Muse back!
June 23, 2008 / Monday
It's Not Exactly Easy On Foot, Either
Paid a return visit to Las Trampas yesterday. This time, I was smart enough not to bring my bike. Aaron and I pulled up with our hiking gear and went for a ~7 mile loop up over Rocky Ridge and back. We'd originally planned to go for a 12 or 13 mile hike, but alas, no time. Story of every weekend.
Though short as far as hikes go, it still gave us a pretty good workout. We did a decent uphill to the top of the ridge, headed south a ways, then descended to the other side on a loose and somewhat tricky switchback. Boy, was I glad I had my poles. The bottom of that trail met up with a vastly different trail: a fireroad that looked to go straight up the mountain, back to the top of the ridge. Eat trail mix, drink water, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Four legs good. Two legs bad. Finally, we made it back to the top of the ridge. We wrapped up the loop on some rolling hills and headed back to the car.
On our way up the big giant wall of a fireroad, we saw a guy in a long sleeve shirt running down. How was he not slipping? This hill was steep! Later, as we neared the parking lot, he ran by us from behind. "Did you run all the way down the big giant hill and back?" I asked. The answer? Yes. We chatted briefly, and then he continued on. How did he do that? I saw the answer as he ran off: he had calves the size of my quads. Yikes.
So that's it, our final training hike before heading off to Whitney. We'll do some short loops while we acclimate at Whitney Portal, but nothing more than a few miles. I can't believe that's next week. Lots to prepare!
This rock was kinda neat:
