Over various Italian foods, we caught up and discussed what it was we were to do for their nine day stay. Having recently left my job, I was free to do whatever they’d like. Aside from the normal San Francisco sightseeing, it was determined that we should do our best to break in the black 2011 Ford Fusion they had rented.

And what better to do way to do this but drive 270ish miles to Sequoia National Park? After viewing really big trees, we decided we’d head another 190 miles north to Yosemite National Park. From there, we’d complete the loop and head home. This plan sounded great! Though it did dawn on me that the last time I had spend five hours in a car with my family was 11 years prior, while driving from Maine to Pennsylvania. But really, how bad could it be?

After a few days of stuffing our faces, gazing at the Golden Gate Bridge and walking around Golden Gate Park, we prepped ourselves to head south. After many rounds of Angry Birds, some potato chips, sunflower seeds, beef jerkey, and good conversation, we started the ascent into the National Forest.

Since we had left early, we got to Sequoia National Park by early afternoon. It being mid-April, the lower valley’s landscape was a lush green and the views were exceptionally beautiful. Once we got our fill of the vistas, we aimed the Fusion at the real attraction, the Giant Forest. Having made it this far, we couldn’t leave without a glimpse of the General.

For those of you asking, “What in the sweet hell are you talking about?”, I’m talking about the General Sherman. As Wikipedia explains:

General Sherman is a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) with a height of 83.8 metres (275 ft). As of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1,487 cubic metres (52,513 cu ft), making it the largest known non-clonal tree by volume.

At six-thousand feet in elevation, the roads were flanked by large banks of snow, giving the car ride a bobsled vibe. Once we arrive at the General’s parking lot, we quickly hit the trail to see ol’ Shermy. To be honest, I can’t really describe the tree beyond saying it’s really, really, really [expletive] big. I simply do not trust my vocabulary. It is something that needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate.

After spending some time admiring Mother Nature’s large-scale handy work, we piled back into the car and started north to Kings Canyon National Park. As we neared the entrance, we stopped at a trading post to inquire about hotels on the way to Yosemite. Along with some great suggestions, we also learned that the road to Kings Canyon was still closed to due to snow. Oh well. We spun around and headed back to route 99.

As we passed through Fresno, we debated if it was time for dinner, or if we should drive straight to Yosemite. We decided it wise to grab dinner, and stopped just north of Fresno. Our decision was validated when we looked at the map. The area between Fresno and Yosemite is sparsely populated at best. After a delicious meal, and quickly descending into food comas, we decided to stay put and find a hotel room nearby.

The next morning we hit the road bright and early, zipping up route 41 to Yosemite National Park. While the season’s tremendous snow fall didn’t allow a peak at Kings Canyon, it did provide spectacular waterfalls in Yosemite. In fact, as we walked around, we repeatedly heard tour guides mention that this was the best time of the year to visit.

Entering the park from the south, we realized that though Yosemite is known for its falls of the same name, there are several other majestic cascades. Included are Ribbon Falls and Bridalveil Fall. Other great features are El Capitan and Half Dome, both well known in rock climbing culture. As mentioned before, I simply don’t trust my writing to properly describe the sights found in Yosemite. What I can do is highly recommend visiting the Park in the early spring season. You won’t be disappointed.

It is true that I had originally questioned my ability to survive a two day road trip with my family. In the end, I made it unscathed and had an amazing time. I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to share such a great experience.

Do you think you could manage several days in a beautiful part of the country with the people closest to you? Have you tried?

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Ski Town U.S.A. (a.k.a. Steamboat Springs, Co.)

Background story detour…

While college graduation approached, I had made up my mind that I was not going to into the full time job realm. Instead, a mutual friend of the bachelor and I composed a list of ski resorts around the country that we’d like to live post-grad. Several weeks of being back home, living with our familes, got us vigorously hunting for jobs. In fairly short order, my friend and I each got solid offers in Steamboat. While we prepared for our departure west, the aforementioned bachelor called us and asked if we had room for a third. Luckily we did, and the three of us packed up my ’92 Ford Explorer and hit the road…

This history made the ‘Boat a natural choice. It also didn’t hurt that, while said bachelor and I had left Steamboat years earlier, our friend still calls it home.

