Yummy Foods

Funny things from the vegetable box make me happy:


So do birthday cheesecakes made by Chad:

And in case you're wondering, I had a lovely ride up Mt. Hamilton on Saturday (a full 15 minutes fast up the climb that I could do it a decade ago), followed by the above cheesecake shared with Todd & Sarah, followed by steak dinner. Thank you notes for the heap o' gifts are in progress. You'd think this was a big birthday or something....

Reconnaissance

I took a jollier-than-usual mountain bike ride on Wednesday. The goal was to head over to Big Basin and Butano State Parks to do some mountain bike exploration of the fire roads back in that neck of the woods to see if any of them would be reasonable to ride on a road bike as part of a bigger home-to-coast-and-back loop. After all, I can't be expected to do the same loop over and over again :)

It seems that there is little information out there about the surface condition of these routes -- maybe because they are obscure, but maybe also because ye olde average roadie sticks to the paved routes, and the general mountain biker wants singletrack. I'm more of an "anything goes as long as it's interesting" adventure cyclist who will happily take the "wrong bike" down a route if it has promise to be scenic. This leads me to covet the not-yet-invented "One Bike To Rule them All" which will happily forge its way up and down any terrain and serve as my only bike, but that's another story....

At any rate, I picked out a route after looking at maps and other people's GPS tracks of rides on Strava with two goals in mind:

1. Explore Gazos Creek Road, which I previous knew of as a dead-end road off of Cloverdale Road near the coast -- but actually has a dirt connection into Big Basin and thus up to Highway 236.

and

2. Climb the Butano Fire Road, another dirt road which appeared to have a reputation as a nice climb up to an abandoned airstrip, and also looked to connect back up to Big Basin a couple of miles above that.

Given the time constraint provided by the school day (I had to be back to get Nim at 2:30), I loaded up the mountain bike on the truck and drove over to Big Basin to check it out from there. I bought a new map at the ranger station to replace the ancient one I had and set off through the redwoods. I chose to ride down Gazos Creek road based on a comment I had read about steep sections if one were to climb it. For several miles, it was really unclear what those comments might have referred to -- the dirt road had a good surface and undulated gently through the park. I tried really hard not to think about how good the singletrack trails heading off in either direction might be (bikes only allowed on dirt road in the park and not the skinny trails -- boo hiss).

So far, all would be quite pleasant even on my road bike. Of course, this all changed once I hit the park boundary. Here the road starts to plummet precipitously and clearly the creek wanted to become one with the road in some places. Nasty ruts, gravel strips, strange bumps reminiscent of Dr. Seuss illustrations, and double digit grades made up the next three miles or so. Given that it was dirt-road width, one probably *could* pick a line and ride up it on a standard road bike, but it sure wouldn't be pleasant. On the bright side, going down it on a mountain bike wasn't bad at all. I eventually had to hop a gate where the dirt met the pavement near the bottom, and enjoyed the fast descent down to Cloverdale Road.

There's always wind out near the coast, and this day was no exception. A corollary to Murphy's Law dictates that for any given day, the direction I want to go on this stretch of road is always into a stiff headwind. It doesn't matter which direction I'm planning on going -- whichever it is, is always the hard direction. I was starting to watch the time given that the careful descent down the rutted section ate more time that was allocated, and had planned to make up some time along this paved section. Ouch.

After a mile or so, I turned out of the wind briefly to ride in the main entrance to Butano State Park to check and see if they had a better map than my ancient one (they didn't) and then headed back into the wind until I found the unmarked Butano Fire Road heading up the edge of the park.

What a delightful idyllic sunny climb through beautiful coastal California terrain! I can't believe I hadn't ever run across this one before. The surface is smooth and predictable despite being dirt, and the road winds its way up at a gentle and uniform ~6% grade, part in the sun and part in dappled shade.

Just as I was musing on what an excellent find this road was with a giant grin on my face, I came around a corner and my inner monkey brain made me come to a sudden halt. There was an animal on the trail about 150 feet ahead.

A very large animal.

A very silent animal.

A tawny golden brown animal with a loooong tail and feline features, standing broadside across the road. Very big paws. Lean and muscular, and powerful.

I stood there for what felt like almost a minute in sheer amazement at actually seeing a mountain lion in the flesh before realizing I had to figure out what to do about it. Of course, the whole experience had some of that "time stands still" sensation that also happens during a crash, so it was probably briefer than it felt.

What an incredible animal!

