My Peak Challenge

I'm going back on my word. Sorry, not sorry. Long ago in a land not far from here, I said I would stop talking about my oh so exciting exercise and getting healthy drama. I told you all sorry here. Well, I'm going to be going back on that promise for a while. At least till mid March anyway. Why? Well, let me tell you.

The last day that I got outside and ran was September 29th, 2014 (I know this because I kept track on my kitty cat wall calender). Ironically that's exactly one month prior to the day my mom passed away from cancer (October 29th, 2014). I'm not sure my subconscious knew that something was up. Maybe it knew I should have been spending that time with my mom instead of out running circuits in my neighborhood. When she was in the hospital those last two weeks, it was never a choice. It was go see mom. November and December came and went. Now that it is January, I've decided that it's time to finally get outside again. I'm not one who makes New Years Resolutions. I would break them within a week or so. So I gave up on that silly stuff long ago. I've realized that the past two years or so, that I've settled. I never reached the goals I had set. I told myself, that that was okay. That I was healthy, and I wasn't fat or gaining weight. So it was okay. But it isn't. I shouldn't settle. So this year will be all about NOT SETTLING. And that is not just in my get healthy for reals part of my life. In everything. But in the get healthy for reals part I actually want to see my abs and not the muffin top. I want to eat healthy and get off processed foods. And so, to get me back out there and get my ass moving again, I've decided on #MyPeakChallenge.

I knew I needed some type of motivation to get me going again. I needed some sort of goal (not the end goal) to get me motivated and moving. And this fits... perfectly. I won't tell you all about the challenge's details here. Click on the link above and read all about it yourself. You can do it. It's not that hard, just mouse up and click. I'll wait...

Now that you're back and informed I had to decide on what my challenge would be. The event takes place March 14-15, 2015. That's not long from now. So a marathon was out. Not that I want to do a marathon anyway. So was doing an actual mountain peak. Mt. Lassen and Mt. Whitney (which are on my must conquer list) are out do to snow and permits respectively.

Mt. Lassen

Mt. Whitney

So what can I train for for two months? Two hikes. Crazy, but I've been wanting to go backpacking again. Time made me forget about the back spasms I guess. First will be hiking up Mt. Madonna (Mt. Madonna County Park) from outside the park. The second will be doing a 12 mile back country hike in Henry Coe State Park.
Here's a really bad pic of what I will be doing at Mt. Madonna:

it may look big, but it's only 6 miles or so

And well here is a link to the Henry Coe hike. I can't seem to figure out how to get a good topo pic. But in my defense, it is 1:42am.

And now for the history: You can skip this part if you want. This is just the scholarly part of me trying to make you all learn something.

Mt. Madonna is one of the largest parks in Santa Clara County, it being a county park. It sits at the top of Hecker Pass in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Gilroy in the east (where I live) and Watsonville in the west. Besides the park where you can go hiking, biking, horse riding, archery, and camping, there is also the Mt. Madonna Center. This is a temple (Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple), retreat, yoga, learning institute, etc. It is also home to Mt. Madonna School. This is a k-12 school hosted by the Center that has a focus on the arts. Now what I find interesting is that the ruins of Henry Miller's summer home is in the park. Miller is quite famous in Gilroy. He was a cattle baron from the 1850's till his death in 1916. There is a street named after him in Gilroy. He also helped establish the city of Los Banos. A cool old work related fact is that SCE (Southern California Edison) an electric company bought land and water rights from him along the San Joaquin River for their Hydroelectric Systems in Big Creek. If you have read any of my older stuff about my archaeology days, you know that I spent a great deal of time in and out and about SCE's Big Creek Hydroelectric Project. In Gilroy, he is famous for stealing land and cattle from less prosperous folks. And the coup de gras is that there is a ghost story about his youngest daughter. She died when she was 8 when she fell off her horse and it crushed her. She was riding in Mt. Madonna. They say she haunts the campgrounds and the old Mt. Madonna Inn. You can read about it here. It's awesome.

I'll save you the enormous yet pretty cool and interesting history of Henry Coe State Park. I did a day hike there years ago with a friend, if you like you can read that here. The short version is this: Henry Coe had an ginormous ranch called Pine Ridge Ranch which had over 12,000 acres. He gave it to his son, Coe Jr. who was an idiot and sold it to Beach Land and Cattle Company in 1948. Coe's kick ass daughter Sada, bought it back in 1950. She donated the property to Santa Clara County in 1953, and so it is named after her father. The state eventually took ownership over the county and things happened. It almost got shutdown in 2012, but got saved by awesome people with money and the Pine Ridge Association. The park is still growing in size. It is over 67,000 acres now.

