Travels to Europe

My first flight was from Oakland to Salt Lake City. Funny seems like I was just there. LOL. I was reading my guide book as I am planning on heading out rigjt away and I wanted to be sure that I had some sense of what to do. The guy sitting next to me struck up conversation about it. Turns out that he is from Innsbruck and has hiked some if the trails that I will be hiking. We had a bit of a chat. He had never heard of the hike but his buddy who was from the area had heard of it. That flight was slighly delayed but I made my connection no problem. .

The next flight was the big one from SLC to Amsterdam. I had upgraded to comfort which gives a bit more room. In addition there were a number of empty seats in that area. I started out with an empty seat next to me and then took over three empty seats in the middle. I waited quite awhile before I did this and when no one else jumped on it I did. I got a moderate amout of sleep on the 9 hour flight. I also watched a great movie called the Zookeepers Wife bases on a true story during WWII.

I arrived at Amsterdam a little while ago. I do have cell service but I had been led astray on International calling. I do not have an unlimited plan overseas. I seemed to have signed up for a unlimited calling plan from the US to overseas. Here it will cost me 20 cents per min unless I use wifi calling. Anyway. I realized the error when I got a text and contacted I mobile via their app and now I am on the right track. I still think they are a good deal but I wish there is an unlimited overseas plan. I wont be answering any calls. You will need to text me or message me or email me. Technology is great and that wasnt sarcastic.

My third flight is delayed but that is giving me a moment to breath, drink a diet coke and write this.

More later

California Redwoods

Its the middle of summer and I headed out to Purisma Creek Redwood Preaerve for a hike this morning. When I got there I thought that I must have teleported to the Pacific Nothwest. It was cold and rainy. Well it is the rainforest I guess so I shouldnt have felt surprised. I did have a rainjacket but I was wearing shorts. About a half mile down the trail I was freezing. I walked a ways back up and then went back down. I wanted to hike but I was pretty cold. I did this a couple if times and then made my mind io to go for it.

It was well worth it. The forest had a spooky feel and there were few people due to the poor weather

What there were many of were banana slugs. The banana slug is the UC Santa Cruz mascot where a coupke of my students are heading next year. There were big banana slugs and small ones. Maybe I just missed the slug reproduction cycle because I have never seen those little ones before

I hikes from the North Entrance to the West Entrance to the East Entrance and then back to the start. It was about 13 miles and just over 3000 ft elevation gain. Now on to packing my bags for my trip to Germany

The Dream Way Summer Adventure - Stay Tuned

I have been a pretty poor blogger this summer and have only been posting my photos on Facebook.  Why? I could blame it on the two week professional development course that I took in early June.  However that was only part of it, I was spending time with some very dear friends (I don't want to call them old as they may take that personally but we have been friends for over 20 years).  Moving as much as I have in my life I think that sometimes I overlook these relationships.   It was really wonderful to be with people who I know well and know me well.   They let me stay with them while I hiked to try and get ready for  one of the most beautiful treks through the Alps and Dolomites.

I am off for this adventure on Sunday.  I will be walking from Munich to Venice on the "Dream Way or Path" otherwise known as the Traumpfad.   It will be the longest of this type of trip that I have done.  It is 550km long.  I will let you do the math to figure out how many miles that is.

I will be using my Spot along the way to track my trip.  The unfortunate thing is in only tracks the last seven days.  When I get back I can import all the tracks into one large file and I plan on doing that.  If you want to see where I have been for the last seven days you can check out this map.   It only has one point on it now.  That was for a test that I did to ensure it was working.  I may do the same tomorrow when I am out doing a hike.

FYI I will have my phone and I have data and phone service for Europe thanks to T Mobile who is not sponsoring this trip but maybe I should hit them up for future trips.

Here are a couple of resources about the trip in case you are bored this summer
http://2israelisoverthealps.com/indexden.html
http://www.johnhayeswalks.com/2014/09/munich-to-venice-dream-way-review.html

Summer 2017 has started

As much as I love my job I look forward to summer each year. I am currently in route to two weeks of training with PLTW but I have made the most of every minute on the way. First a couple if days hiking in Mount Charleston (and visiting with my brother and family). Then a quick stop in Zion National Park to hike Observation Point avoiding the crowds to Angels Landing. I met an interesting ranger on the trail who is scanning to trail to make a 3D model. Next I zoomed up to Capitol Reef NP. Unfortunately is was raining when I arrived causing floods (and flash floods) so I wasnt able to begin my adventures until the next day. I hiked up to Navajo Knobs. On the way I had views of Hickman Bridge (a stone bridge formed through erosion). The views were amazing with a variety of colors and shapes. The down side was that it was too hot. I moved on to Gunnison CO where it is much cooler. Today I hiked in Crested Butte which was beautiful. It was a but limited due to large amounts of snow. In fact they seem to call It Snowpocalypse. After hiking 10 miles on lower trails on Crested Butte Mountain, I drove out on Gothic Road. I was surrounded my majestic monoliths covered in snow. I came to Gothic, an old mining town turned into the Rocky Mountain Biology Lab. I stopped and founf out that it has been operating for 90 years. They do lots of interesting research projects. One was about marmots. It turns out that marmots are waking earlier from hibernation and due to that they are on average 1 lb heavier. I got into a long conversation with the guy about their climate change research. I am currently listening to this podcast about the origins of denial of climate change https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-united-states-of-anxiety/id1155194811?mt=2&i=1000385322177
He also told ne about a nearby hike called Judd Fallls. Since I was there I hiked up to it. (It was only 2 miles RT). The best thing about that hike was the plethera of glacier lilies.