I didn't want to turn around and go back down the hill because (a) I wanted to explore more of the trail up above, (b) forward was the shorter way back to the car, and (c) if I turned my back and ran, I'd look like prey. Not a good plan. So, I stood over my bike waving my hands in the air and started yell-singing. "LA la LA la LA la LA LA LA LA LA LA!" The cat turned its head ever-so-slightly toward me, acknowledged my existence -- barely, and disappeared off the trail downhill into the woods.

Ok, now what? I stood there yell-singing for a couple of minutes, marvelling at how silent the creature was as it took off through the brush. Most critters, especially ones of that size, make a bit of noise as they move through the bushes. Not this one -- it didn't make a sound as it took off. Great. The lion is encased in velvety silence, I'm making an unholy racket, and I can't keep track of where it is.

And come to think of it, how many more are out there? This is well known to be mountain lion territory. A few months ago, when I took an animal tracking workshop just across Cloverdale Road from here offered by the Midpeninsula Open Space folks, we saw all sorts of lion scat, and the rangers were certain that there are quite a number of them in the area.

Big Kitty is watching you.

Most unnerving. I continued to caterwaul "LA la la LA la LA la LAAAA! I'M NOT A DEER! LA LA LA LA LAAAAA! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO EAT ME!!! LA LA LA LA LA LA! I'M KING OF THE RANCHLAND! LA la LA la LA la LAAAAAAA!" for about another mile as I continued to ride up the hill, until I was so hungry I had to stop and eat my lunch. Hollering is hard work.

For better or worse, there was no one out there to witness this performance. I didn't have to be embarrassed by the racket, but on the other hand there were no numbers in which safety could be had.

I convinced myself that my shape and demeanor was not very deerlike, that I was heading into the woods soon and the cats hang out in the sunshine, that my rattletrap mountain bike was really quite scary. Maybe the squeaky chain emits high-pitched cat-deterrent noises. I can convince myself of all sorts of notions when I have to, but the underlying heebie-jeebies were still there. And the awe. And the relief that the silly chattery monkey-brain response was effective in this case.

Lunch was had at the junction with Jackson Flats Trail, which fueled more climbing. The road is quite spectacular through this section, as it is open and runs right along the top of the ridge and you can see down on either side of you. Plus, there's nowhere above for a cat to be lurking.

The road gets steeper for brief sections past the airstrip and runs through what feels like the middle of nowhere in the woods. Somewhere in there I hit the park boundary. Time felt like it was really getting quite tight at this point, so I had to push pretty hard. At least the road was pretty -- a needle-covered track heading through evergreen forest. There were reassuring patches with bike tracks, indicating that others had been this way and I couldn't possibly be lost. My now-tired legs pushed their way up the hill until -- yay -- I popped out onto China Grade Road and relative civilization. At this point, I had the choice to ride to longer route down China Grade, or head directly back into Big Basin along Middle Ridge Road.

Still exploring for future road rides, though. I've ridden the steep section of China Grade below 236 a number of times, but had never gone on this dead-end stub above it. This part rolls along relatively gently in an obscure one-lane road sort of way before descending back down to the main road, and I enjoyed the sunshine in between navigating around the numerous potholes. At one point, I came around a corner and narrowly avoided hitting a port-a-potty truck that was trying to turn around. Quite oddly, I had more of an obvious adrenaline rush from this incident than the mountain lion, and clearly the driver was just as surprised to see me as I was him.

Finally out to the main road and ZOOOOOOOOOM, a fast four miles down to the car. I tossed the bike on the back and made it back to the school with exactly two minutes to spare. The ride ended up being about five miles longer with a full thousand feet more climbing than I projected from my somewhat inadequate maps before starting. The final total was 30 miles, 4000 feet of climbing, and one mountain lion. All in all, a fine day's adventure.

For the record, the entire section of Butano Fire Road that I rode could be done on a road bike without too much pain, if one were mentally prepared for the many miles of dirt. Just be ready for the steeper parts up top and mind the felines...

Big Kitty is watching you.


The route and profile. The little yellow marker labelled "1" was just uphill from the mountain lion sighting.

Groceries

The only problem with going to Safeway is that I don't go frequently enough to have the checkers trained not to look at me weird when I insist that everything go into my two bags, regardless of weight, so I can take everything home on the bike (toilet paper -- which gets strapped on top -- excepted).

After hours needs

This is what happens when Chad decides he needs a haircut after our favorite $8 haircut place has closed for the evening. Much fun for the whole family...

