alcatraz and golden gate

So we picked up worth and went to the golden gate rec area to see some beaches/ mess around in the park/ check out the bridge. this is probably one of the greatest pictures ever taken. things to notice

1) me trying to point to the bridge and failing miserably
2) the naked 70 year old walking in the 40 degree surf behind us
3) worth laughing because of #2



So i asked a women to take a picture of all 4 of us in front of the golden gate... this is the result



uhhhhhhhh thanks lady. If i blow up the right 1 inch of the picture you can see a beam. SPEECHLESS

Then we chilled on fishermans wharf, saw some sea lions (sea lions smell TERRIBLE but are really fun to watch because all they do is bark and mess around with eachother. the seals constantly fight for position on the floating docks so its one huge game of sea lion kING OF THE MOUNTAIN)



went and did the alcatraz tour which was great. they have an audio tour thing with a bunch of cool stories about the place which was just money



went home, showered, went to grab some pizza at like 11, hung out until 12:30 or 1 and passed out. being a hardcore tourist is no easy job

The Jones

SOOOOOOO last week Anna and Liz (good friends of mine from UNC) flew into California and we went over to the Jones' house in Danville (~25 minutes away). Anna played soccer with the Jones' daughter out at UNC, so they invited us all over to dinner and to spend the night. They are pretty much the nicest people ever

Turns out Mr. Jones is a 3-time super bowl champ, 4-time pro bowler tight end for the 49ers. Awesome. He was going to play golf with Steve Young and Jerry Rice the day we were over there... no biggie. Mrs. Jones is a cali native born and raised and is just awesome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Jones

one day i will be famous enough to have a real Wikipedia page... ONE DAY

They were as hospitable as you could imagine and we had a wonderful dinner and spent a rough night hanging out by the pool



and watching movies in the theater



We hung out there for a while and made our way back to the city the next day so the girls could see my house. We took it easy and I showed them beautiful Oaktown and then we picked up worth, who was flying in from LA, the next morning!

Heres worth going for the perplexed model vibe, while I go for the awkward mid sentence half speaking look




alcatraz and golden gate park next!

edit: oh yea ps - the jones let us use one of their cars for the day so we were high rollin through california, niceeeee (they had it washed the day before for us, thats how nice they are)

ANNA RIDING DIRTY

busybusy busy

been super busy hanging out (rough life I know), but I will try to post pictures and updates of our activities as soon as things slow down

golden gate was beautiful and the Alcatraz tour was really cool as well. Liz left this morning and anna and worth both fly out tomorrow, sad day

caught a nice sunset on our way back from alcatraz



also, this song is the heat

holy no posts for two weeks whoOPSIE

sorry for no updates guys, was busy in NC and then anna and liz are here and worth is flying in now

will try to update in a little while, we are going to go mess around at golden gate national park and alcatraz

BYEBYEYBYEYBYEBYEYBEY

also... searched weather to make sure i was wearing the right stuff... HAHA this place is great

not gonna lie, this was scary to me

So we climb the 909340283045923 stairs up to sub dome (it is about 12:30 now) and see our final destination in sight:



They take the cables down on October 12ish every year (they put them up in May) to prevent avalanche damage to the poles, so this was one of the last times in the season you can get up half dome. The granite was iced over in the morning, and its extremely dangerous to climb it when its icy/wet, but the sun had melted/dried the majority of the water away by now so we were pretty fortunate.

The half dome cables are one of those things on earth that are extremely dangerous but tons of people do anyway (I think 50,000 people per year make it up there). If you slip, the smooth granite and steep angle make it impossible to stop and then you just tumble off half dome to the valley floor 2,000 feet below. There have been 5 or 6 deaths in the last couple years, so no mistakes allowed. Most of the bad stuff happens when people climb it in bad weather (you aren't supposed to climb half dome if you even see clouds in the sky) but as you can see from the pictures we had a beautiful day.

You can see Sabo in orange in this picture, it gives you an idea of how steep it is



Once we got out of the super steep section (right in the middle), sabo whipped this picture down so you can see the incredible views



The granite is so smooth that you cant really use your legs to climb, so you 100% use your arms and wear gloves to help grip the cable better/keep your hands warm. We made it up without incident and chilled up top for a while, looking at the beautiful valley





We had a 5 or so hour hike out, so we headed back down about 2:00. Going down the cables is easier than coming up, even though you get vertigo inducing views at every step.



