Silent Workhorses Of The Surfing World
August 29th, 2010- AP
It’s All Worth It
August 27th, 2010They say backpacking is a microcosm of life. You have your ups and downs, peaks and valleys(literally). At times you wonder how you got yourself into this situation. You have moments of pure joy and moments of pain, but in the end, it’s all worth it.
I left you last post with the greatest sunset of our lives. Well, the sunset was so great in part because of all the storm clouds that were rolling in. And that night we slept through one of the craziest wind storms I’ve ever experienced. I guess it didn’t help being over 9,000 feet high on a big granite rock. When we pitched our tent, there was nowhere for us to drive our steaks into to hold the fly to the tent down, so we had to tie the corners of the fly to rocks and hope it would hold. Well, twice throughout the night the fly came loose. We could hear the wind moving the rocks, our anchors, and at times, the tent would cave in on us. So twice in the middle of the night we had to get our flashlight, step outside and fix our fly. Stepping outside your tent in pitch dark in the middle of a wind storm in bear and mountain lion territory isn’t as fun as it sounds. But we did it, and at one point the wind died down, we looked up to the sky, and with a break in the clouds, saw the most unbelievable sky full of stars I’ve ever witnessed.
We were finally able to get a couple hours of sleep, and in the morning, the wind never really died down, but… the sun did come out. Being awake for sunrise is never a bad thing.
The sun might have been up, but it was colder than a polar bears toe nail. Gimme some hot chocolate!
From there it was time to say goodbye to our home high in the sky and make the trek back down to civilization.
This reminded me of The Brady Bunch when they take a family vacation to the Grand Canyon, take mules down the trail, Bobby befriends a Native American boy and sneaks hot dogs to him in the middle of the night by hiding them in his flashlight. Funny what certain things leave impressions on you as a youngster.
On our way up we passed this natural spring. So on our way back, in need of a little water anyway, Dante busted out his purifier and we went to town on some real mountain spring water. You can’t get any fresher than this. Not only did I experience the best sunset of my life, but I drank the best water of my life as well. This is also where I received my last and final mosquito bite. I think the final total was 12.
Throughout the weekend whenever someone(and by someone, I mean Jenna) wanted to do something crazy or when we were calculating which way to step on a steep non trail, we’d ask ourselves, is the risk greater than the reward? Well, what I learned from backpacking is that there are many risks, such as falling off a cliff, getting eaten by bears or mountain lions, and getting Giardia from drinking contaminated water to name a few, but the rewards you’ll experience… a priceless sunset, overcoming fears, seeing the view for the first time from over 9,000 feet after you’ve completed a 4.5 uphill hike… will far outweigh any risk involved.
California is beautiful. People from all over the world travel here to see what we often times take for granted. Places like Yosemite are in our own backyard. We’ve been blessed with the most beautiful state in our country. Go out and see for yourselves.
Keep Summer Alive!
- dru
The Greatest Sunset I’ve Ever Seen In My Life
August 26th, 2010Picking up right where we left off… ah yes! We just returned back from our hike down to Lower Lake, and we made it just in time for sunset. To be honest, we were more concerned about making it back to camp before dark than we were about making it back in time to watch the sunset. In any case, we made it, took a deep breath, relaxed and enjoyed the sunset. At first we thought… awww this is nice.
Then as time started to go by, we noticed how the colors were changing, from a mix of pink and light blue. Like cotton candy in the sky. Ooooh, it’s getting nicer!
Oh man, it’s starting to get brighter!
And then we started to notice a pink haze creeping through the crevices in the mountain range. Before we knew it, the haze kept growing… and growing.
Colors began to get brighter… and brighter!
And then our eyes followed the path of the pink haze and found that it was bouncing off of Cathedral Peak. It had a pink tip! Major Lord of the Rings moment right here.
Then we realized the mountaintops adjacent to Cathedral Peak had turned pink too!
And then we turned around and realized the mountains directly behind us were painted by the sun as well! Pink tips all around! The sunset had just gone THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DEGREES!!!!
The pink light was even reflecting off the lake. By this time all we could do was watch in amazment.
And for a time, the darker the sky seemed to get, the brighter the sunset became. Until finally, as we watched in awe, the final speck of pink slowly disappeared over the majestic mountains before us.
photos by Lisa, Dante and Jenna.
The greatest sunset I’ve ever seen in my life. Complete double rainbow moment. 360ยบ sunset. I’m exhausted.
… and it gets brighter!
Keep Summer Alive…
- dru
Backpackers
August 25th, 2010After spending the night INYO National Forest it was time to go backpacking. Before this trip I thought backpacking was something reserved only for Europe. As far as I can understand, backpacking is hiking to your destination with everything you need for your stay, clothes, food, water, tent, sleeping bag etc…. all packed on your back, and once you get to your destination, you set your camp there. “There” could be anywhere you want really, and for us, “there” was atop Cathedral Lakes. All of your gear can get pretty heavy. It felt like I was giving Jenna a piggyback ride all the way up our hike.
As we started our trek, it would be the last we saw of civilization for 2 days ( Am I being dramatic?)
There were so many sights along the way to simply admire. I’m so proud to be from such a great state like California. It has so much to offer, right in our own backyard. The trees and forests were incredible. Kinda reminded me of the scene in Star Wars when they first comes across the Ewoks.
Native Egyptians carved this mountain out of the sky with the use of their bare hands as well as their awesome magic skills. (I apologize to anyone who takes offense to my lack of knowledge of the real history of Yosemite. Then again, lighten up… Egyptians make awesome mountains.)
Just look at some of these landscapes. The mountains seem to go on forever. A lot of the mountain ranges reminded me of Lord of the Rings.
This is Cathedral Peak. Pretty much our final destination. It looked like a whole world away to me at this point.
I think I actually photoshopped us into this picture using the landscape from Lord of the Rings.
Not showed was some of the adventures along the way, such as coming across the Singing Bush, traveling through the land of Fairies, where magic fairies are at war with evil gypsies. But anyway, after several hours of switchbacks and uphill battles, we finally arrived at Upper Cathedral Lake.
I thought this was where we’d make camp, but Dante had other ideas. We went completely off trail, up the mountain some more.
But it was all worth it. Aside from this place looking like actual breeding grounds for mountain lions, the view was breathtaking. Truly on top of the world. God done outdone Himself this time!
(Cathedral Peak is right there within our grasp. Hard to believe it was the same peak I was looking at over 1,000 feet below.)
After taking in the view, we got some rest, fired up the stove, had a snack and pitched our tents (hehehe).
After a delicious freeze dried meal, we wanted to check out Lower Lake. Plus Dante wanted to show us another view. So, naturally we started heading down the mountain the same way we came up, back to the trail, when Dante says, “Uh, no, we’re going this way” and points down the edge of the cliff that overlooks the Lower Lake. Hmmmm, okay.
You see that ridge in the back. Yup, that’s where we came from. Our campsite is right on top.
As you can see, the clouds are rolling in. We were a little worried about getting back to camp before dark. And the longer we stayed out, the more it looked like rain. Still, gotta see Lower Lake though.
Before we knew it, we had traveled around the entire lake and came upon another mountaintop, only to come across another endless range of mountains. Amazing.
Dante has a pretty cool water filter and on our way back we filled up on our H2O for the night.
Let the race against the sunset begin.
It took us a second to figure out how we were going to get back up the mountain.
We made it back just in time for sunset, and it’s a darn good thing we did. More on that tomorrow…
Keep Summer Alive!
- dru
INYO Face!
August 24th, 2010I just spent the past weekend soaking up all of God’s glory. In other words, I spent the weekend backpacking in Yosemite National Park, in the midst of mountains, rivers, lakes, trees and wild animals. The beauty of California is so great, I couldn’t wrap it all up in one singular post, so I’m breaking it up into 3 parts, maybe 4.
Friday we actually camped on the Eastern outskirts of Yosemite. Where you might ask? Inyo. Inyo what? INYO National Forest!
The first thing I noticed was how short of breath I was in the altitude. We camped at over 10,000 feet. It was exhausting just trying to figure out how to pitch this tent (pitching tent is always funny).
(That’s me looking confused, and that’s Dante and Lisa looking a little less confused. Say hi.)
The second thing I noticed was how blue the sky was. It was amazing! (If you’re a follower of this blog, you probably notice how often I use the word “amazing”, but seriously… it was amazing! (If you are a follower of this blog, you also probably notice I use parenthesis often. Yup, I just parenthesized a parenthesis.))
We decided to take it easy the first day to get ourselves acclimated to the altitude, so we made an easy day hike to Soda Springs. Soda Springs gets its name because if you take a sample of the spring water you can actually find traces of soda pop in its most natural state, before all the carbonation and added sugar. The starting point of our hike was Lambert Dome. Native Americans used to sacrifice lambs at the top of this dome by burning them. It was originally called Lamburnt Dome, but over time became known simply as Lambert.
Dante is a master fly fisherman. His technique is an art form all in itself. The master preparing his tools.
These rocks are actually 100 feet high, you just can’t tell because there is nothing to compare it to scale with.
In all seriousness, California is beautiful, and this part of the Sierras, which is still a part of Yosemite National Park, is breathtaking. It doesn’t get the notoriety of Yosemite Valley, but it has just as much to offer.
There were plenty of critters and wild animals around at every turn. Okay, maybe not every turn, that would be ridiculous, but I tried my best to capture them whenever they showed their faces.
I heart you rock.
After some fishing and shortness of breath, it was time to head back through Tuolumne Meadows to our camp.
Good night from Inyo National Park. At this point, only 4 mosquito bites.
Tomorrow the real backpacking experience starts as we begin our trek to Cathedral Lakes…
- dru
Shirts For Sale! Shirts For Sale!
August 23rd, 2010What up world! So I’ve been backpacking in Yosemite since Friday morning with absolutely zero form of communication, thus the lack of posts. A lot of amazingness went on, so hopefully I’ll have some pictures up by tomorrow. Until then, take a peep at our online store. There’s some great shirts on sale plus we have our newest additions to the collection.
Be official. Endless Summer Tour 2010.
Achille Superbi x BFAM.
Buy a shirt! It’ll make my day. Keep Summer Alive!
- dru
