California with the family

After exiting the Desolation Wilderness, we spent a couple extra days in Truckee so we could do the NavX "on your own time" orienteering event near North Star.  John and I have done a couple 24-hour rogaines here including in 2023 and knew the area would be fun to run around in again.  

No blow-by-blow this time, just one picture with a Tahoe Rim Trail sign because I thought it was cool that we were on it for a little ways:

Dani and Robyn also came out to explore the map and we happened to find them at the start/finish parking lot when we stopped by to resupply.  Hello ladies!

Doing a little map chat before we set off in different directions:

That was a fun day, thank you to NavX for setting up events that people can do whenever it fits their schedule.

Now on to San Jose where the family was about to converge on Kip's house.  Yay for a reunion, this time in California!  Billi Jo went the furthest, returning to Vermont to accompany Mom on the plane.  It's great to see all y'all!

We mostly focused on being together, talking and eating and doing small stuff without trying to shove anything large into the schedule.  It was a nice and relaxing several days.

One of our walks, on a boardwalk out into the marshlands of the bay:

Mom had been training for the 5K ParkRun and we were excited to see the course that Kip had been competing on for a few months.  ParkRun is a wonderful concept - free, volunteer-run, casual but still with official timing (and maybe more importantly, tracking of # of ParkRuns people do).  We're big fans.

Getting ready on race morning:

Kip won the "Fiebig" division, I wasn't too far behind, and we both went back on the course to cheer Mom on while trying not to distract her too much from focusing on her pace.  Well done, Mom!

We had a good time trying local restaurants, hitting up Trader Joe's a couple times, and then we came up with the idea of doing an escape room.  Billi Jo was immediately excited about that - it would be her first one.  And she did great!  We all worked together well, figuring out various pieces, and eventually managing to "escape" before time ran out.  Super fun!

I should have gotten more pictures of our times together, suffice to say we enjoyed each other's company and had a lovely family gathering.

Eventually Mom and Billi Jo had to get on their return flight  :(

We'd considered taking them to Great America amusement park, and since we didn't end up going all together, it seemed like a fun thing to do on another day.

A little bit of Star Trek to kick things off:

The bumper cars were especially fun.  Then we started going on bigger rides and John's stomach decided it wasn't happy about that.  So he walked around to recover while Kip and I rode a few of them.

John, I think this one would be OK:

Not this one though - this is John's photo of me and Kip on another fast ride (whee!)

More animal transport:

Enough of those shenanigans and back to our normal on-foot adventures.  Kip and I hiked up Mission Peak for old time's sake.  What a lovely view of the Bay at 7 am:

W for "woo hoo!"

We had so much fun in the escape room with Billi Jo, plus they gave us a discount coupon and we liked the company, that we went back for another room.  Got a picture at the end this time, along with our new friend (so cute!)

We're big fans of The Escape Game, and I see they have locations across the country - highly recommend:

An urban haiku:

Hey, I'm back at the airport.  Oh right, this was an FKT run that I managed to squeeze in because Kip was game to help me trek from the Bay to Mount Umunhum again:

I had created the original route, then someone expanded upon it with a "fixed route" variation that has additional miles and places I had not been to (or connected) before.  That was very interesting to me, and since I had an extra day... and a support person...

The FKT page with more pictures plus a finish video from Kip:

https://fastestknowntime.com/fkt/marcy-beard-bay-mt-umunhum-ca-2025-09-03

Having a good time on the bike path, happy to see Kip again:

Please don't pollute the water, it makes these mural animals sad:

I can see Mount Um on the horizon (the dot on the leftmost part of the ridge), as I'm heading more to the right because this route is not a straight shot:

This trail runs along a creek with several dams that create deeper sections, also waterfalls that I didn't get a photo of.  Nice variety and it's (mostly) worth the longer route to see this instead of city streets:

Hmm, do you have a radar gun, Kip, to make sure I'm not going too fast?

More shady and beautiful bike path:

The Los Gatos footbridge over route 17 is worth crossing to see all the great paintings kids have made.  Kip, you should run the paths around here sometime and check it out:

Admiring the Lexington Reservoir:

I looked for newts but didn't see any to be cautious about:

Kip helped me with my biggest transition, getting ready for the real trails.  He asked whether he might have time to stop for a sit-down lunch?  Oh yes, you will definitely have plenty of time for that!

Going up, up, up into the hills now, looking at Um getting closer, gonna be, gonna be golden:

Somewhere around the top of Mount El Sombroso I was treated to a short bout of leg cramps that required a more gingerly descent than would have been fun.  No matter, I'll get there eventually.

Climbing up to our final crew spot, thumbs up from me:

Just a few more miles in the lovely shade on lovely switchbacks, hey Kip I'm almost to the top!

What the heck, I'll embed Kip's video here:

A view from the top of Mount Umunhum, looking at El Sombroso, with the San Jose valley behind it, very nice:

A few days of recovery later, Kip and John and I decided we were ready to attempt the Terraloco Mapathon event - just the half-Map, mind you, that was plenty for all of us.  Kip and I opted for the flatter half and enjoyed exploring the Berkeley campus, city streets, and all the way down to the marina and waterfront park and back.  We were more focused on running, no photos from that half.

John took on the hillier side and was apparently more focused on actually seeing the checkpoints and whatever else he came across.

Like this, maybe a DNA helix?

A climbable whale statue:

John had the best view of the day for sure:

One last escape room for good measure, and we decided to try a slightly more challenging room.  It took a couple hints, I think, but we solved it in time and also ended up with some accessories (at least for the photo), yay!

Thank you to my wonderful family for a fantastic visit in California!

