4th of July Hiking Trip, and that One Time Shayna and I Weren't Really Prepared for Snow

Hello hello everyone, Emerald here. I hope you are all enjoying the heck out of your summer.  I myself have been a little pressed for time/finances, but luckily I live in an area where some really awesome nature is pretty easily accessible.

Like many people, I had a pretty sweet three-day weekend for the fourth of July.  Don't you love it when holidays are conveniently placed?  I do.  I always kind of roll my eyes when a holiday like the fourth is on on a Wednesday or something, and you have to go back to work the next day and finish out the week.  Don't get me wrong, I will totally take the day off, and I will take it happily, it's just hard to stay motivated during the rest of the week.

ANYWAY, three-day weekends are great. and I had one.  And since the backpacking trip I had planned with the room mates had kind of fallen through due to various scheduling conflicts, I and another friend headed up to Castle Peak on Donner Summit to climb the peak and make a fun ten mile loop out of it.

Before you ask, no.  I wasn't barefoot.  The climb up to Castle Peak is steep and a lot of it is pretty scree heavy.  The ascent up the peak is at about mile three, and I am not overly fond of the idea of cutting up my feet early on in the hike.  Because this lady learns from previous experiences.

This hike is one of a few that I kind of fall back on when I just want to get outside and do an easy (ish) ten miles somewhat quickly.  Maybe I am not in the mood for hiking somewhere new, and I want something predictable.  I love being up in the Sierras.  I grew up in Truckee, so that area always feels like home, and it feels good.

The last time I did this hike it was with Shayna, and there was still a whole honking lot of snow going on.

Frontage road on the way up to Castle Pass.

Luckily, we had both brought boots along with our minimalist footwear, so we were able to keep going. The scree going up the peak was a little slippery, but we made it on top alright. 

Backside of Castle Peak

View of the meadow from the ridgeline

View of Castle Peak from Basin Peak

Unfortunately, the snow was enough that it obscured the already kind of faint trail going down the other side of basin peak, and while I know where the trail goes and how to get there, I didn't fancy trudging though a bunch of three foot drifts for a number of miles.  For whatever reason that just wasn't appealing that day.  So Shayna and I ended up not completing the  loop and just came back the way we came.  Somewhere along the way, Shayna lost a shoe....I don't think we are quite sure what happened there.  And my boots were pretty old, and had been in the trunk of my car for about two years...so halfway down the mountain both of the soles just came off.  Random! Thankfully it happened after I decided it would be a good idea to circumvent the peak and instead navigate through snowdrifts that came up to about mid thigh.  Yup, definitely managed to outsmart the trail there.  Good job Emerald.   So Shayna and I, shoeless and soleless, descended from the majesty of Castle Peak and drove home to eat and take naps. 

This hike last week couldn't have been more different.  For one thing, no snow!  

Look at all that green!

Instead of snow, all of the wildflowers were blooming so that everything was colorful and felt wonderfully alive.  It's always really neat to see how life thrives even in places that spend more time snowed in than not. 

Okay I lied. There is still some snow.  

This trip we were most definitely able to complete our loop.  Corey and I have both summited the peak before, and it is a huge pain in the butt, so we took the trail that avoids the top and goes directly to the ridge line.  The ascent from Castle Pass to Castle Peak is about 2000 feet in one mile. It's steep. And when you are coming from an elevation of zero, it can be a little brutal. 

Wildflowers on the ridge, courtesy of Corey's camera

Trail up to Basin Peak

 Look at that!  I have apparently never done this hike so early in the season.  Flowers were exploding everywhere.  Nature was on top of it's game on Independence Day this year.  And the sky gets so blue up there.

As you can see, all of the work and heavy breathing on your way up is totally worth it.

Whenever I do this loop, I like to find the lock box on Basin Peak.  Inside is a funny little notebook that people write in to say hello, and that they've been there.  I like looking through all the different people and reading through their reactions to the trail.  And I always look for an entry from Doug and I in 2012 from our trip to Paradise lake.

I like how I'm all like "Cool hike, man!" and Doug waxes a little poetic and says some nice stuff. 

As I mentioned before, the trail down Basin Peak can get a little faint at times, but if you just keep a sharp eye out and keep to the left at any trial splits, you are good to go.  Plus, pretty!

Ten miles up in the mountains is a great way to start a holiday, and after we had eaten a huge lunch we both felt perfectly justified in napping and lounging around the house for the rest of the day. 

So that was my Fourth of July.  What did you do?  Did you have an awesome outdoor adventure, or did you keep it local and hang out with family and friends?  Have your shoes (or other gear) ever gone kaput on a hike?  Because if that kind of thing has happened to you, you should probably tell me about it below. 

Hope you all are well, and have a great weekend!