Now the real planning began and all the usual wrinkles had to be ironed out. Who would be invited, where would we get cheap lift tickets and, most importantly, where the hell would we sleep? Our friend kindly offered to let us stay at his house, but as our group’s number climbed to ten, we politely declined. May I note that our refusal was much to his female roommates’ relief.

As I began pricing out hotel rooms, a conversation from earlier that summer popped into my head. The letters V, R, B and O, were all I could really remember from a thick, beer induced fog. A quick search on the Google brought the rest of the discussion back in a snap.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, VRBO is short for Vacation Rentals By Owner. And while most of the properties are still brokered by agents, the rates are way, way cheaper than anything you’d find in a hotel. Plus, you’re in a house or condo!

After a bit more intertube traveling, I found that Steamboat Springs was well represented on VRBO. I did a search with the dates we were going to be in town. From there, I looked for units that could sleep the number of people and had the price ranges we could afford. Within minutes, I had a comprehensive list of our lodging options. I plopped a list of links into an email and sent it to the guys who were attending. In a day or so, we had collectively made up our mind on which place to rent.

From there, I submitted an inquiry through the same website. Within the same day, I got a reply from a rental agent confirming that the unit was still available and explaining how payment would proceed. All I had to do was send two separate checks to their office. One for the full sum of the stay, and another for a security deposit. They would then send the checks to the property’s owner. Once the owner got the checks, and deposited the first check, he or she would send me information on how to get into the townhouse.

Though I was a little apprehensive about the Byzantine path my checks would have to take, all went according to plan. Within a few weeks of mailing my checks, I got an informative email from the owner regarding everything I’d need to know for my stay. The security check was held until we checked out and a cleaning person verified that nothing beyond normal cleaning was needed.

Once the long weekend arrived, everything went off without a hitch. The townhouse was as nice and as close to the mountain as advertised. Ullr graced us with fourteen inches of fresh powder for the first day, and he continued the flurries through to the second. Per usual, the vacation went entirely too fast, but it was really an excellent time.

I would highly recommend utilizing the VRBO service if you’re planning a trip. With the high amount prices of real estate on the market, owners are looking for any way to help pay the mortgage (or taxes for that matter). In the end, it’s infinitely cheaper than staying in a hotel, and you can save a bit more money by cooking in a night or two. If you have any questions, feel free to message me on twitter, @h0ke.

P.S. If you can find New Belgian Brewing’s new-ish beer, Ranger IPA, I HIGHLY recommend it. That is all.

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Outdoors

• 

  Any of the feeds from Backpacker.com – Read up on useful, fun, and sometimes hilarious posts by the people who are out in the wilderness more than they’re stuck in an office.

• The Keen Blog – One of the few companies who are doing capitalism and social responsibility right. Keen doesn’t just sell shoes (and socks, and bags), but also a way of life that makes sure we take responsibility for the role our lives play in the world. And they’re awesome too.
• Epicurean Cyclist - Russ Roca of the Path Less Pedaled might be called a bike snob, but he’s ok with that. Which is why he created Epicurean Cyclist, a blog he updates with only the best bike related accessories he’s used during his extensive bike touring experience.

Travel

• Twenty-something Travel - A blog for the young and the young at heart. Stephanie is a twenty-something (see what she did there?) hard core traveler who not only takes us along on her sojourns into unfamiliar territory, but tells us the how, why, where, and when too.
• Gadling – an all around travel information explosion spews forth daily on Gadling. If you’re into travel of just about any kind, this is where you get your news.
• American Road Magazine – This one’s not really a blog, but there are hundreds of American Road trips on here (and I’ve yet to find a really good road trip blog) and their Twitter account auto posts random road trips.