But you can stop worrying (Im looking at you mom, leah, tara, and grandma) because we made it down safely are are A-OK. For some reason I was just as nervous about Sabo as I was myself (probably because I am a caring, unselfish, sweetheart) and was picturing having to make the call to Mrs. Sabo telling her how eric fell off half dome... so I was very relieved when we both had made it back down safely.

We ate a quick meal on sub dome and made the trek down using a different trail, so we could see some cool new scenery



We made it back to the car about 7ish, stopped at the nearest gas station to drink gatorade and slam some beef jerky, and made it back to Oakland at 11ish. It was an awesome whirlwind and somewhere I've always wanted to go, so A+ for that.

I can now check Yosemite off of my Life "TO DO" list, yessssssssssssssssssss

YOSEMITE PART TWO

wow 3 updates in one day? yes ship it I dont owe you guys one for a few weeks after this

So the alarm goes off at 6 am and I reach my hand outside my sleeping bag to turn it off and it is FREEZING. Sabo half wakes up and mutters the most loaded question in the history of questions... "so are we gonna get up now or just snooze it for a little bit" uhhhhhhhhhhhhh obvious snooze.



We get up at 6:30 and it is 22 degrees outside so we ghetto packed the site... we balled up the tent and rainfly and ground tarp and threw it in the back, tossed our sleeping bags and pads in the second seat, got the cooler out of the bear locker and shoved it in the trunk (you cant keep food or deodorant or toothpaste in your cars or tents or bears will come rip your face off to get it) and were on the road. From awake to driving out of the campground was about 2 minutes.

We were about an hour from the trailhead (Yosemite is huge, we were way south and had to drive up and then west into the valley), so we got there about 7:30 and changed clothes, filled up our camelbaks (backpacks that hold water to drink), wolfed a couple granola bars and got going. We had to park a little ways away from the trail head so we finally got there at 8:15ish and OUR JOURNEY BEGINS



The first 2 or 3 miles were basically switchbacks just getting you up the mountain. Since we got a late start (most people hiking half dome start at or before 6 am) we decided to just crank it out at a pretty good pace and not take too many breaks. Definitely tiring, but Yosemite is beautiful and you get distracted by the breathtaking views at every corner



About 4 hours in we had gone high enough to cross the snow line and all of a there is sudden 2-3 inches of snow everywhere. We stopped to eat some peanut butter bread and scope the view before tackling sub dome (2nd to last part of the hike) and half dome (the end!).



I smile in the pictures, but really I just wanted to sit down in the trail and drink water/cry



Sub dome is the little bump in the top right of this picture, and half dome is the one at the top left. The slope between them doesn't look that steep, but it is a 45-50 degree pitch so they have run 2 sets of cables up the rock to aid the reckless souls who want to get up half dome



To help you climb up sub dome they have cut a bunch of stairs into the granite, HOPE YOUR LEGS ARENT TIRED



HALF DOME CABLES NEXT UPDATE

yOSEMITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

OK here is part 2 of chaos weekend continued.

Sabo and I throw everything in the back of the 4runner and head for Yosemite. The park entrance is like 3.5 to 4 hours from Oakland, and then we drove about an hour into the park to camp near a town called Wawona. It is really close to those sequoia groves of giant trees you always hear about, and we decided we wanted to see that before we hiked half dome in the morning (will explain about half dome later)

We got to Wawona around 3:30, threw up our tent so we wouldn't have to do it in the dark later that evening, and headed for Mariposa Grove to see the Sequoia trees. They had closed the road due to icy conditions so we had to hike about 2.5 miles into the grove, but it ended up working out because that really cut down on the crowds and we pretty much walked around by ourselves the whole time



Sabo is a highschool teacher and I'm 23, but that doesn't mean we cant act like idiots



Grizzly giant, the 25th largest tree in the world i think



You get the gist, there are tons of huge trees



We hiked all over the grove until it got dark, then trekked back to the car. It ended up being 10 or 11 miles which may have been a little much considering neither one of us is in EXCELLENT mountain shape and we were planning on doing Half Dome the next morning (A 17 mile, 10-12 hour hike) but it was really pretty so whatever. We decide cold peanut butter bread doesn't sound so great right now and we wanted to tank up on food before our big day tomorrow, so we hit up this old like 1870's hotel deep inside the park to get a real meal.



