Are You Living It?

Just a couple quick picks from a ride in the Tennessee Valley Road area in the Marin Headlands:

View Larger Map

View down to Muir Beach.

View to southwest.

Breather after the climb up the Coastal Trail to Coyote Ridge.

Nice little mtb ride in China Camp State Park today.  It’s about a 45 minute drive up 101 from where I live in San Fran…  several miles past the Marin Headlands, just northeast of San Rafael:

View Larger Map
Thirteen miles of very easy singletrack, a little too easy actually (finally feeling better after a week of thinking I was getting sick, and really wanted to sweat it all out), but it was a phenomenal day with relatively little traffic on the trails so I have no complaints.

On Saturday Ryan, Seth and I headed out for a ride up Starvation Mountain off Highway 20 in the Methow. For those not familiar with the area it is home to some of the most amazing cross-country riding and the valley is a thing to behold on its own.

We were camping on our property near Winthrop and Saturday morning we loaded up in the Red TDI and headed up to the trail just outside of Twisp.  Ryan was driving and keeping us entertained.  As has been mentioned before Ryan keeps himself fit (that is an understatement).  So Seth and I were a bit nervous as to what might be in store for us….

Here’s a good pic of Theo “in the moment”…  I’ll explain where I’m going with this below.

Theo’s life is about extremes:  sheer ecstasy and sheer boredom.  He handles the latter by sleeping (the dog literally sleeps 19 hours per day) and handles the former with total immersion in the moment.

Today was my first time on the old mtb since moving to the Bay Area from Durango.  Packing to move, moving, unpacking… blah, blah, blah… it added up to about two weeks out of the saddle.

I headed across the big red bridge to the Marin Headlands (where it all began with legends like Gary Fisher) and rode some loops in the Tennessee Valley area.  It was fairly spectacular, despite feeling a little leg-weak.  Twenty-five degree temperature swings, all-encompassing fog unexpectedly split open by blue-bird sun and sky, waves crashing in inlets hundreds of feet below me… I felt a long way from Southwestern Colorado.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. –Thoreau

This kitchen is mostly windows.  I’m sitting here, a full story above most of the surrounding houses, and the fog is rolling around me like a tide.  Though it’s quite a lookout perch, I can only see about a quarter mile, the same visibility that’s been had the last three mornings since we moved in.  But the sun will shine through shortly.  Some trigger will trip in the next couple hours and the tissue paper will burn off and reveal this hilly city people have taken to calling America’s most European. 

Last night I launched into my theory of the fog’s seasonality as Laurel regarded me skeptically… it was something about dew-points and air / water temperature differential.  I gesticulated confidently and raised my eyebrows with insight, but it was to be short-lived.  Contradicting myself at least twice, I managed to weave a meteorological tangle in less than a minute, noticed Laurel smirking at me, and then resigned defeatedly.  “I don’t really know what I’m talking about,” I muttered, and we had a laugh.

San Francisco:  we’re in our first week, and it’s true, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. 

If it feels familiar it’s because I’ve been in this spot before.  The last big “life move”…  eight years ago when we arrived in Durango.  I remember that it was with a lot of “lessness” that we rolled into town, much more than is true now:  we were jobless, prospect-less, money-less, and, alas, clueless.

Another summer and another chance to raft down Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River.  Lying in Utah South of I-70 and between the north-eastern Utah/Colorado border and the town of Moab, some say it is the biggest water in the state.  It’s usually done as an overnighter by rafters but can be done in one day or less by kayakers.

Last week LYP made a donation to Jason and Heather Hooten’s efforts with the CT Jamboree, an 80 mile high country MTB ride to benefit people suffering from multiple sclerosis.  Well, the Hootens report back that the ride was a big success.  Over $45K raised!!  Wow!  The weather cooperated, all the coordination ran like clockwork, and some of the most unbelievable singletrack in the world was enjoyed by more than 70 brave riders.  Way to go, everyone…  Congratulations!

This is just a quick photo/video mashup from animoto that I created as I finally got my pictures off my blackberry.  These are all from a “new” hiking trail above the Northshore of Lake Whatcom and a quick Mt. Bike ride up Chuckanut Ridge (sorry no Galbraith photos this time).  It is short, enjoy: