Well, it was much better than being lost in the forest.

Posted by Steve Hanna on July 9th, 2007 filed in Random Tags: camera, camping, faux art, haiku, hiking, lost in the forest, pictures

During one my first few weeks at Berkeley, Mike and I got lost at Tilden Park. We decided to go running on the trails, I nearly died when I hopped over a plant, tripped and just barely avoided falling down the mountain. This weekend had a nice way of redeeming my relationship with the outdoors.

Yisong was visiting so Parisa decided that we should round up some of the uiuc people who now reside in the bay area in order to go on a hike. So we all woke up really early (7am*) and piled into Parisa’s car. Our trip consisted of Yisong, Me, John, Parisa and Graeme ( a Googleplex friend of Parisa’s who was a lot of fun). We drove into Big Basin national park and Yisong specifically got to experience the circuitous mountain roads. When we arrived we gathered our google provided rations and started our hike.

Parisa led the trail, which is a good thing because my innate sense of direction is somewhat lacking. Not to mention that I forgot our only map in the car which resulted in some furrowing of brows as I scurried back to the car to retrieve it. The hike was 11 miles long but we decided to add another mile onto our trip by taking a wrong turn somewhere, whoops. We came across several waterfalls, hundreds of beautiful redwood trees and one really elusive butterfly. Why’s it so elusive? Well, I took a picture in macro mode of this noble creature and it was quite possibly one of the most vivid, sharp and beautiful pictures that I have ever taken. As we continued on, I realized I had accidentally triggered the shutter and took a picture of some random object. I decided that this picture needed to be erased on the spot and it resulted in me accidentally deleting all the pictures I had taken. I was so disappointed. However, as you can see, I managed to take quite a few more pictures on the trip. Really this whole post is an attempt for me to create enough space to put all of my pictures within this entry.

When John questioned Parisa about the difficulty of the trail (it was marked strenuous) and this rating in comparison to the scientifically accurate boot scale apparently followed in the pacific north west, Parisa responded that it probably correlated as follows:

Easy (You can use a wheelchair)
Moderate (Use a wheelchair with difficulty)
Strenuous (No wheelchairs allowed)

As per this suggestion, I think the Boot Scale should be replaced with the scientifically accurate Wheelchair Scale.

After the hike, we were all pretty exhausted and we piled back into the car to head back to Mountain View for a barbecue. This time, it was my turn to succumb to the mountain roads. The combination of being exhausted, ravenous and dehydrated made me quickly nauseous and I narrowly escaped decorating the car with a pattern not unlike one might see on a splash painting in a museum of modern art.

We quickly cleaned ourselves up, waited for additional guests (Jerry, Ann, Steve, Robin), threw various burgers and burger substitutes on the grill and quickly started devouring the feast put before us. Conversations were had, stories were told and competencies were questioned (namely my ability to make a s’more). I also corrected the caloric deficiency that the hike inflicted upon me by gorging myself on a ridiculous amount of food. The weekend, as a whole, was stellar and it once again put me in that evaluative mood that concluded with a reaffirmation that this is where I belong.

More pictures found below. Ultra high resolution copies are available, just email me. Descriptions are in the mouse-overs!

*this IS really early

Find the haiku.

Also, I’m using Picasa to organize my photos now. I got lazy when it came to trying to use Gallery2, uploads took forever and things were not working. Picasa works really well and in the days of lazy CMS, it was exactly what I wanted. Shameless plug: