Mission Peak

Today, we went to the top of Mission Peak, which is a small mountain in the bay area. We were short before 9 am at the trail head, but the parking lot was already quite full. It was also already pretty hot. After a bit less than 2 hours, we reached the top of Mission Peak, from where you have a nice view onto the South Bay Area. On the photo below, you can see from right to left: Christian, Kai, Aritra, me, and Cindy.


At the top, there was no cross, but a rather unusual device...


We hiked down on a hard-to-follow trail, where we met some cows. They were seeking the valuable shadow of some trees near a creek. Most parts of the mountain was however without any trees, just sere grass.

Further down, we discovered a large snake. Unfortunately, we did not dare to get much closer for a good picture and the snake did not take its chance to become a photo model...


There are a lot of dog rules that are stated at the trail head, so Cindy studied them carefully... Fortunately, at least I do not have to use the Pick-Up-After-Your-Pet stuff!

Half Dome and Clouds Rest

After a few weeks without a blog entry, I am finally able to post some more pictures. Together with Cindy, Aritra, and Kartik, we went to Yosemite to meet there an Austrian friend of mine and his brother. We arrived at midnight at the North Pine campground and luckily found the two guys who already reserved the camping space.


The next morning, we starting hiking up to the Nevada fall. I started about 40 minutes later, because I waited in line before the campground reservations to get a campground for the next night, but even though I was there 30 minutes before it opens, we only got onto the waiting list. After hiking very quickly, I could catch up with the other guys at the second waterfall. On the picture above you can see from right to left Benedikt, his brother Simon, Karthik, Cindy, and me. Below is the profile of our trip. The number of kilometers for the trip was probably even higher than shown on the profile using Garmin MapSource.


So first, we went up to Half Dome. Below you can see Cindy resting on a stone at about kilometer 13. In the background you can see the impressive shape of Half Dome.



Soon Karthik and I realized that the other guys were pretty strong hikers. Finally we found out that they were mountain bike professionals. Damn it! We should have known before... Just before approaching Half Dome they gave a short impression of their skills, giving me a hard time to follow. It was also incredibly hot, which made hiking very hard...


To get to the top of Half Dome, one has to use a rope to pull yourself up with your hands. Otherwise even climbing would be difficult, because of the steepness. We were not alone as you can see on the picture below. Half Dome is one of the most famous mountains in the Yosemite National Park, so there was some kind of a traffic jam at the ropes.

The top gives a perfect view of the valley. Below you can see me standing on the edge of the wall going down into the valley, trying to calm Cindy ;-) In the background you can see El Capitan with The Nose.


After Half Dome, we decided to try to do Clouds Rest on the same day and hike on to Tenaya Lake. Fortunately Karthik volunteered to go back to the valley and pick us up at Tenaya Lake with his car, which is actually a 1,5 hour drive in one direction. Doing Clouds Rest meant however doing another few thousand feet elevation gain... Below you can see Benedikt, Cindy, and me at about kilometer 22 with Half Dome in the background.


While the other two guys seemed to be fresh the whole day, I had to fight hard to complete the hike. At the top of Clouds Rest, I was pretty much at the end of my strength, but there were still more than 12 kilometers to go...


At 8 pm, after about 12 hours, we reached Tenaya Lake. Fortunately Karthik was still capable of driving, so we went home on the same night. We had dinner at 2 am at some iHop in San Jose...

Tuolumne Meadows

Last weekend, Cindy, Karthik, and I spent again in the Yosemite National Park. The original plan was to hike Half Dome beginning in Tuolumne Meadows, but unfortunately we did not get the necessary wilderness permit on the first day. So we decided to do a day hike to North Dome. On our way there we made a small detour to Indian Rock, which is a unique rock formation. You can see all three of us sitting on the Indian Rock on the picture below.
After 4.4 miles we reached North Dome, which gave us gigantic views. Cindy remembered the tips she got last week in Hollywood and posed immediately at the right position on a pile of stones. In the back you can see the north side of Half Dome.


We walked on towards Yosemite Falls, where we saw a few climbers relaxing after their hard day. Below you can see a picture taken at the edge where Cindy stares down into the valley a wall which is about two thousand feet high.


We were pretty tired when we were back in our car as the whole hike was about 14 miles. We ate at the lodge and slept at the backpackers campground in Tuolumne Meadows. The next day, we dismissed our plans to hike Half Dome, because the public transport system is so poor that the original idea of getting from the valley floor back to Tuolumne Meadows turned out to be impossible. Instead we did another day hike to Coulds Rest parking our car at Tenaya Lake. Unfortunately we started pretty late, as we were tired from the day before and needed more sleep as expected... As we were not sure whether we would make it in one day or need to camp outside, we took our backpack with us. It was incredible hot although the average elevation was about 8500 feet. The heavy backpack with the tent and about 4 litres of water tied to it made going forward not much easier. Additionally, mosquitos were making the hike uncomfortable. While Cindy seemed to have no such problems, they liked me best. I ended up with 40+ mosquito bites. After 3.5 hours we reached the top of Clouds Rest (9926 feet = 3025 m). The view up there was fantastic... Below you can see the east side of Half Dome.


The summit seemed to be a crowded place in terms of animals. Karthik could take two nice shots with his new camera:



The following guy made a real show out of his photo shooting, posing in different positions for a few minutes. Cindy could learn from him!

Ah, I nearly forgot to mention that Cindy was very lazy that day. Perhaps it was also too hot for her, so I had to tie her to my backpack and carry her all the way up...

In the evening we managed to get back to the car at about 8 pm. So on that day we did 14.4 miles and about 3000 feet elevation difference with our backpacks. Instead of staying for another night, we decided to go back by car on the same day.

Los Angeles

After her tremendous success as a photo model on this blog, Cindy decided that it was now on the time to take a step forward: A casting in the metropolis of film - holywood! As I could see the enormous potential for her career, I went down to Los Angeles to make her dreams come true. My work colleague Aritra was coming with me. On our way down south, we took highway 1, which is a nice road next to the beach. The weather was not so good, as you can see on the picture below, but Karthik promised me that in southern California, the weather will be always good - and he was right... Below you can see Cindy and Aritra watching some surfers, which practiced hard.

The way down took longer than expected, so with a few hour breaks (we visited for example Santa Barbara), we needed about 15 hours. We had a hard time finding a cheap motel at eleven pm, but finally we were successful. We were sleeping near the airport in a pretty cheap hotel - the receptionist wanted us to pay in cash to give us a good price ;-)

On the next day, we first visited the LA city center, which was a bit disappointing, but afterwards it was finally the big hour for Cindy. On the photo below, you can see her just before stepping onto the red carpet to enter Universal Studios Holywood.


Cindy is nine inches tall, which meant that her ticket was pretty cheap ^^ !

After the casting in holywood, we went on for some photo shooting in Beverly Hills...

On our way back, we took a faster route, so we needed "only" six hours on the highway. The land around the highway is often very beatiful, but deserted. Below you can see Cindy, Aritra, and me in front of one of the nice lakes that you encounter when driving on highway 152...