land Management. If you’ve ever driven down highway 5 from Sacramento to Los Angeles, you’ve passed right by it. It’s a hilly grassland area, which in my opinion, is not all that interesting. It seems like the only reason why this area gets…

  • mount whitney

    At just over 14,500 feet above sea level, Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in California. It’s actually the highest point in the continental United States, the only taller mountains in the United States are in Alaska, with Mount Denali standing over 20,000 feet. Mount Whitney is probably the highest place in the North America…

  • loch leven again

    This weekend I went backpacking at Loch Leven Lakes. It’s a pretty easy and short hike, at least as far as backpacking trips go– under 10 miles round trip. It’s also an easy trip to plan for, since permits aren’t required and because it’s so easy to get to, right off of highway 80. I…

  • trinity alps wilderness

    This weekend six of us went backpacking in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I had already been here once before, so I know it’s a pretty special place. Typically I don’t like to go backpacking to a place where I’ve been before, and although I knew it’s a pretty amazing place, I was kind of wary about…

  • moon over mendocino

    This weekend I went backpacking at the Mendocino National Forest. It’s a pretty easy and short hike, which was good because there were a bunch of kids who were going backpacking for the first time. They had mostly grown up together in church. It kind of reminded me of when I used to be a…

  • feather falls backpacking

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    According to some people, Feather Falls is the sixth highest waterfall in the United States. According to Wikipedia, those people are wrong, and Feather Falls doesn’t even crack the top ten. Regardless of who is right, Feather Falls is a pretty amazing waterfall. It’s incredibly tall. To get a sense of the size of the…

  • fountain of youth?

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    Most people who read my crappy blog with any sort of regularity probably know that I’m not all that great at planning. Sometimes the lack of planning leads to some interesting stories. This weekend, for example, was pretty interesting. For a brief moment on Saturday I stood naked in the Ventana Wilderness, struggling to get…

  • a special place

    This weekend I went on what will probably be the last backpacking trip of 2011. It was to a place called the Trinity Alps Wilderness. After having been to Yosemite twice in the last month, I didn’t have overly high expectations of this place. This trip was with the usual backpacking crew that Dan organizes,…