It’s not exactly a riot of color out there just yet, but there’s plenty for alert eyes to see. Oddly enough I’m still not seeing many California poppies in parks this season, but keep seeing tons growing along roads —…
Yearly Archives: 2008
Useful site: survivaltopics.com
by tom • March 18, 2008 • 0 Comments
This site has a wealth of handy info. What it’s about: Survival Topics strives to be a hands-on survival skills website. Rather than just write up the same old stuff you find copied from books and other websites, we actually…
Finding people to hike with at Meetup.com
by tom • March 18, 2008 • 6 Comments
Meetup.com has scads of hiking groups, including quite a few in the Bay Area. These are the most promising ones I scouted out this morning: Related links Etiquette for group hikes Hiking clubs of note in the Bay Area Oakland…
Hiking shoe shopping — a refresher course
by tom • March 17, 2008 • 8 Comments
My REI dividend (all $11 of it — see what a careful consumer I was last year?) was burning a hole in my pocket, and the added incentive of the annual 20 percent off sale was enough to get me…
Beyond the Alviso slough
by tom • March 17, 2008 • 3 Comments
It would be unfair to call Alviso the armpit of the South Bay because in the real world, people wear deodorant that makes the smell go away, whereas in Alviso, the smell never goes away. On one side there are…
A vacation plan emerges: Carrizo Plain National Monument
by tom • March 16, 2008 • 5 Comments
4WheelBob mentioned this in a comment the other day: he’s joining some of his pals from Backpacker magazine’s forum for a weekend at Carrizo Plan National Monument in Southern California. They’re going this coming Friday to Sunday. I’ve decided to…
On vacation for a week
by tom • March 15, 2008 • 0 Comments
I’m not going anywhere special, it’s just a week away from the never-ending newspaper slalom. This tends to cause erratic posting, but if I do anything postworthy, well, I’ll probably post it.
Backpacks for overnighters: what do you like?
by tom • March 14, 2008 • 8 Comments
I’m fond of my Gregory G Pack — for the fit more than anything else. It’s reasonably light at just under 3 pounds, reasonably affordable, reasonably well built, and reasonably spacious. It has mesh around the exterior that holds oddly-shaped…
Expanded Black Diamond Mines tours
by tom • March 14, 2008 • 0 Comments
East Bay Regional Parks is having an open house April 5-6 for the silica/sand mine tours at Black Diamond Mines Regional Park, where you’ll be able to go 810 feet into the mine rather than a mere 400, which was…