Yosemite - big waterfalls and big trees

Ah, Yosemite!  A magical place.  We've been only once before but I feel like I know it much better than that.  And yet I believe every time we go we'll find new and wonderful things we hadn't noticed before.

Last time was in the fall, and every spring since then we've been like "now would surely be a great time to visit Yosemite!"  With all the snowfall in the Sierras last winter, we knew we really needed to make an effort to get there.  It was a bit of a drive for a weekday overnight excursion, but it was worth it.

Yep, I can confirm that the waterfalls are running full blast - woo hoo!

There was really only one choice for us, the trail to Upper Falls.  Yes, it would also be amazing to see Nevada/Vernal Falls in the spring - one of many reasons to go back again someday.  Last time I believe the Upper Falls trail was closed because of wildfires.  Not today!

Enjoying the views on the way up, amid a bunch of granite droppings:

Waterfalls everywhere, big and small, we had no idea how many places water would drop off into the valley in the spring:

Such a beautiful day for a hike:

Upper Falls was fan-tas-tic... the booming noise, hearing rocks churning at the bottom, trying to envision just how much water was falling, and feeling mist from quite some distance (and even rain when the trail went through the trees) - wow!

John spotted a couple climbers across the way, well, that gave some sense of scale.  They look so tiny, and this is a zoomed in (and cropped) photo:

Fun trail up through the drainage to the side of the falls, I'm super impressed with how they built it, even if the short little steps aren't the easiest things to navigate when going back down.

Approaching the overlook to the falls at the top:

Well now, this view is right up John's alley:

Holy cannoli, the little trail goes to a viewing spot right next to the top of Upper Falls!  With a glimpse straight down to the canyon that is the middle section of the falls:

An attempt to capture a tiny bit of the experience:

The noise and volume of water were stunning.

Not to mention the views:

We had no idea it would be this good!

The river as it barreled toward the edge of the cliff:

John in his element:

I just love this area!

On Yosemite Point with an excellent view of Half Dome:

Hello Mr Raven!  We watched a raven soar and then turn upside-down, I kid you not, glide that way a short distance with its feet up in the air, then turn back right side up.  Always keep an eye on gliding ravens, especially right after they "squawk!"

Yep, pretty spectacular:

After the long hike back down to the valley floor, we took a slight detour to the bottom of Lower Falls.  Another fun experience - this one involving fast-moving wet wind!  Bring a rain jacket, it's loud and moist.

We camped at Wawona at a very nice site along a creek, quite pleasant.  That put us close to Mariposa Grove for a morning of big tree exploration.  Carrying weighted packs for training:

The paths around the grove and through the giant sequoias are so inviting:

Such beautiful trees!  Not as tall as redwoods but very wide:

Hello trees!

Even the dead ones are impressive (and it takes many years for them to decompose):

Now THAT'S a rootstock!

So beautiful:

Infinite diversity...

I love how some of the trees have names:

Not so much loving that someone once thought it was a good idea to do this, but glad we have stopped that practice:

Hey, here's where John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt sat around a campfire and discussed conservation!

This was the spot - thank you both!

There's a little "200 feet" sign on the left fence marking the approximate outer boundary of the root system of the Grizzly Giant in the background:

I've been watching too much Star Trek and Stranger Things, because this is a bit creepy...

With John for scale:

The Faithful Couple:

John was happy to have his saw along...   :)

With Marcy for scale:

Tree hugger:

Probably shouldn't pet the fisher... unless it's a statue:

Wonderful trip - thank you Yo!

Diablo and San Fran

Training days around the Bay Area... starting with a hike up Mount Diablo.  John hadn't been to the top, it seems like time to get there.

We started the trek from Rock City (which strangely didn't have any "See Rock City" signs), and immediately found an unusual water obstacle on the Summit Trail:

Not sure why the hydrant was running wide open, but we detoured through the brush.  Which resulted in my first poison oak spot of the season - on my back, from some detritus that fell down my neck while we were bushwhacking.  And I was being so careful not to touch the poison oak ground cover.  Ah well, that's pretty minor compared to prior PO incidents!

Apparently I don't feed the man enough:

Geology rockin' it up - there are some excellent signboards explaining how this area was an ancient ocean, then it got pushed up and tilted and folded:

It even promised us some lava rocks, not from recent Sierra-type volcanos, but from much longer ago as magma rocks from that ocean floor.  Something new in our volcano-related learning.

Carrying some pack weight as training for summer mountains:

The tower at the top of Diablo is a great lookout spot.  We hung out and admired the views for a while.  But the interesting piece was actually inside the building, a spot I hadn't found before.  It turns out that THIS is the actual summit of Mount Diablo, contained by the building walls:

So now I've been to the "real" top of the mountain too:

Ah ha!  There's our lava rock, called Greenstone:

A beautiful day for a hike amid the springtime flowers:

Back at Rock City we stashed the big packs and went for a little scramble around the sandstone formations (my favorite type of formation):

I believe this is the top of Sentinel Rock, amid fun little trails and rock shapes and views:

Rock scenery:

Carved steps:

Optimistic flora:

On a different day I took an older Terraloco race map into San Francisco for another adventure in urban nav.  I do enjoy finding different parks and parts of the city I haven't seen before.