I'm now done with today's lesson.

I have asked my "certifiable" friend to join me on the hikes. This is the same "certifiable" friend from the adventures in backpacking the Skyline to the Sea Trail that you can re-read here if you like. If she is able to get both days off of work like I hope, she will join me both days. If she can only get one of the days, then the day she gets off we will do Henry Coe. I'm not about to venture into the back country on my own. I ain't stupid! Whether or not she decides to join in the challenge or not, is up to her. I'm most excited about the t-shirt I get. I realize I have a problem.

Now, just a few more things. I found this particular motivation via my geekiness. I will write about much of this in a different post, but let's just say that I started reading a book series called Outlander back in September. I tried starting it years ago, but never got passed the first 100 pages or so. Then the tv gods decided to make it into a tv show, so, I thought, ok, better try it again. Well, I finished the series back in December. (that's 8 books peeps). These books helped get me through the last month of my mothers life and the first two months after her death. I would read till my eyes burned and could no longer focus. The books were my escape from reality. It was the only way I could get to sleep at night. So, I also watch the tv show and geek out and drool online. Which is how I found out about #MyPeakChallenge. I thought it was a good fit since by joining the challenge I am also donating to a worthy charity. Granted my mom didn't have this type of cancer (blood cancer), she did have myelogous leukemia the last few weeks or so when her myeloma spread out of her bone marrow and into her blood stream. The peeps running the challenge are also avid outdoorsy mountain climbing nuts, which I am as well, so it all seemed to fit nicely.

So to start I have been off my precious soda for 7 days as of the posting of this. And here I am after the first run since the last, 106 days ago.

4.06 miles in 40 minutes, I still got this

Oh God, I think I'm going to die

Trekking: Skyline to the Sea Day 3

Day 1 is here and Day 2 is here


Day 3 was by far the most beautiful of the trail. I would have enjoyed it more if all I was carrying was a day pack instead of the monstrosity I had on my back. By the end of the day, I was almost having neck spasms. But I’m not a quitter or a complainer... much.

I was the first to rise this day. We had both slept better, mostly because we were so tired and achy, but that’s beside the point. Milkshake (my adventure buddy’s name today) was having issues getting her shoes on... I won’t elaborate, but 20 minutes later she was out of the tent and we took it down for the last time and I heaved it onto my back for the last day.

I'm smiling... on the outside

Milkshake got some more nasty blisters on her feet. I gave her all the blister band-aids I had in my first aid kit. She was a trouper. She didn’t complain much about them. I know they hurt her. (speaking from experience here, I know her pain) She said when she got home she would immediately throw these shoes away, never to be worn again... ever!

she was like, check out these crazy ferns, take my picture!

I didn’t eat much for breakfast. I was over the trail food. My appetite was almost non-existent. Which is not a good thing when you’re exerting/burning more calories than you’re taking in. But I knew it was the last day and that I was going to eat a ginormous cheeseburger and extra ginormous soda and a milkshake when we got back into town. So trust me, it evened out in the end.

The first part of the trail heading out of Big Basin Headquarters was OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!! Uphill. All morning, both of us were saying, “we would have not been able to do this yesterday. I would have died.” It was pretty much uphill the first hour. Made it to the top of a mountain or something and saw the warning sign for this particular portion of the trail. Like you couldn’t have posted that freaking thing at the bottom???? Seriously, park ranger people!!

So the part from the top of the mountain to Berry Creek Falls was the most spectacular. This part of the trail I would love to do again, anytime, with just my day pack. It was breathtaking. Added bonus, it was now all downhill... almost to the very end. Milkshake was mesmerized by it all. I think she forgot about her blistered feet and her aching legs. I almost forgot about my aching back. But I was too consumed about time, now that our last day was between 12 and 13 miles, and whether or not our ride would be sitting at the beach for hours on end waiting for us. (I didn’t need to worry at all because we were at the beach for all of 5 minutes before Milkshakes husband pulled into the parking lot)

We sat down on a bench with a view of Berry Creek Falls and had a snack and up walked Little IT Guy. He said he was right behind us when we left camp that morning. And he caught up to us when we were resting at the falls. We chatted a bit, said our goodbye’s in case we didn’t meet up again, and he carried on. Milkshake went off to go pee in the woods, and then we were off again for the last stretch of the trail.