Barefooting is Cool and You Should do it Maybe

Hi Everyone!  Emerald here.  I'm here to talk to you about getting those tootsie toes out of your shoes for a breather.

See, before I landed a really awesome job that politely insinuated that shoes were required on campus, I spent three years completely barefoot.  I worked at an office that didn't care so much about my feet so long as I had good phone etiquette, and all of my movement disciplines at the time encouraged my footloose and fancy free behavior.  I walked barefoot all winter.  Sometimes even in snow.  Definitely in frost. Often. And it was pretty awesome.

Walking barefoot for so long had so many benefits that I don't know if I will be able to list them all off the top of my head.  It helped to alleviate a bunch of weird back and knee pain that I had had for forever. Throughout my teen years, I was definitely a fan of massive, leather, goth stomping boots.  (Ahem.  I still am.) Which is fine, but boots that lace up to your knees keep your ankle in a really stiff, supported position and don't really allow the ankle to build up strength or mobility.  This is where you see a lot of people that claim that they really need the ankle support to walk anywhere - they've spent a life time having those ankles artificially supported, and have not built up the ankle's ability to support itself.

This kind of stuff really comes in handy when I am trekking around in the mountains.   The Sierra Nevada mountain range that we have here in California is a truly special and beautiful place, but that beauty goes hand in hand with uneven and unpredictable ground.  It ain't no flat pavement!  It is so easy to be distracted by the incredible scenery that the Sierras have to offer and misstep only to roll your ankle. I can think of several occasions that those missteps would have resulted in a really unfortunate injury in the middle of nowhere, but thanks to my barefoot training, my feet and ankles were strong enough to roll with the punches without a problem.

I also built up really, really thick callouses on the soles of my feet.  I know you may be thinking "oh gosh, surely not!  Surely that is what pumice stones are for!" But I implore you to embrace the callous! Thick callouses are what are going to enable you to walk over thick gravel without a problem, walk on pavement in 100 degree weather, and walk through frost.  And small amounts of snow.  Oh gosh, please don't walk away from this blog thinking that you can walk through three feet of snow for five miles without getting frostbite because that is simply not true. At all.  Don't do that.

But thick callouses will help get you through a snowy parking lot to your car. That could happen.  That could be you. 

Now before you burn your shoes in a fiery rage, please use common sense and good critical thinking skills.  Barefooting is generally not a great idea in areas with higher population densities, because as it turns out, there are people out there who will pee in public with reckless abandon.  RECKLESS ABANDON PEOPLE. I'm lucky enough to live in the suburbs, but when I venture into more populated areas I for sure take shoes.  There are plenty of great minimalist options out there.  I am personally a huge fan of the Merrell trailgloves.  Those are my go-to shoes when I feel so inclined to wear them.

Also, please refrain from super-hardcore-ultra barefooting all the time right away.  If you have been wearing shoes with huge soles all of your life, then take it slow. Give all of those muscles that your body uses to stabilize your movement a chance to learn how to stabilize on a bigger level.  And let the soles of your feet build up their toughness.  That part is really, really important.  I remember about six months into the barefooting experience, I decided that I was going to walk from my apartment in Rocklin to a produce shop in Newcastle, which was about nine miles away.  So eighteen miles round trip, right?  No problem!  I do those distances for breakfast!  No big deal here!  Except I had never done that kind of distance barefoot.  And the road from Rocklin to Newcastle is mainly concrete, aside from those vast expanses of freaking gravel. And it was a really warm day in April. But I was determined!  And I was going to win!   And at the expense of my feet, and while I may have limped the last mile, I made it to Newcastle Produce!  And I savored my victory over a tasty, tasty lunch.

The return trip did not work out so well.  I couldn't wrap my brain around doing another nine miles barefoot, so I put on a pair of Chuck Taylors that I brought in my pack, just in case. But my feet were so tore up that I couldn't deal with having socks on.  I made it five miles to Loomis before I had to call my room mate and beg him to come pick me up.

See those bruises?  And the ripped away flesh that exposes tender, vulnerable flesh? Which is also bruised?  Don't be like me people.  Plan better. 

And then I ate all of the ice cream.  I had to limp through a grocery store to get it, but at that point I totally deserved it.  

So please everyone, be careful with your beginning barefoot training.  Exercise the appropriate amount of reasoning skills when planning your barefoot adventures.  

These days I don't barefoot as much anymore.  The afore mentioned job cut down on the daily barefooting, and a few toe injuries in the dojo while sparring have led me to prefer training in minimalist footwear for higher impact stuff.  But while I have moved on from feeling the need to prove to myself and the world what a hardcore barefoot warrior I am, I still take the shoes off when they aren't necessary.  And my feet are better for it.  

Do you barefoot?  What have your experiences been like?  Feel free to share them in the comments!