Sabo loves food as much as I do, and we each had only eaten cereal and a granola bar the entire day, so we just went to town. Pea fritters, lentil soup, fish chowder, biscuits, eggplant parmesan, mash potatoes, pan fried steak, vegetables, blueberry crisp LET IT ROLLLLLLLLLLLLL. I think we spent like $75 dollars on dinner when all was said and done, and looking back Im pretty sure I woulda spent $500 to avoid going back to our campsite and eating peanut butter in the freezing dark. Carb'ed up and so full we were feeling sick, we went back to our campsite, set the alarm for 6:00 am, and passed out thinking about half dome tomorrow.

A little information about half dome: It is one of Yosemite's most popular and strenuous hikes, and they recommend 10-12 hours for the 17 mile round trip. There is a 5,000 foot elevation change between the trail head and the dome, so you are hiking UP a good bit. It is a huge rock in the middle of the valley and it looks like this (its the huge thing in the top right)


phew ill update with the half dome hike in a bit

wow what just happened

Its 2:30 pm and I just woke up after sleeping for 12 hours... the last few days of my life have been an exhausting but awesome blur.

Last Saturday, Sean, Sabo, and I drove down to Santa Cruz for the Santa Cruz Bike demo day. Sean is a huge mountain biker and has been begging us to get bikes, Sabo wanted to try out some bikes before he got one and I wanted to ride for a bit before I bought anything. Santa Cruz is a company that makes baller mountain bikes that are anywhere from $1500 to $5000. They are super light, super durable, have tons of travel on the back tire etc etc etc


They have these demo days where they take a certain number of bikes and let people ride them on trails all day and then sell them afterwards for 60% to 40% off. They had the demo in Wilder Ranch state park, where there are tons of trails by the ocean that look like this:



We left our house at 7:30 to get there by 9:00, grabbed a few bikes after waiting in line and took off. First off, mountain biking is really, really, really fun. Second off, mountain biking is really, really, really tiring. I have never felt like my quadriceps were LITERALLY ON FIRE after exercising for such a short amount of time. Sean of course leads us away from the flat trails by the ocean and up some hill into the state park and off we go. Sabo explains how he actually likes to ride UP hills because of the challenge and the workout, I just mutter masochist and start calling him sicko as I wheeze my way up this relatively small incline. Sean is of course already at the top smiling and just loving life.

We get to the top and then the downhill (WAY MORE FUN) section starts and we just weave our way down this hill through these winding paths. Sean just disappears in this cloud of dust down the slope ripping through the trail at like 90 miles per hour, Sabo and I almost go over the handle bars and lose control off the path so we decide to take it easy and walk some sections. Sean comes back PEDALING UP THE HILL smiling like a kid on christmas saying how he wants to bomb it again and I realize i am now stuck in the woods with two sickos.

We ride trails for about an hour and then go turn the bikes in so other people could try them out. I actually got quite the rush from mountain biking even though I had never done it before and was going slow/had no idea what I was doing/etc. Sabo pulled the trigger on getting a bike and we had to kill a few hours until the demo was over and he could come pick it up. We headed into Santa Cruz and got some mexican grub (I finally ate fish tacos in California, I feel like that was on the "to do" list) and walked the santa cruz boardwalk for a bit which was cool. California has so many awesome places on the ocean, its just sick

So we drive back to Oakland and are debating going to Yosemite on Sunday morning to camp and hike for a few days. We were debating going because by Saturday night we had:

1) 3 guys
2) 1 two person tent
3) 2 sleeping bags
4) 1 sleeping pad

All of us had also left most of our warm weather gear back at our other houses, and I had no heavy jackets, no wool socks, no rain jacket, no long johns, etc (Yosemite temperatures this time of year go between 30 and 50 degrees). We decide to go anyway and scrounge up a sleeping bag and pad for Sabo from a friend at like midnight. We reason I will just make do without a pad, we will bring every warm thing we own and make it work, and all 3 of us will just cram into the tent (we will be cold anyway and will appreciate the body heat).

So we wake up on sunday morning and Sean is coming down with some bad sickness and has a swollen throat and stuff. He passes on everything warm he owns and tells us to have a good time. Sabo and I throw a box of triscuits, some pasta salad, half a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and granola bars into a cooler and set off for yosemite!



Im gonna split this up into two parts since it is getting long