The last 4 to 5 miles minus the last mile to the ocean, was on a wide gravel path that horses and bicycles can also travel on. We saw a biker, smelled and noticed how healthy some horses were but never actually saw any horses. And we caught up to Little IT Guy. Chatted again, said goodbye again, and passed him up. We stopped to bandage Milkshake one last time and spent the next mile or so with Little IT Guy. We came up to a hiker coming the opposite way with a full pack and stopped him to ask where he was coming from and how far we still had to go. He said something about a sign about 200 yards ahead that says 1.5 miles or something. We thanked him, and moved on all excited that we were almost there, and Little IT Guy chatted with him some more. Kindred spirits and all, they even had the same backpacks.

That silly hiker dude does not know 200 yards if it kicked him in the ass. We didn’t hit that sign for probably three quarters of a mile or something. At least that’s what it felt like to me. I had to stop and relieve my back or it was going to revolt. I told Milkshake that I knew we were almost done but I just needed to stop one last time. While sitting and stretching, up came Little IT Guy, and he proceeded to tell us how stupid the silly hiker dude was. He said that silly hiker dude was seeing how far he could go today because he was doing the Grand Canyon the next day. Little IT Guy was all, “you don’t go and spend all your energy the day before a big backpacking trip. He’s going to be so tired and wasted.” Those weren’t his exact words but he basically said that guy was just stupid. Little IT Guy went ahead of us because Milkshake decided she needed to test out the bathroom at the trail camp we had stopped at. She came back with a report of “that is the worst bathroom out here.” Good to know.

We cinched up the packs, one last time. We came to a sign that said, Hikers go this way, horses and bikes that way. We debated which to take and decided we were going to stay authentic and take that hikers route. DEAR LORD, it was uphill again. Ugh! Milkshake was swearing we were going to wrong way and we’re on the wrong trail. We finally came to a clearing on the rocky cliff wall we were on and saw the ocean! We were on the right trail. And we were almost there. We were almost to the ocean! You could smell it!!

The trail got pretty narrow and overgrown in spots and of course I was wearing shorts today. And I got some nasty stinging nettle in the back of my calf. Holy hand grenade, it hurt! It didn’t stop hurting till the next day.

We made it to the last trail camp at the little ranger station on Hwy 1. Little IT Guy was sitting at a picnic table eating his lunch. So we said our goodbye’s to him one last time and wished him luck on his return journey and on his backpacking trip on the John Muir portion of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) with his daughter. We walked out of the park, crossed Hwy 1, threw our packs on the pavement... if we could throw, that is. I proceeded to take off my shoes and socks and headed for the water. It was freaking windy and cold, so no running into the water, but it wasn’t a complete trip for me unless I got my feet wet.

Milkshake had gotten one shoe off by the time her husband showed up. I was on my way back from the water. Milkshake and I were both glad we kept true to the trail and didn’t take any short cuts or deviations. Her husband gave us both huge bottles of electrolyte water and drove us back into Santa Cruz. Milkshake told him to take us the yogurt shop for milkshakes... IMMEDIATELY!! Which, of course he did, because he’s cool like that, yo.

We were dirty, tired, achy, hungry, sore, exhausted, stinky, and happy. We did it. We made it... alive. Neither of us had done anything like this before. It was great to get away from the world for a while and actually experience... the world. It was beautiful, quiet, and peaceful. It left me sore and walking funny for a few days but it was refreshing and left me invigorated and inspired. For what, I don’t know.

I highly recommend doing a backpacking adventure at least once in your life. I did it. And I know now that I don’t like backpacking. I like hiking. And I like camping. But I don’t like carrying everything on my back. I am not a sherpa.

Trekking: Skyline to the Sea Day 2

What the Peacock?!

It’s finally day 2. A lot has happened since day 1... not to me, but for others a lot has happened I’m sure. I was just being lazy and not wanting to write anything. But here we go, anyway.










Look at us, we made it through the night! I'm just as shocked as you are!

And yet, we never made it to our pre-designed camp. We only made it to Jay Camp at Big Basin Headquarters. We broke camp at Waterman Gap and were on the trail by 8:30-9:00am. A lot of this was uphill. Chaos, who’s name is now Hot Topic (not after the store in the mall, just wait, you’ll see), said it was hot. It was not hot, maybe got up to 73? Maybe.