The long flight home

So I had a 7:15 flight from Geneva this morning.  All seemed to be going well because the City Hostel have me a free transport pass, the train station is a six min walk from the hostel and there were at least two possible trains that I could take. 

I got to the airport in plenty of time but I was really tired as I hadn't slept well. The room was pretty warm. 

I caught my flight. I arrived in Amsterdam. It was pretty far to where I needed to go. However I seemed to make it in a reasonable time. I even went through passport control pretty quickly. However I then needed to go through two addition screenings. I am not exactly sure what they were but they moved very slowly. Iade it on the plane with only a few minutes to spare. 

Once on the plane I realized that my sub port and my entertainment system were not working. The captain announced a 30 minute delay due to weather. After that he announced that we had a hydrolyic  problem.   He moved our plane off the run way. They checked to problem and determined that we had lost all the hydrolyic fluid in one system. They then said that they needed to locate the part and fix it but there would be a problem with crew time (they would exceed the limit) A Delta representative then came in the loud speaker to say that it would be a three or four hours delay. We could get off the plane but we couldn't get another flight because they are all booked. We couldn't wait in the terminal because we would all have to go through customs. I tracked her down to ask three or four hours from when she made the announcer or three or four hours from the original flight departure time. (By this time Inhad been sitting on the plane for over two hours l). She side that if we weren't in flight by 1:19 the flight would be cancelled. That was slightly more than an hour. I figured  I could tough that outbb

About an hour later they asked for volunteers to step off the plane so that a second crew could ride in the plane and take over from the crew that would be over their time limit. I volunteered. I received a 1st class seat the next day, a hotel room and food, and a choice of 600 euros or Delta credit for 800 euros I took the 800 euro credit to fund one of my next trips. I am hoping to have a better ride in the next flight. It was a hassle but I think that maybe the flight didn't even leave anyway. 

I caught a shuttle to the hotel when it finally came. The driver started putting luggage in the van and it started rolling away. He hadn't put on the parking brake   The funny thing is that the same exact thing happened at our hotel when unloading. 

On the way I asked about the strange road markings. The red lanes are bike lanes one for each direction. The middle lane is shared by cars going in opposite directions. I find this to be a very  unique system.   The driver said that when only one car is on the road it goes very fast down the center. Otherwise cars go very slowly and are part in the center and part in the bike lane. FYI in Amsterdam any accident between bike and car is blamed on the car even if the bike driver is drunk and driving the wrong way

Zermatt

With a day and a half to spare we hoped to do some of the great hikes in the Zermatt area. Unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating. 

We had hoped to hike up to the five lakes hike that begins at the top of the Sunegga funicular. Unfortunately we woke to rain. The rain slowed and stopped and we got a nice view of the Matterhorn from our hotel 

The weather forecast thunderstorms and rain at 11 so we (Leah Peta Arielle Ethan and my self) took the funicular up to the trailhead.  A funicular is a very steep train like device often enclosed in a tunnel to take you up the mountain. It was not my favorite transportation form for sure. We did the 9km hike around the lakes and got glimpses of the Matterhorn as we hiked. 

The weather was quite variable. Raining one minute and sunny the next. At one point a wall of low lying cloud moved in below us. It was really surreal.  We asked a kind gentleman to take this shit when that happened. 

We eventually made it to Stellasee. It is a famous lake where many photos of the Matterhiorn are taken. Just as we arrived the cloud rolled in and we were lucky to see ourselves. 

Hoping for it to clear we waiting but the cloud did not leave. We walked down to the funicular and hung out for a couple of hours. During this time clouds came and went in front of the Matterhorn. We tried to get a nice photo which entailed hopping up every so often and running over to the other side of the deck to get a photos. It was quite the sport. 

Eventually we took the funicular back down to town. I bought my train ticket to Geneva for the next day. We talked to the tourist info about what hike we could do the next day. We visited the mountaineering museum. There we learned about an early mountaineering accident and the controversy surrounding it. We also visited the mountaineering cemetery. 

The evening was quite fun as all the people we had met on the trail got together to have a drink and eat at our hotel. There were at least fifteen people swapping stories from the trail. It was good fun. I really hope to meet up with these people again. We took a group photo but it was on a camera so Incant post it yet.  Goodbye Haute Route and my trail friends. I hope to hike another day with you. 

Haute Route Final Day - Europaweg

It was a steep climb (but isn't it always in Switzerland) up to the viewpoint at Grat. On the way up I saw two groups of Chamois. I was lucky to see the first one because it was moving fast. In fact I actually heard them before seeing them.   There was also a nice view of the Reid glacier.  I could see the Matterhorn in the distance. 

After Grat the terrain became more challenging with immense drop offs, scree, falling rock/ ice hazards and boulders to deal with. These I knew about. What I didn't know about were the goats. Not only were they knocking rocks down in my general direction, they also made weird noises ate and got in my personal space. At one point they were leading me down the trail. Then they were following me down the trail until I got to a section that so eroded that there was not much trail left. There was a rope across it to make it feel more secure. 

The rest of the trail included a number of obstacles such as falling rocks to avoid, large boulders to clamber over, eroded trail, possibly rotten wooden walkways, very exposed trail, worn and broken ropes along the trail and a suspension bridge. 

The positives were great views of the Weisshorn, the Matterhorn in the distance and  the Hobarg glacier above me. 

I had a quick snack of berry apple cake and diet coke at the Europa Hut. I could see the very long unusable suspension bridge in the distance.  Then walked down into Randa and took the train to Zermatt because the next section of the Europaweg was closed.