A day in Monterey

In what seems to be ages ago, San and me did a day trip to Monterey earlier this year.. this was between the India trip and our anniversary trip! 

It was a trip to go hiking with our jigiri dost's from morning to evening. Given our kids were not home, we drove early in the morning to meet them and started hiking.

It was cold and foggy as we made our way along the trail to see the coast line. 

Amazing views, lot of birds, deer, (some insects buzzing about) and seals in a cove with their little ones! Lot of work wtih the macro option as well ..

slide show of landscape photos..

and the rest of the highlight photos

 

We then went back to their place to have lunch. Had chai and then went back for another hike down to the beach! 

It was almost a private beach that day. Enjoyed that walk long the beach and drove back to bay area. 

It was a ton of fun and there were 200 photos and many video clips from that day..

Here is a video highlight

It deserved a blog post! 

We really enjoyed that day and still remember it! it was San's way of prepping me for traveling alone with her again and still have fun. 

It was a long drive in bad traffic on the way back. We realized there was no way we will make it home by dinner time.. so we stopped on the way at an Indian restaurant (my first time there). The food was good! 

Still have 2000+ pictures from that anniversary trip to Europe. It will take 2 years to write blog posts on that.. if my memory doesn't fade..

A change in perspective

Post Half dome, things seem to be different. Mentally.. those jitters of making it through 3-4 hour hikes in local parks seem to be gone. Granted it is the first and only data point, but it counts for something. 

It is rare for me to walk alone with San. Today we decided to just go and enjoy some together time and went to Wunderlich's Bear Gulch and Meadow trails. I was really not sure of being able to walk with the pace of a group and stress myself out. The last three miles of the half dome trip were still on my mind. After coming out of yoga class yesterday, thought my hamstrings were not up to it, but surprise surprise!! We did 7 miles in 2 hours 10 minutes including a Chai break and a few photo breaks. The photo setup times were a longer than usual. We were doing a steady pace and went up 1400+ feet and came down. Was able to walk as usual after the first 15 minutes..something loosened up somewhere and things turned out okay!

We got to see the sun rise over the bay area on what was a beautiful morning!

Not a bad start to a long weekend!

Here are some more pictures..

This place is just beautiful.. the sunlight streaming through the trees was like watching a dance!

Wasn't sure of the first one.. so took another one. Running from an iPhone placed delicately over a tree stump with a few other twigs to create a makeshift tripod has its challenges.. 

Went and got this trail special UV protect long sleeve hoodie from REI after a friend got it on the Half dome hike. It is very convenient and light and it is also thermal wear. Only thing is I should have worn my BYSJ shirt on the outside instead of on the inside. My usual T-shirt was soaked! 

That was an accidental click with the selfie being in portrait mode. It blurred the background, but turned out to be an interesting photo..so keeping it!

By the time the sun comes up the grass fields start looking like lava beds!

While making tea at 5:15 AM to get ready might not be appealing, drinking it after reaching the top of the trail, definitely makes up for it!

and finally a photo of me up inside a hollow tree..

This park is lovely and you get parking if you go early enough. Let's hope the rest of the long weekend goes smoothly!

I am starting to like walking alone with San as she is taking better photos every day! This is a good sign, given we will be empty nesters next year. 

Calla Lillies at Garrapata State park

Three weeks ago we drove an hour and a half all the way to Garrapata State park area. The main goal was to go to Doud peak, which will be the subject of a separate post. We also wanted to leave early enough and take pictures among the white lillies that grow on either side of the creek as it goes into the ocean.

It is a local seasonal favorite, but we have never made it before. We saw posts on the net that said the lillies are already starting to turn brown, so before the window closed we visited.

We were not disappointed.. 

it was a misty walk to the beach among the lillies..

The new iPhone was put to test and it passed with flying colors..

especially the macro mode..

Nice beach. There were a lot of kids making their way to the beach as we were walking back. Given it is just a short walk from the freeway, this place would probably be crowded once the sun is out. It was good we finished this first!

had the beach mostly to ourselves..

We climbed up to the top and got a beautiful view of the coastline. Then we drove a few miles to go on our planned hike..