Both of us were already sore. Hot Topic’s calves and for me it was my shoulders and upper back. Repacking the backpack seemed to help. But only for the first 2 hours or so. I thought we could make it to Big Basin Headquarters by noon. That was a somewhat miscalculation. Then we recalculated once we realized how far we had actually not gone by our first break to 2 pm. We hobbled in at 2:30pm. And I mean hobbled. Backpacks went onto a picnic table and we hobbled into the camp store for its-it’s and drinks. But in between the its-it’s and breaking camp, Hot Topic got a blister. Complained about the heat. Thought that we must have gone miles when in fact we had only gone 0.8 miles. We got eaten by mosquitoes. Went over a giant sandstone batholith. Hot Topic said it was hot again. While on the batholith, she kept saying she was going to push me over the edge.

She's smiling, but what she is really saying is, "I hate you right now, and I am so throwing you over the edge!"

I kept telling her, she volunteered for this and that once we get to Headquarters, there’s ice cream. ICE CREAM!! She was dragging and hurting. I was a bit too, but I kept thinking we’d make it to Sunset Camp and I didn’t want to admit failure. A few hours before hitting Big Basin Headquarters, Hot Topic informed me, she would not be able to do another 5 miles to Sunset Camp. Quitter! Ok, not really, because, honestly, I wouldn't have made it either, or I would have and have turned into a swearing angry cranky worse than PMS woman child by the end and left Hot Topic on the trail to fend for herself. We'll not go there, okay?

We had caught up with Little IT Guy about 3 miles outside of Big Basin Headquarters. We walked with him for a while. We stopped so I could get a water bottle out of my pack and so Hot Topic could pee about 1.3 miles from Headquarters. We were soooooooo close!! But there was a park bench!! During this time Little IT Guy passed us. He was staying at Jay Camp in Big Basin Headquarters.

So, when we hobbled into Headquarters who did we see eating an ice cream cone? Little IT Guy of course. He had said he had checked in with the ranger and said that there was room at Jay Camp. So after our its-it’s, Hot Topic laid down on the picnic table and I hobbled over the the Ranger Station. I asked if we could stay at Jay Camp instead of Sunset Camp, because we were not going to make it. The Ranger said no problem. I gave her our permit and I asked if we could pay here. She said, “You didn’t pay already?” Nope. Sorry. I didn’t know we were suppose to pay our camp fees at Castle Rock Headquarters before we began the adventure the day before. That was 3 miles in the other direction of where we were dropped off. I didn’t know. But I do now. The Ranger was cool about it, and I told her I now do not feel any guilt about not paying yet.

We did 10.5 miles today. And because we didn’t make it to Sunset Camp, tomorrow will now be close to 13 miles. Sure hope it will be easier and that Hot Topic will be okay. (She informed me that she took 3 vicadin and 2 aleves today)

We put the packs back on for the last time... today and hobbled over to Jay Camp. Oooh actual flush toilets and sinks and showers! Big Basin Headquarters is awesome.

I was shocked and slightly amused by the fact that although Hot Topic has lived in Santa Cruz her entire life, she has never been to Big Basin before. I came here almost every summer with my dad and brother when I was a kid. Creek walking, jiffy pop, campfire with the rangers, and roasting marshmallows, hiking with dad, scary showers with the spiders, some of my fondest memories of my childhood are here. So anyway, we set up camp, said hi to Little IT Guy, and set off on the Redwood Trail to introduce Hot Topic to the wonders of Big Basin and Mother and Father of the Forest. We also stopped in at the Sempervirens Room and the Nature Museum. Walking without the packs was nice. And Hot Topic loved seeing the trees. Not that we didn’t see trees all day, but she kept saying “look how big this one is”, and I kept saying, “there are bigger ones, just wait”.

Tomorrow we will need to get up early so that we can actually get some beach time! We saw several banana slugs and three deer and only four day hikers on the trail before we got near Headquarters. I asked Hot Topic if she wanted to add anything: It was cool going in and out of different vegetation zones all day (Chapperal/ redwood forest/ oak woodland), and although the sandstone batholith was hot, it was cool. Did I mention it was hot? And the penis and vagina tree were really cool (aka Father and Mother of the forest). Here is her proof:

In Mother of the Forests vagina

pointing out Father of the Forest's penis

Oh and we only almost got lost twice. I’d say Day 3 will come shortly, but since it took me over a week to get to day 2, who really knows.