A bit of public art along the way:

Stairs up to Coit Tower:

More springtime flowers:

Yep, it's a majestic landmark:

Maybe someday we'll take a cruise out of this port:

Alcatraz and Angel Island:

The sea lions are back!  The dock was empty last time I came through, but I could hear them from a distance and knew I needed to make a little detour:

Lots of action (in between the sleeping), juggling for position, jumping in and out of the water, climbing over each other, making lots of noise (how does anyone sleep through that?):

Always entertaining, I could sit and watch all day:

A few seconds of the action in video form:

Tall ships at Hyde Street Pier:

Solar panels (and a view of GG Bridge) at Fort Mason:

I hadn't been through Fort Mason before, that was a fun little jaunt to check out the cannon:

Stairs is the name of the game:

Which results in great views - I was particularly curious about the solar array on the curved roof near the middle of this photo:

Odds are they don't all belong to him... right?

The Presidio, cool!  It was the main attraction of this particular Terraloco map and I was excited to see more of it.

Bonus - a piece of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, excellent!

I've looked at the BART (the trail, not the transit) as a potential circumnavigation of the Bay, but ran into a couple questions like public access restrictions and overnight closing hours.  Maybe someday I'll get motivated enough to figure out how to make it doable.  In the meantime, I can just enjoy anytime I see the trail markers:

Lovely National Cemetery with a view of the bridge:

Looking over at Crissy Field, apparently hosting a Girl Scout gathering:

Well, if I'm going to keep taking pictures of the bridge (and I am), I might as well try to change them up a little:

Scenery to the south:

Climbing around the various batteries looking for answers to the race questions in the graffiti:

It was neat getting a chance to check these out without being "on the clock" as I was when I ran through here during a trail race a couple years ago:

Heading down to the beach for a view of the bridge again:

A bit of wave action:

One more interesting battery:

And one more Bay Area Ridge Trail marker - thanks BART!

Last checkpoint and my favorite little hill in San Francisco, Corona Heights:

Sutro Tower was in the clouds all day:

Thank you for the fun day!

Another quick race recap to finish off a blog post: Last weekend I ran the Miwok 100K for the first time.  It's part of the continuing series called "how I'm exploring races around the country as part of trying to get into Western States".  It took place north of Golden Gate Bridge, in a beautiful area that I've raced and run in before.  It was helpful knowing many of the trails and what I was getting into, namely a whole ton of ups and downs.

And some gorgeous coastal scenery.  I always enjoy the trails here.  We had perfect weather, not too many crowds on the trails, and wonderful volunteers helping us out.

The first half went really well, even with the stops-and-starts waiting in line to climb the first long hill (lots of runners, narrow singletrack, and there's no way I'm jumping into the poison oak just to pass someone).  Once we topped out at Cardiac Hill, the downhill to Muir Beach went smoothly, and the trail turned into doubletrack for many miles.  My legs were happy climbing and I enjoyed chatting with folks occasionally.  One guy told me that my Waffle House arm warmers were great but they made him hungry for chicken and waffles  :)

The second half of the course kicked my butt.  The biggest climb back to Cardiac and beyond was slow but expected.  After that, I discovered trails that were much more "rolling" than I had thought.  And I had even been on some of these before, during the Marin High 5 FKT run.  It turns out that being under the gun with race cutoffs makes you see the little hills a lot differently compared to just needing to complete an FKT for it to count.

So I watched the clock, tried to stay patient within a running "train" for a couple miles, finally got out of that train to run my own pace, and then tried to recover from my astonishment upon realizing just how much of this trail we'd need to repeat on the way back before the last trail down to the finish at Stinson Beach.  Yep, a bit of misunderestimation going on here.

Finally I got to the turnaround at Randall aid station, happily still with plenty of time to cover the last 13 miles even though I was slowing down.  The final aid station had little slices of pizza, happy day :)  plus I had a couple fun chats with runners and volunteers there.  Let's go finish this thing up.

The rolling hills weren't nearly as bad now that I had seen them once before (plus listening to podcasts usually helps).  However, the final 2 miles were a bit on the cruel side - steep downhill trail with a bunch of tall steps to coax my tired legs over, which wouldn't have been nearly a big deal except the trail has a severe poison oak encroachment.  Really?  Dancing around the vines after 60 miles of running?  OK, fine.  But I'm not going to be in a hurry about it - and luckily I didn't have to.

I got to the end within the cutoff time (15:13 vs. 15:30), it was fun, glad to be done!  Now I can enter the WS lottery for the 6th time and maybe someday I'll get to run that race too.