Strongly recommend this place, for a mid March or even early March trip. It is a beautiful sight!

A long gap

It has been a month and a half since I blogged about any hiking or trails.. We did go on three trails.. one a little strenous and two were more little walks than serious hikes. 

I started a new job during COVID times and that has been an interesting transition in itself. Still for a guy who always posts something every week, it has been odd not to go type anything. 

Well, here we are. Things have not been easy as every day we wake up to news of someone passing away in India from COVID in the last few weeks. It is not unknown people anymore this time around. So did not feel like writing anything. Sometimes if you have nothing postive to share, silence is golden!

The three hikes we went on were a walk to Mori Point in Pacifica to see the sunset, a short stroll in Quarry Trail in Saratoga (which was 15 minute drive from home and a rather short but intense climb to see the valley from a nice vantage point) and the last one to Little Yosemite in Sunol area after a rave FB recommendation from a friend. 

Here are some pictures and a slide show from the three hikes..

a picture that sums up sunset at Mori point..

A early morning foggy view of silicon valley from Quarry trail hike..

Sunlight coming through the lone tree on an otherwise barren landscape in Little Yosemite trail

A watering hole on Little Yosemite trail for cows that made for a reflection photo spot..

Views of the reservoir from the top of the hills..

Mori piont was amazing. The flowers, the swing at the end of the trail, the sunset, the moon rise, it was something!

Little Yosemite would have been more fun if we had taken the opposite route on the trail. We went on the hike up the hill first and then came to the falls that is only a mile from the parking lot. It was a long hike without a clear path in most places in the barren heat.. the falls ended up being too crowded because by the time we headed back, it was a lunch picnic spot. Lots of folks without masks. So we just kept moving to the car and drove back. (this was almost 3 weeks ago). 

Since then any attempts to go hiking have been put on hold. The yoga studio has opened with a lottery system. I have been lucky enough to get through a dozen times in the last month and that is good. It is still not open anywhere close to capacity and hope the day arrives where you go and walk in and don't have to be lucky to do hot yoga. I could always do it at home with the space heater, but once you go to the studio a few times, it becomes harder mentally to fire up the space heater. When there was no studio, the space heater was a blessing. That shows I have a lot more yoga to do to treat the space heater and yellow walls with the respect they deserve! 

It is just a question of days before we go back to office again and that means things get even more interesting with time management, lottery management etc. My hiking shoes may have seen their last days for some time to come. If there is one thing I would choose between doing Yoga and hiking, it is always yoga. Sitting still is something that I have to work hard for and I plan to keep trying my best to do that!

Hope this post brings me back to blogging about things on a more regular basis!

Maple Falls

It has been an interesting two days.. First a day of meetings that kept me low on sleep, followed by a visit from friends to watch the India-England Cricket match. 

Was watching the game past midnight and was reminded by San that we are going to be driving at 6-ish to go on our trip to Maple falls in the Forest of Nisene Marks State park. 

It was a great day, given it rained heavily last night. We drove for an hour and ended up starting our hike earlier than planned. 

Given this is our second time in this park, we made it past the familiar part very fast and ended up crossing the last tricky part of the trail (if you can call it that) to see the falls.. 

The last hour was challenging given we are just going across rocks along the stream. Think it is time to buy those sticks everyone is carrying.. in the absence of sticks, your option is to literally sit on rocks and get your pants and gloves dirty!

Finally when we got to the falls, all that was forgotten!

The falls was beautiful! I also got to walk on a log far from the falls, to be able to take pictures of the girls.. (it will be one of my best shots which will never make it to the blog). It is dangerous to be photographing from a log.. in an attempt to move a bit to get a better shot, I almost fell down.. good thing I was only 5 feet from the ground, but it was a wake up moment for the morning!

Here are some pictures from the day!

Was very disappointed to have gone 0.5 miles to the falls and turn back because of the slush and fallen trees in Jan, but made up for it today!

This park is amazing, but for now will go to other places of interest before hititng it again! 

Right now is the perfect time to go see this falls. there is enough water and the weather is great! Parking on the other hand is a different story altogether. If you get there early, you get parking! 

Strongly recommend this one for a half day hike!