I'm just going to look up this tree for a while

 Click here for Day 1               Click here for Day 3

Trekking: Skyline to the Sea Day 1

a three day backpacking adventure of about 30 miles through Castle Rock and Big Basin State Parks
Day 1:

Saratoga Gap (the intersection of hwy 9 and hwy 35 in Saratoga California) to Waterman Gap trail camp. Total of 6.4 miles. 7 for us because we started on the wrong trail. D’oh! Face palm!

I got to My life is Chaos’ house in Santa Cruz around 9:30am. Her husband and wild child dropped us off at the wrong trail head, which I thought was the right trail head by 11:00-11:30am. After of course we had to first go to New Leaf market (super hippy grocery store that you only find in places like Santa Cruz) because she hadn’t had breakfast yet and husband needed coffee and she had eaten the chocolate for the trail already. Then after wild child's second coconut water, realized she had forgotten to pack the apples and carrots for the trail. So back to the house of chaos. Finally on the road, up hwy 9.

Got to the intersection of hwy 9 and 35 and thought there would be some sign or obvious trail head at the obvious parking lot, but nooooooooo. Chaos’ husband needed a cigarette by then, so parked there and let us loose. So here is us at the wrong trail head. See how happy and clueless we are?

After a bit down the wrong trail, Chaos needed to pee and kept saying “this doesn’t feel right, I think we are going the wrong way”. Fine. After her first squat in the woods I got the map out and sure enough... wrong trail. Went back up the trail and back out to the parking lot, crossed hwy 35 and started walking down hwy 9 and saw the right trail head sign. Here we are at the right one. Yay!

Almost the entire first day was next to hwy 9 and crossed it several times. Only saw two day hikers. We stopped for lunch at the Sempervirens (have you googled this yet, Chaos?) Point lookout. Which was not quite our first day halfway point. A lady came by and asked us where the entrance to Castle Rock State Park was (we were in Castle Rock) and I felt really proud of myself when I busted out the map and knew where we were and where she needed to go. Boo-yeah.

getting lunch out

our view during lunch

back on the trail

Made it into Waterman Gap Trail Camp by 2pm.

There was only one other person there. Ms. Chaos said we should go talk to him in case he was a serial killer. Because apparently if you talk to a serial killer, he is less likely to serial kill you. Ok. He told us there was a camp site down the hill if we wanted. We went down there and saw this:

Chaos decided it was made by meth cookers and that she will not sleep anywhere near it. So back up the hill to where we initially decided to set up camp. Our potential serial killer was listening to the Giants game on his radio. After talking with him, we decided he was not a serial killer and just a short, retired IT guy who loves gadgets and gizmos. He is training for a 21 day backpacking adventure with his daughter on the John Muir portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. He is out “testing” his equipment. You go, little IT guy!

We set up the tent, no problem. Got the cook stove out and hooked up the little propane tank and got dinner started. Gourmet dinner of ramen noodles! I bumped the stove and spilled all the ramen and water out. Oops. Luckily, Chaos had packed extra. So started over with new water and ramen noodles. After dinner, little IT guy came over and showed us his cooking equipment and what he had for dinner and told us about the raccoons. I knew that raccoons would get into our food if we didn’t properly store it. He suggested that we put it in the bathroom. It was the cleanest bathroom ever, just didn’t have any toilet paper. (Chaos brought a role though, so all was right with the world) So we did. He also put his bear box in there too. He said he didn’t want to hear the raccoons scratching at it all night. He has a gadget to repel raccoons, by the way. Ok.

By 6pm, the mosquitoes were so bad that we retreated to the tent. The Deet was not working. Not knowing what to do with ourselves at 6pm inside our tent, we were both close to sleep by 7pm. How sad is that? Not even dark, and Chaos is snoring.

The first day wasn’t too bad. Our backs were sore from the packs, but my feet and legs felt good. Saw two banana slugs, heard the raccoons and some deer once it got dark. I would sleep for maybe an hour or two and then wake up, re-adjust, and sleep another few hours and wake up again. I did not get cold though. I always get cold when camping. That was the one thing I was most paranoid about this entire trip, was being cold at night. But it was all good. Even after I had to break out of the cocoon in the middle of the night to go relieve the bowels. Yay!

Day 2 coming soon: where Chaos gets a name change and tries to throw me off a cliff.

Click here for Day 2                  Click here for Day 3