After looking around, we discovered that someone had trimmed it off the log. So why not hike this massive slice of log up the rest of the hill?
I considered it training (more details to follow). Now this Beach "sign" is in my bedroom. :o) After that we headed south around the lake. We kept driving to Emerald Bay and stopped to admire the breath taking views and hiked down around this beautiful waterfall.
I hike a lot for my job, but I had SO much fun doing it with Dave. It was great to share those wonderful views with him. We decided to spend the night in the town of South Lake Tahoe and had dinner at a local brewery. The next day we were going to do some more exploring, however, pretty steady rain hindered out plans. We ended up just driving around the rest of the lake, which I hadn't done before, and taking in the views from the car. Not as glamorous but definitely drier! :) It was a wonderful visit and I know he had a great time coming back to Reno.
I did something else this past week..something that has been making people call me "crazy" or "insane" or even "slightly deranged." Curious? I officially registered for the NorCal Tough Mudder. It's a 10-mile obstacle course with 20 different obstacles including running through fire, climbing walls, a death march UP a double black diamond ski slope and running through live wires with up to 10,000 volts! It's located in Squaw Valley, CA. The course starts at 6200ft and peaks at about 9000ft. My reasons? Why not? :) I'm excited about it and have been training by doing various workouts (including carrying the above mentioned log up a hill). I am doing it with a long time friend, Tommy Rodriguez, who is living in Tahoe, also doing an AmeriCorp term. Feel free to come watch and cheer us on!
I finished another 8-day tour at Lamoille Canyon. The weather improved from last week and left us with sunny, hot days and pleasant evenings. There was only 1 day we actually got ran off the mountain because of a thunder and lightening storm. Let me tell you, a storm at 8,000 ft is pretty intense when you're holding metal tools and working on exposed trail. Once we saw the first lightening strike, we immediately dropped what we were doing and headed down off the mountain. I really haven't taken many pictures of our work, but I'll try to do that next week to give you an idea of what we're doing.
This job is going to be great training for the TM because first thing I have to do every day is hike 3 miles up a mountain, often times carrying a chainsaw on my shoulder. So far, my best time without a saw was 41 minutes and with a saw was 65 minutes. The elevation is pretty similar to Squaw Valley as well. One downer of the week was that I had to purchase new boots because my old one's finally died. A recommendation: don't bring new boots on an 8-day tour where you'll be hiking 36 miles that week.
I had some serious blisters on my heels that I had to deal with all week and it was pretty awful. I really had no choice with the boots because there was no way my old one's would last another tour. Bad timing is all.This week Andi and Kim, two of my friends from Boston, are coming out to visit! I'm looking forward to the adventures we're going to get ourselves into! One of them being a trip to San Francisco to stay at the San Fran Mandarin Oriental and getting to see an A's game in Oakland. They're no Red Sox, but it's a baseball game none the less.