Desolation backpacking (part 2 of 2)

Continuing our week of exploring the Desolation Wilderness, it was moving day again.  Time to pack up and depart Pyramid Lake.  We certainly enjoyed our 2 nights in this spot:

I think I took this picture for the teeny-tiny pine cones?

If my research is correct, these big beautiful trees are Sierra Junipers:

We climbed over the same small pass as the previous day to find the scenic American Lake:

John helped us down the big steps of the ledges now that we were carrying our normal pack loads:

We had scouted the creek crossings and were ready to switch to sandals and carefully wade across.  I'm pretty sure John helped me with my pack here too.  The second channel had a helpful rock wall built up so the traverse wasn't anywhere near as deep as it could have been:

We crossed Desolation Valley in a more straightforward route this time and soon we were on a proper trail.  A short ways up the trail and we merged with the PCT briefly - hello PCT!  Thanks for the fun photo, Robyn!

Ambling along the east/north side of Lake Aloha, on our way toward Mosquito Pass (on the horizon):

Diverging from the PCT, well it was fun while it lasted:

Switchbacks up toward Mosquito Pass (should we have our head nets on?)

Goodbye Lake Aloha, it was great fun going most of the way around and seeing it from different directions:

Just on the other side of the pass we encountered an obstacle.  Never one to leave a tree in the way of a trail if it might be possible to move it, John worked out how to lever it around on the rocks and Robyn jumped in to help (while I continue in the position of documentarian):

An excellent improvement, thank you both!

On down the trail for a glimpse of Clyde Lake plus the saddle we'd previously come over from Island Lake:

I was walking down the trail, minding my own business, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye flying toward me - some kind of bug which had amazing aim (or more likely bad luck) because it flew right at my ear.  If only I were wearing a head net at that moment.  But no, for some reason it wanted to be inside my ear and there was no convincing it otherwise.

So the next few minutes were spent trying to figure out what to do about this flapping thing that took up residence in my ear canal.  We trying watering it to see if it would crawl out in lieu of drowning.  I pulled out all my med kit items and found I was carrying 3 tweezers for some reason (I'm a desert girl at heart, apparently), but John and Robyn couldn't see the dang creature.  I think we added peroxide or something to the watering process.  Still it kept fluttering.

Finally the noise stopped.  All was still.  The bug's suicide mission was over.  I couldn't feel it after that, so we packed up and continued down the trail.  At the next intersection, where we could make a left if we wanted to start heading back toward the trailhead, we sat for a moment to discuss this turn of events.  Both Robyn and John seemed unconcerned - alright, let's move ahead with our original plan!

Crossing the Rubicon:

Trail love:

We climbed up to 4-Q Lakes, found a nice campsite, and settled in for the night (still wondering about the bug but nothing seemed amiss so I guess I won't worry about it)

Day 5:

Goodbye, Aloha!

There is a bug in my ear

They say it's OK

One last day hike day!  We headed northwest on the McConnell Lake Loop to see what we could see.

Along the way, Robyn found a pretty pink feather:

We climbed up the trail to Horseshoe Lake and then set off cross-country to Lake Zitella:

Gaia showed some sort of trail, but we never found it.  We scrambled on a rocky traverse for a while and eventually reached our arbitrary destination - Highland Lake.  It turned out to be a gorgeous place to hang out and eat lunch:

Checking out the old manmade dam at the outlet:

A piece of rusty... something:

And some kind of water release mechanism:

After lunch and various versions of rinsing off, we started up the slope above the lake.  Do I look cleaner?

John and Robyn trekking up a granite slab:

Off-trail love:

Starting down the other side of the spur toward Horseshoe:

And a blue feather plus another pink one:

Snack time in the trees:

Granite love:

Day 6:

Days are warming up

Highland Lake lunch and a dip

Trail and off-trail fun

We packed up and headed back down to the Rubicon creek, starting in the general direction of our eventual exit from this beautiful place.  Somewhere in our next climb we came upon the aftermath of what I assume was an avalanche:

Our packs taking a break, I think near Lake Schmidell (we repeated that name quite a lot that day):

Then it was some kind of an upward haul to reach Lake Lois and our next campsite.  The lake was quite pretty and I'm not sure why we didn't take a picture.  I guess you get the gist by now!

Since we still had an afternoon to play with, I did a trail run back past Schmidell and up to a pass for a nice view.  It appears to be raining over yonder - good thing we've over here at the moment:

John and Robyn did some off-trail roaming up to the Red Peak ridge where they could see Lake Tahoe, and also the dark clouds on the horizon.  Oh!  This is probably Lake Lois below them (our tents are in the trees):

Day 7:

Two Schmidell miles up

Roaming and exploration

Lovely Lois Lake!

One last day, hiking out of the wilderness.  It started out rainy, so I didn't bring the camera out for a while.  If I remember right, we were lucky with a window of dryness around breakfast time and we got packed up before the sprinkling began.  At least it was the final day and we could dry everything out later.

The weather turned out to be not-too-bad as we hiked over Rockbound Pass.  The ascent was easy in that direction, but it would have been a different story on a hot day climbing up that steep trail on the other side.

Somewhere on the way down, Robyn slipped and ended up lying upside-down on top of her pack.  She was fine, and that move made it into the haiku (see below).

Down the hill to granite slabs, happy to have our rain jackets off:

One more, and rather elaborate, expression of love for this place.  I cannot recall if "JB" was already there or if I made modifications:

On our way out toward Wrights Lake, thank you Desolation Wilderness and thank you Robyn and John!

No notes:

Day 8:

Morning rain walking

Rockbound vertical turtle

Miss our Tramily

Afterward: In San Jose I bought an otoscope and imaged my ear canal - super cool, by the way - and in the process was able to gently drag the dead bug out of there.  Another adventure complete!