All Right! Alt Ride! 2012

WOW!  What an awesome ride.  The organizers did amazing work, acquiring some amazing sponsors, gathering up great support, and recruiting riders with really positive attitudes.

128 miles, 12K ft of elevation, 3 peaks, 2 trains, 1 ferry, 1 day...

Such a great idea... I'm actually disappointed that I didn't think of this myself.

The route in one sentence:  Starting at Joseph Grant campground about half way up Mt. Hamilton, we ascended Mt. Hamilton, hopped on CalTrain up to San Francisco, rode across the Golden Gate Bridge to Mt.Tam, hopped on the Sausalito Ferry back to SF, then got on BART out to Pleasant Hill, and finally rode up Mt Diablo in record heat.

The route on a map: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/721954


Brekky in the dark.  4 am...

Our first morning visitor... we actually saw quite a lot of critters on this ride.  A few bullfrogs, a coyote, mule deer, rabbits, lots of cows, etc...  

Self portrait w/Silicon Valley waking up below, and Lick observatory behind... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_Observatory

Top of Mt. Hamilton... 4200 ft.  The highest climb of the day, but probably the easiest as we: 1) started at 1300 ft; 2) the grade to the top never gets above 6.5% so that mule-drawn wagons could make it; and 3) it was still early so it wasn't nearly as hot as the next two peaks... 

The first snack stop in front of the San Jose CalTrain station. 

The bike car on CalTrain.  My first time on CalTrain.  Can't take your shoes off, but you can drink all you want at 8 am...

Two of the strongest riders on the Alt Ride at the top of Tam.  Brian (the one in the SF Rando jersey) rode back home after this event... and Alejo is just a super strong athlete.  Told me this was his longest ride, and he absolutely crushed it!

After a fun descent and helping Marcie fix her flat, we rolled in to Larkspur to board the ferry.  A fresh scoop of ice cream provided by Sigman was key.  Also the 3 popsicles I had on board.

Cheering on the other riders on their way to the top of Diablo! The temp was 102 F when we started... I guess it read 106 earlier that day... 

Back at the Pleasant Hill BART, the Alt Ride provided us with refreshments and food.  Here is Jeff getting his medal!

Woohoo!

And Kai Bear eating it soon after...

You can check out the live tweets (with pics) here: http://www.altride.org/
Lech was the photographer for the ride, and his awesome pics are here: http://lechphoto.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/altride-2012-snapshots-of-an-epic-ride/
Transit & Trails blog: http://blog.transitandtrails.org/
Bay Nature blog post: http://baynature.org/articles/web-only-articles/an-iron-man-for-transit-advocates

And here's a vid of me going down Diablo.  Thank you Transit & Trails, Alt Ride, Annie & Ryan for organizing this awesome ride.

Hummingbirds!

Are pretty cool... the females are tough to ID.

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Hey!  What's Kai bear doing in here?

More of this guy http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-chinned_Hummingbird/id

Black-chinned Hummingbird

 Anna's Hummingbird http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/annas_hummingbird/id

Sketchy man sighting...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_ball

Taken with my Canon SD800 using CHDK using the motion detection script.

Some links to bay area hummingbird page.
http://dixiesd.marin.k12.ca.us/dixieschool/Pages/naturetrail/hummingbird/hummers.html

How to ID... just remember Gorget... that should be your word of the day.
http://hummingbirdworld.com/h/id.htm

Gorget on a Hummingbird...

Gorget from joan of arc.

Weekly Pano: Mt. Hamilton @ 6 am

Yup... we were done with the first leg of the Alt Ride at 6 am.  We left camp at 4:30 am... and finished at 8:45 pm.  That was a great day.

Weekly Pano: Steep Ravine

Check out this awesome tree growing above a creek on the Steep Ravine trail!  Not a bad shot considering I had Kai bear asleep on me.  

Lassen & Shasta... like Sheen, winner.

From this year on I plan to exploit the Shasta/Lassen combo trip to new higher benchmarks... that area is sooooooo fantastically awesome to not spend more time up there.

Shasta... what can I say about Shasta, my first "real" mountain... Shasta has been my main mentor in mountaineering, and has taught me to smile, stay cool, and always be ready to turn around.  The harsh reality of nonreciprocating love.  The location of my annual pilgrimage where I reflect back on the season while kicking meditative steps up it's gentle flank... the highs, the lows... and give thanx that all the close calls & near misses were what they were... at times I feel like I'm in Shavasana, rejuvinating my mind, body, and soul.

The scene at Bunny Flat the night before.  Talked and had a few beers with Kyle Miller... who got me pretty amped about the North Cascades for sure.  Also Jeremy Jones and his crew were all here too... partying at Horse Camp.  

Passing Helen Lake... quite a busy weekend.  I think I passed over 100 people on the way up...

about as crowded as I've ever seen up Avy Gulch.... folks made some great steps though so I could make great time up to the Red Banks.  

Looking up the Red Banks with a cool contrail behind her... 

Misery Hill.  I was hoping to meet up with the Servaites here... but I learned that they had made it only 1000 ft above their camp... so I trudged on, hoping I would catch them on the way down...  

Ran into Bruce... last time I saw him was on top of Tallac like 5 years ago I believe... 

Crazy looking clouds surrounding the summit... surprisingly not that windy.  

Lackluster summit shot...

Ran into another solo-ist on the summit, Bennett, who convinced me to ski down with him... which I gladly did.  

Then we ran into Scott, another solo-ist who was debating whether to ski down the Konwakiton solo or if we could recruit some partners.  He convinced Barrett and me to join him...

Here's why the Konwakiton is called the "muddy one"

The parking lot was quite entertaining... from some crazy lady telling Barrett to keep picking up his dog's poo... to the Lemurian believers with a gold headband with a crystal in the middle to "communicate" with them... to the numerous professional photographers awaiting the eclipse... to the dozens of hippies, ready to be one with nature at this spiritual hot spot. I had to jet unfortunately, and caught the eclipse from a rest area near Red Bluff, but I did leave a note and a snow-cooled Pliny the Elder for Toro at the car... which he didn't see and left at the parking lot.  Unbelievable...

Here's my route... might be useful to study if you want to hit up the Konwatikon Glacier route. 

Here's the vid

 Lassen, is just pure fun.  Compared to Shasta... it feels like nothing can go wrong here.  It's big enough to occupy your whole day, but small enough that you feel like you could really never get lost on it.  Following the sun around the mountain, you can harvest that Cascade Concrete all morning long... well into the afternoon before making that 30 min ski/hike back to your car where your snow-chilled IPA awaits with a grin... probably cuz it can see the phallic radio repeater marking the summit.  



Why is the parking lot called, "devastated area"?  Check out what it used to looked like a 100 years ago... from http://www.skiing-blog.com

Madatory summit shot... no comment

and another vid