Small Monster of Energy

As if completing 47 laps at the walkathon wasn't enough yesterday (an estimated 11 miles!), Nimue came home, made herself an armadillo costume out of a cardboard box, and bounced around the house for the rest of the evening.

Wet Hike

Me and Ma went on a hike at Long Ridge today. We saw lots of cool things, like mushrooms and flowers. We even saw deer! We also found a dead squirrel that freaked Mommy out. There were some fire houses here and there along the trail, too. Ma pointed all of them out to me. We also saw all sorts of views. I walked more than 3 whole miles, and I felt proud of myself. At the end of the hike, I was able to get new hiking boots at Big 5. Fun for all!(Even though I was tired.)

The Blinky Thingie

Today me and Daddy used some parts to make a blinky (that works incredibly well). How we did it is this: we soldered some LEDs and some wires into a circuit board, then we soldered a battery box (with batteries) into place. We turned it on, and ta-da! By the way, I had fun learning to solder. :D

In case you need your Nimue fix...

1) Silly kid when we went up to SF over the weekend to see Frosty





2) Post rainy/muddy mountain bike ride at Coe (note the mud splats on her face!)

Week of Winter

What you want to see when you're headed to Downieville and then Tahoe for ski week:




Snow snow snow ---wahooo! As we drove up Friday night, it was snowing at lower elevation than I've seen on the way to Downieville. As an added side benefit, Chad got to trigger all the traction control features of the truck and prove that it is quite capable in these conditions.

Saturday morning dawned sunny and lazy; we spent the day showing Nimue how to use her rented cross-country skis on the snow-covered school field, Linda practiced her snowshoe-running technique (not as easy as it looks in the Title Nine catalog!), a snowman was built, and Nim got to play on the powder-covered jungle gym, followed by much lounging and reading back in the cozy house.




The next day, we all headed up to Lunch Creek to do some real skiing. Nim learned how much difference there is between breaking trail in more than a foot of snow vs. following someone else's track. Chad and I discovered that there is a temperature at which the deep snow is sticky enough to clomp onto the bottom of the skis, making downhill sliding impossible, even at a relatively steep pitch. It is quite eerie to have one's skis pointed straight downhill in the trees yet not be able to budge. We all eventually devolved to playing with the saucer -- quite fun, once Chad plowed the initial path.




Fortunately when we went back the next day, it was colder, and the snow lived up to its potential. Chad and I skied out a couple of miles in on the road at Lunch Creek and then yo-yoed joyfully up and down the hill off to the side in the best backcountry snow I've ever seen. That slope was covered in several feet of bottomless boing-y powder that launched us flying at every turn. The beauty of skiing out there, of course, is that we had the entire hill to ourselves! I'm quite enjoying having a good set of randonnee gear (the lightweight Dynafit bindings are key, but I also like the comfy yellow boots, decent skins, and Black Diamond Kilowatt skis) so I don't have to try to telemark anymore.




On Tuesday, we finally made it up to Yuba Pass, where we again bopped up and down the hill after skiing in a bit. Chad and I ran into his/Linda's friend Gunnar while we were in the process of tracking up the secret stash of snow Gunnar had been headed for -- fortunately there was still enough for all to enjoy (the excellent skin trail that Chad had put in place didn't hurt either!)





Linda joined us for much of the fun, as well as watching Nimue when Chad and I took off to yo-yo up and down the hill on skis. (thank you!)




We all enjoyed the view across the Sierra Valley from Yuba Pass. (Hello, Hallelujah junction!)




Also enjoyed the Monkey Face:
Note: Nimue told me in no uncertain terms that this is NOT a monkey face, but rather "Silly Tongue Face #2". This one's gotta be genetic.



After all that, we still had the second (Tahoe) half of the trip. We had an uneventful drive over to Stephan's cabin, where we met his family for dinner before they headed home and we settled in for an evening of listening to the next storm roll in.

6" of fresh snow overnight + storming all day + lesson with instructor she already knew = one happy Nim. I was quite gratified to hear her say "Whenever something seemed hard, I thought 'Tough like Ma', and that made it better." Chad and I had a lot of fun in the deep snow in the trees (aside from the one run which dumped us on the low-visibility powder bumps; I quite liked them, but they were apparently quite challenging for those on tele skis...).

