Well...

I feel like there needs to be some kind of update. We can't let our first blog together die!
I guess we've picked the first week in June as the week. Patrick is going to get official clearance from work sometime soon and then we're both going to buy tickets. Since each person has varying travel costs, Patrick and I talked about how we could balance the cost of the trip out and he had an interesting idea: We simply pool together the entire cost of the trip and split equally among the participants. That way the financial impact on those of us who have to travel across the country instead of upstate is a little less severe. Sounds fair.

Can somebody please respond to these posts? Patrick? Brad, do you still read this or are you too busy with your laser hair removal treatments as you prepare for many shirtless days(and nights) in the park? Can I make a post without at least one Piedmont Park, midtown, homosexual, Brad is hairy reference? Probably not.

Josh's horrible movie of the week: Conversations With Other Women

Listen.

Care to be pissed...

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=27-Feb-07

Paper Cuts

Since I can't afford a subscription, I occasionally stop by Borders(sorry DJ) to buy a coffee and read The New Yorker. Tonight, after first reading a David Sedaris article about buying weed in trailer park, I read this piece by Susan Orlean(Adaptation) about origami.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070219fa_fact_orlean


Read the article first before looking at the images. Amazing.

http://www.langorigami.com/

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa=N&resnum=0&q=Robert+Lang+Origami&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi

Nerd Out

Here is some temperature data presented in graphical and tabular form for your viewing pleasure. Does this tell us anything? I'm not sure. DJ you might have to get some long underwear knitted from pubis.





...........DOY MON DY TMAX #YRS TMIN #YRS PRECIP #YRS SD MAX SD MIN

Ropa

There has been a lot of talk about gear, but I'm wondering what you folk have in mind as far as clothing. It seems like we're shooting for a late spring, early summer departure -- do we still need gortex? I own zero true winter clothing, do I need to invest, you figure? The weather numbers I've seen seem to suggest so. Thoughts?

Monkey Wrench

As you guys know I was recently hired away from my lifelong passion: eFloodZone. While we look back and remember that halcyon era, it would be wise to grapple with the fact that I have no fucking clue when I can grab some vacation time from my new employers. More info to follow...

Beef Jerky and Smokes

So yeah for the sake of getting booted from the trip I figure I should contribute something.....so believe it or not I will keep the jump-rope jokes for myself and post something of worth. I actually made myself read one of those books to get some ideas on trails and have a few ideas...the first being that we do one ~10 mile hike (4 bottle of liquor hike) and a shorter 2-4 mile day hike. The first hike that I found that not to pedestrian for us is "Inspiration Point, Stanford Point, and Dewey Point" is covers 10 miles and is considered strenuous but with Josh jump roping and shit and Brad ability to survive in harsh temps due to his thick winter coat we should be ok...but for real it calls for 9 hours with a high point of ~7000 ft. It also suggest a campground that we could set up in for the first night. As far as the second shorter hike there are a couple of hikes that I thought would be cool; the first being another hike in the valley area or a red wood stand hike.

We need to discuss the exact time period involved i.e. 5 days or 4 or 6 whatever. I know that for me a 7 day week would be max. Next we need to decide how we want to set up the hikes. Go out for 2 days then come back to the valley and get supplies then head out again or whatever.

I will scan in the trail details tomorrow at work so long as I can dig my car out of the fucking snow.

When?

Dates, we should get back to dates... Are we still thinking the last week in May? Or are we conisdering holding off due to campsite availability?

Who's wet?

Since we don't really have weather in Sountern California, I had forgotten about something rather important:

Rain.

If it rains all five days I'm going to feed myself to the bears.

But, then again, sequestered in a tent, drunk at 1 in the afternoon, doesn't sound half bad.

Also:

Pumped about Rage. Who's in?

Vote:

1-2-1

An easy day on both ends.

So, Uh, What's the Dealio?

I noticed a little drop-off in traffic here, and it seems that we're at a small impasse. We need to decide what kind of trip we're going on before we plan anything else. Looks like three options to me:

1) Go backcountry the whole time and do one or two big hikes during the week. This means we'll probably have to go later in the summer when the roads and trailheads are open, and we'll have to do a good job of planning and trail selection. This will get us far from any other people (especially lame family-action tourists) and out in the shit. Gear will be heavier to carry and we'll need to get in shape a little to pull it off. Could be the most gratifying option.