Beer

• Brews and Books – Friend and occasional PTV contributor Josh Christie pens this gem of a blog. It’s seems strange to pair a beer with a book, but Josh manages to combine his love of beer with his passion for selling and reading books. It’s an odd match, but it works really well.
• BeerNews.org – The main reason I watch this blog is simply for the labels. BeerNews is always posting the newly approved bottle and can labels from around the country. Of course, they are a top notch craft beer news site as well.
• CraftBeer.com – Pretty straightforward news from the craft beer industry, but the real gem here is the food/beer pairings. So. Good.

Fly Fishing

• MidCurrent.com – Kind of the big boy of fly fishing news, Midcurrent is the place to get your fly fishing fix. From videos to blogs to step-by-steps, it’s like the encyclopedia of fly fishing you always wanted.
• OrvisNews.com – The official fly fishing blog from the Orvis fly fishing company, OrvisNews.com provides up to date news and info about the fly fishing world in a very accessible way. Check out the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide Podcast with Tom Rosenbauer as well. A great way to learn the sport or hone your skills.
• Small Stream Reflections – In my limited experience, most fly fisherman dream of landing huge slabs of chrome in steelhead salmon rivers or trophy browns on famed trout streams. The idea of fishing a tiny little stream to land a wild brookie that might top out at 8 inches almost never crosses the mind of most. People like “BRK TRT” bring us back to the pure joys of fly fishing through his fantastic writing and beautiful photos of small water.

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Andrea Lankford’s Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks throws a little wrench in your plans for that dream job. But…wait! Being a National Park Ranger isn’t all hiking and telling people about natural and national history all day long? Surely, you’re joking. I mean, dream jobs are just that for a reason, right?

I had always wanted to work at a big TV network. I built up this idea that working there must be the most amazing feeling ever experienced by man, and that the people who already have jobs there are the luckiest people on the planet. After all, the final product, what we as consumers or viewers or visitors see is so truly amazing, being one of the few who bring that to the public must surely be one of the most fascinating and rewarding jobs ever. In fact, it is. And it isn’t. I worked at ESPN, a dream job for sports fans and TV nerds around the world. I got to see sports celebrities every day. I passed people like Dan Patrick and Rich Eisen in the hallway. If it weren’t for my work schedule, I would have been in one of the famous “This Is Sportscenter” commercials and had my picture taken with the Stanley Cup. I still have some great memories of the place.

But I also have bad memories of working overnight and hardly seeing daylight; never being able to hang out with my friends; and messing up so badly that entire blocks of programming on several ESPN networks had to be changed. This job wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. After 15 months, I left ESPN.

While reading Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks, I kept these memories in mind. After reading the first few chapters, I realized that being a National Park Ranger has a similar effect on people. It’s the difference between visiting Disney World and actually working there, day in and day out. Somehow, the magic disappears. Lankford’s book pulls the curtain to reveal the man behind it. It’s a fairly gritty, depressing, and at times heartwrenching look at what life is really like for these Rangers.

Take, for instance, the story Lankford tells gradually throughout the book of a young ranger who comes on board. This guy is gung-ho and ready to be a Ranger. It’s what he always wanted to do. He works his way up, he travels the U.S. working at various parks, he falls in love (with a girl and with his work)…he’s basically living the dream. That is, until tragedy strikes, and any semblance of a dream turns into a nightmare. Such is life for a National Park Ranger. What Lankford tries to establish in Ranger Confidential is that for every Ranger, there is a point where they realize that the dream they fought so hard to achieve may not have been worth the fight. The job is just that—a job. Like any service related job—retail, public servants, food service, etc.—it’s perceived to be so easy, so much fun, so perfect. In reality, you’re dealing with a bunch of crazies, drunks, idiots, and psychos, every day and at every level for the duration of your career.

Granted, there are upsides to the Ranger life. There have to be, or people just wouldn’t do the job. There’s the solitude of living in the middle of nowhere in Denali National Park. There’s the satisfaction of educating a foreign visitor on the history of Ellis Island. There’s the adrenaline rush of short-haul helicopter extractions from Yosemite Valley and knowing you saved a life.

Ranger Confidential is a book that brings your lofty ideals of the ideal job crashing down to earth. At times funny, but mostly heartbreaking, the book takes a sometimes melodramatic look at the other side of the Ranger hat. While there are hundreds of pros to negate the cons of being a National Park Ranger,  when it comes down to it, Ranger Confidential nails one point home for you without hesitation or a shadow of doubt: being a National Park Ranger is a job, like any other.

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In Colorado’s Big Horn Sheep Canyon, a land full of natural wonder, the art is already there. Christo doesn’t seem to think so. He wants to create a giant, 5.9 mile long art installation called “Over the River,” in which he’ll suspend giant pieces of translucent material…well…over the river. Taking 2 years to construct for a two week showing in 2014, the art project could have enormous environmental and aesthetic consequences. Suffice it to say, environmentalists, nature lovers, and many locals are up in arms about it. But supporters say it could bring an already cash-strapped local economy out of the red.

What’s most surprising about this “David vs. Goliath” battle is the alleged environmental stewardship group that is supporting the project: The Sierra Club.

Founded by John Muir in 1892, the group’s mission is “To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.” Some are saying that the support the group is showing toward Christo’s proposed $50 million project flies in the face of everything the group, and its founder, stands for.

The Bureau of Land Management will make a decision on the project sometime in the spring. In the meantime, betrayed environmentalists will fight against Christo’s art project by demonstrating how damaging the work will be to the natural environment. Sierra Club higher ups are flabbergasted by the objections to the project, saying that the project would have no lasting environmental impact.

Whether you think it’s a worthy artistic venture or an environmental disaster, it’s sure to create some attention. But for 2 weeks (not to mention the months of construction), 6 miles of Big Horn Sheep Canyon river habitat may wish for some anonymity.

(via L.A. Times)

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The Big Ones

I did catch some big ones this year. They were huge, fighting monsters that grabbed my beadhead wooly buggers and Howell’s Big Nasty flies and ran to the bottom of the rather large river near my apartment. These monsters, I was sure, were snapping up my imitation crawfish and quickly making a run under some log or giant boulder that was perfect protection from this evil stinging bugger. I fought valiantly with these beasts, pulling and reeling, certain that the fish would finally tire and I’d have a giant pike in hand. One day I fought for 45 minutes with this guy, but never saw him even come to the surface. Hell, I even broke a rod once.

It wasn’t until I hooked and landed my first trout, actually fought the bugger and felt its weight on my rod, that I realized the hearty beasts I’d been fighting throughout August and September were never going to be landed. Such is the nature, I think, of rockfish and treefish.

The First Fish

I did, however, land a monster of a fish on the big river across from my abode. This guy, pictured right, took me by surprise as I was untangling a wind knot I’d somehow managed (through no fault of my own, of course). My fly dangling and bouncing in the film must have gotten his attention, as he slammed the fly hard and made a run for it. This colorful beauty was my first fish caught since I was 8 years old, and my very first caught on a fly rod. Well, fly line, at least.

The First Trout

I became a legitimate fly fisherman the day in October I caught my first trout. It was a fine brookie sporting its beautiful fall colors, caught on a z-wing beadhead nymph that I think I tied myself. I had the beadhead nymph tied on as a dropper to another z-wing caddis nymph, and let the rig dead drift down through the waiting school. As I simultaneously let the flies swing around and began to strip the line in to retrieve, I saw my strike indicator jump. The line pulled taut and I had a fish on! I was so excited I didn’t really know what to do. Thankfully, there were a few other more seasoned fishermen casting in the same pool (“The Aquarium” as it’s known, generally has a few guys fishing right on top of each other, trying mightly to avoid crossed lines and crossed tempers), and they were able to help me figure out how to strip the line, then reel the line, then net the fish. One even offered to take a picture of my first trout. It was a mighty fine day, and although I didn’t land any more fish that day, I was ecstatic with the 12 incher I did catch.

A Few More Pics From The 2010 Season

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