The snow kept coming down in true Sierra fashion all night, giving us a few more feet of the good stuff. Chad carefully drove us over to Sugarbowl again in near-whiteout conditions amidst the snowplows and other drivers exhibiting varying levels of foolishness. My job was to point out any obstacles, oncoming vehicles, the edge of the road, etc. in a calm voice. "You are now close to the snowbank on the edge -- veer left." By the time we made it over to the parking lot, I had my doubts about the wind, but we were there, Nim's lesson was non-refundable at that point (at least on paper), and there were fresh tracks to be had.

We dropped Nim off for her lesson and headed up the hill.

Wind! Blowing snowing white wind! Good thing we had the right clothing for the conditions. We were warm and cozy (at least I was). A couple of the lifts were running, with very few other skiers around. Not being able to see the ground? Minor detail. Skiing by braille is entertaining when you know you're on part of the mountain where you can't get into too much trouble.

At one point, we saw Nim out with her instructor; all appeared to be well, and she can clearly handle herself in the powder. I suspect she likes it partly due to parental brainwashing ("Of course this is fun!") and partly due to the fact that the deep snow makes it easier to control one's speed. She's the careful, deliberate sort of kid skier rather than the speed demon type.

We quickly figured out that the thing to do was to ski along the edge of the trees where you could sort of see each successive piece of tall vegetation looming in front of you as a guide to the bottom. Normally I prefer to ski off trail, but there was so much new snow that the trail itself might as well have been off trail. Actually skiing in between the trees was an excercise in foolishness, as the snow had blown in so deep that you couldn't make headway except in the really steep parts. Snow blowing everywhere -- horizontally, from the left, from the right, with occasional gusts strong enough to either make you come to a dead halt, or go screaming off further than you meant, depending on which direction you were trying to go.

Great fun. I was apparently laughing my head off (the ski instructor who saw me go by made fun of me later when I picked up Nim). Both of us turned into giant snowballs at various points. What else is one to do?

Also quite disorienting -- poor Chad suffered from a bit of vertigo, which was partially mitigated by following closely behind me, thus having a reference point to determine where the ground was, and apparently Nimue and her instructor had to help another couple of skiers figure out how to get out of the trees and down the hill.

After a couple of hours of this, all the lifts went on wind hold (reported gusts to 90mph) along the top of one of the ridges) so we headed over to the lodge. I popped over to the kid hut to see how Nim's lesson had been going, figuring they'd be in for a hot chocolate break. It was tricky even navigating from one building to the next as it felt like I was in a snow globe that was in the process of being shaken by a demented monster monkey.

Not too surprisingly, the kid hut was full of staff and a few brave kids having hot chocolate. Nim's instructor saw me as I walked in, and immediately jumped into a description of how she was doing great, and was happy, and was pretty much the only kid willing to go out in those conditions. A minute later, a happy, pink-faced, hot-chocolate-bearing Nim popped around the corner to confirm. Yay Nim! I was afraid she'd be disappointed at the outcome of a conversation I had with the supervisor at that point about possible lesson refunds if the lifts were all going to close (the lessons here are excellent, but expensive), but upon hearing that all lessons were shutting down she said "Oh good. That wind is crazy!" Even I had to concur. With the storm blowing everyone off the mountain and the promise that our tickets would be refunded, we headed back to the cabin.

Minor adventures getting back to the cabin, as we had to go back over Donner Pass, but the truck with its monster chains shows every sign of being unstoppable if treated carefully, and there wasn't much traffic going in our direction due to the stretch of freeway downhill behind us being closed due to a downed tree. The last stretch of neighborhood street before the cabin had accumulated enough snow since it had been plowed a couple of hours previously to seem more like something one would ski on than drive over. The truck appears to be as good for winter silliness as it is for that of the summer variety.



Once snug and safe inside, we had a relaxing afternoon reading and watching the wind and snow rage outside.

Our last day dawned clear and sunny; we headed over to Donner Ski Ranch for a day of family powder skiing. This is a good choice for a day when skiing with Nimue, as she's good enough to ski all the trails there -- i.e. I can't possibly lead her astray like I do with Chad occasionally... Given that it's a smaller old-fashioned resort, there are way fewer people there, making it possible to find deep untracked snow all the way until we left to head home :)

For now, it's back to the warmer lowlands. There was clearly quite a bit of snow in the hills in our home neck of the woods over the weekend too, as I've heard reports of 6" on highway 17, seen pictures of snow at Rancho San Antonio (that has to have been down to 1000 feet or lower), and shivered past the remnants of snow on the side of Skyline Blvd several sunny days after the storm on my bike. (Brrrrr.....) Despite this, the irises are blooming in our front yard. Spring? Winter? Dunno.