Pix from Backpacking with Ben
I went backpacking with my nephew Benjamin a couple of wekeends ago
(Friday 15 July through Sunday). The photos are up
on my mac.com site.
Ben is 10 years old, though he's a big 10. Last year, I took
him on the first six or so miles of the High Sierra Trail,
and we had a blast. So he'd been asking when we could schedule
another backpacking trip this summer.
Ben and his mother Mary had flown up from T.O., and she had to
be in San Francisco for a work meeting. So I came up with the
idea of having her drop Ben and me off on Skyline, and we would
walk down through Long Ridge Open Space Preserve, down Ward Road
into Portola State Park, and on out through Pescadero Creek
County Park. It's a mostly downhill hike :-), but this time
Ben's pack would be somewhat heavier.
The captions tell much of the story,
but since I ran out of camera space on Saturday afternoon,
there aren't captions for the pictures I didn't take. So:
Saturday morning, we had headed straight out from Slate Creek
Campground to do Peter's Creek Loop. We had seen a total of
three people (and one raccoon) since leaving the trailhead.
Peter's Creek Loop climbs a bit from camp, then has a very
steep descent to the loop part. Near the high point of the
trail, there are several spots with a lot of poison oak
very close to the trail. Ben did quite well and I think
he has a good idea of what poison oak looks like, and can
recognize many of its varied forms.
("Toxicodendron diversibolum" is one of my favorite
latin-style species names; it's so descriptive.)
On the way back to camp, we did see a couple of adults
and a couple of kids heading up there. We warned them
about the poison oak, and it turned out that even the
adults weren't quite sure what it looks like. So I
pointed out a couple. Hope they didn't get any.
Ben and I returned to camp, filtered some more water
and played in the creek some more (it was a pretty hot day).
Ben had just attended a house concert where
groovelily
had performed, and had a song of theirs in his head.
Ben's a good-natured guy, and he sings a lot.
Unfortunately in this case, he only had about two or three
lines of this one song going. I heard that a few times
before I finally started singing a few of the
amusing
songs
that I know. His favorites ended up being Eric Bogle's
"Nobody's Moggy" and the Austin Lounge Lizards' "Saguaro".
Anyway, we ended up at the Portola State Park HQ around
five pm, and discovered to our delight that they had
cold sodas and gatorade! We spent a fair amount of time
there, rested, and called home to check in. Then we
walked the remaining mile and a half to Tarwater Trail Camp.
About when we got there, I remembered that I had intended to
fill up our waters with tap water at the station, but it had
completely slipped my mind.
We did have enough for dinner, though, and the
freeze-dried spaghetti meal wasn't bad at all.
Sunday, we packed up and headed out; I had been
thinking of taking the Pomponio Trail, since it's
mostly singletrack, but we talked over the options
and ended up walking back on Old Haul Road. It was
cooler and a bit of marine layer had been sucked in.
Old Haul is just inland from Butano Ridge, so it doesn't
get much direct ocean breeze, but as we crossed each
side canyon, there was a nice light cool breeze
coming down it.
We made pretty good time, and got out to the trailhead
and saw a deer on the (paved) road. (Had not seen any
deer at all in the wilderness part of the trip.)
Headed over to the ranger station and store for
milkshakes!
Very fun trip.
11:48:20 PM
Random radio Weblog