2) Stay in the valley and do one or more short hikes each day. With this option we can go in late May and be there for a lot of the good waterfall action around the valley since the melt will have just started at the higher elevations. All the Yosemite Valley attractions should be open. The valley shouldn't be as crowded at this time of year so I don't think we'll be overrun by lame-asses. Fishing shouldn't be a problem, the valley has a river and a bunch of streams. We'll have to pay for camping, but we won't have to lug around hardly any gear since we can stay close to the car.

3) A Hybrid of the two above options. Stay in the valley for a few days and then do a long hike for a few days or vice versa. We could probably find a trail in May to stay on for a couple of days or just go later when they're all open and have our pick.

Let's get a good discussion going on this so we can go ahead and hammer out our time-frame and what kind of gear we'll need.

They'll change your life.

I must have misunderstood lily04's post. I think the backcountry is what we're all about. Even if it meant waiting until June or July. Here's what I'm thinking - this is one of the few adult, hey we actually have a little extra money, vacations we'll do as a team. We're all willing to spend six hundred plus for said vacation. If this is our only chance(face it) to do it, lets do it right. No gravel campsites, no RVs, no showers, no working plumbing - I want to be off the grid. Yes, it will take 10x the planning. Yes, you might cut your leg and die. Yes, Brad might find a nice rootball to hibernate in. Point being, if we(four smart capable young men) decide to plan a camping trip months in advance that will cost a half a month's paycheck we should do it like men, not like a family of 6 or the retired couple RVing across the country with Beavis and Butthead. We need isolation. We need hardship. We need bear-proof containers. Otherwise my vote is for Tahoe.

Isn't Natalie Portman cute?

Full stream up today only.

http://www.myspace.com/theshins

I'm With the Deej

The backcountry action probly ain't gonna happen unless we really want to do an overnight hike. But it looks like there's quite a few campgrounds off the main roads that should work fine as long as we get reservations taken care of. $20 a night ain't bad, and it shouldn't be problem to switch campgrounds a few times to access different parts of the park. Looks like you can hike right in to the wilderness from the campgrounds and most of the trails follow creeks and rivers for fishing. This way we can also be heavier on equipment and beer since we'll have to setup and takedown camp everyday anyway.

Backcountry

Is this bit us? I was surprised to see that everything else cost per day.

Bear containers? Really? How are we suppose to keep Brad locked up for five days?

Honestly: Over/under on how many days/hours we last before we split for Tahoe?

Lily04

Great joke - naming your log-in after your dog. As if you were some kind of goob who was obsessed with his dog. Good one, P. I'm still laughing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite

You all have probably already read this, but two things stuck out to me:

1. There is no mention of fishing whatsoever.

2. The tone of the article seems to be pretty down on the valley, as if it were for posers, but I was thinking that might be our spot -- but then again, we are probably posers.

Guide Book

I still have some Border's gift money left over from Christmas so I'll get on Amazon and get a hiking/backpacking guide to Yosemite so we can try to plan out routes as soon as possible. If somebody wants to get a fishing guide to the park that would probably help so we could cross-ref them and see what looks best. I know we'll have to register for trailheads as soon as possible if we plan on using any.

List of Crap to Bring

Here's some suggestions on gear for the park from www.tripadvisor.com, which is a great site for travel if you have time to peruse the forums. It helped a lot on our trip to Ireland last year to get some specific advice.

Pretty good list, sounds like the bug situation can be a little out of control, but that could be the complaints of wieners from dry climes like SoCal who aren't used to being attacked by mosquitos from April to November. I guess I'll go ahead and take charge of the map situation. I can probably find some sweet high-res topos at school.

Fishing

Most of the stuff I've read so far doesn't give glowing reviews of the fishing in Yosemite. The season starts the last week of April, except for two places, so I think we'll be fine as far as seasons go. Looks like we'll be eating these for dinner -














Here is a decent website about fishing in the park and other stuff:
http://www.yosemitegold.com/yosemite/trout.htm