Backpacking with John

John and I have been training to climb mountains.  Seems like a good goal this year since he is rehabbing the hip after resurfacing surgery last fall.  His progression has been really good, working up to climbing over 2000 ft, walking up to 7 miles at a time, all while carrying a pack with 20+ pounds in it (now up to 30 pounds).  It has helped me too, as I've never been very strong with weight on my back.

We did a couple fun backpack adventures recently, so I figured it would be fun to report on those.

The first was at Sibley Volcanic Preserve.  Longtime readers may remember that we enjoy all things volcano-related (we really should be in Hawaii right now).  Sibley shows evidence of much older activity than Hawaii's Big Island.  But California is part of the Ring of Fire after all, making me wonder why there aren't more eruption-type events around here.  Seismic activity is probably plenty enough, I suppose!

There is a small but excellent display at the main staging area of the park.  You can see samples of the types of rock formed in different ways (thrown in the air, ripped from ancient rocks, cemented, spattered, ground itself up, and lithified) - various basalt, some sandstone, tuff, and conglomerate:

We normally lightly peruse the signboards, but this one caught our eye with the first sentence: "Robert Sibley Volcanic Preserve is not a brand of celebrity hot pepper jelly."  Whoever wrote this one, kudos because it's not your normal dry description.  Slamming, elbowing, plundering... and we thought volcanoes were exciting, this isn't even talking about those:

The volcanoes are quite ancient, active 10 million years ago.  Since it's California, things tend to move along fault lines over time.  Erosion and quarrying also changed the landscape.  The result is that it doesn't much look like a volcano anymore.

We headed for the numbered markers to get a closer look - this one is behind the water tank:

It's a dark basalt dike, originally inside the crater:

Sort of a view on a cloudy day:

Someone created interesting maze-like shapes that kind of remind me of Westworld:

There's another one, inside a pit where they used to quarry basalt.  Interestingly, this basalt flow was tilted nearly vertical later and is similar to the basalt pillars of Devil's Postpile (another great place to visit), just not as obvious:

This large lava chunk cooled and hardened while it was still moving, then eventually fell from a nearby cliff.  Thunk, here you go, have some lava:

A view of highway 24 as it goes into a tunnel under the ridge (I crossed over that tunnel on the East Bay Skyline Trail in February):

More recent geological excitement, and a bit of road surfing:

Another large basalt quarry pit (and another maze), where Round Top volcano once erupted and then eventually buried itself in basalt flows.  It's a good thing there are descriptions of the action around here, or we'd be wondering where the volcano was.

Antenna towers at the high point of the park:

We hiked many of the trails and had fun exploring and reading everything.  Thank you Sibley, for an excellent training morning!

The next adventure was an overnight hike in Big Basin.  I'm not usually all that motivated to go camping, unless it's part of a training plan and bigger goals, in which case let's do it!

Checking out the cross-section of a large redwood tree marked with historic events, with dates going all the way back to 500-600 AD, I believe:

The little museum has a wonderful "topo map" of the park:

Starting off through the redwoods:

Yes, another set of photos in the trees :) at least this time there's someone else to take pictures of:

Banana slugs - cuddling?

John couldn't resist walking across at least one large trunk (and almost losing his sunglasses to the overhead branches in the process):

Such a beautiful forest:

A bit of perspective:

We took the trail up past Berry Falls - for as many times as I've seen the falls from the Skyline to the Sea Trail, this is the first time I've made it this close.  Aloha!

The trail follows the creek up past several wonderful drops:

Excellent stairs:

Our site at Sunset Camp and a lovely place to hang out for the night:

We walked up the road a bit further to look for views and happened to notice these odd pine cones attached to the tree trunk (and I didn't take any pictures of the views, nor did we get a sunset because of clouds to the west):

Back at camp, John tended to the stove while I celebrated finding a "Trail Beer" (that's the actual name, quite fitting) in our food storage box.  Thank you to whoever left this here!

Hiking back the next morning on the Sunset Trail, with John getting in a little extra workout (reminds me of Deadpool for some reason):

One of many nice benches:

Pondering a redwood that fell down the side of the hill, wondering how many times a falling tree takes out other trees:

John noticed that part of that tree is still standing, on the other side of the trail:

More curious tree questions:

Admiring the construction of the amphitheater benches:

Redwoods, the amazing Sequoia sempervirens (ever-living trees).  They live up to 2000 years, have bark up to 1 foot thick, catch moisture from fog in their leaves (useful around here), and are almost fireproof:

That was fun, thank you John for the wonderful backpacking company!  Looking forward to some bigger mountain climbing adventures.