• Hong Kong (Apr 3 weekend) – we forgot the camera, so no pictures for you.   Hong Kong was definitely the most expat friendly of any city we’ve visited.  Cynthia, not normally known for shopping, was quite fond of H&M in particular.  We ate Dim Sum, but actually stuck mostly to non-Chinese food (Gyros, Indian, Steak, Mexican!) because we no longer feel guilty about it on a trip.
• Beijing (Apr 10 weekend) – Cold, a bit strange.  We were staying at  a government hotel at the Olympic Green because it was connected to the convention center – the whole area was brand new but virtually deserted.  We climbed the Great Wall, crashed the Forbidden City, tried not to arouse suspicion at  Tiananmen Square (along with pervasive uniformed and plain clothes security) and saw a genuinely amazing acrobat show.
• Shanghai (Apr 15-16) – Just one night for a meeting – stayed at the Renaissance this time which superior to the Hilton
• Penghu Islands (Apr 17 weekend)- Bev and James came to visit is and we caught a flight from the local airport across the street to some of Taiwan’s southern  islands, which we explored via scooter.  Cynthia crashed once ( low speed) and was luckily unhurt.  Bev and James also make an appearance in a lot of our other pics this month.
• Hualien (Apr 24th weekend) – went with a group to explore Taroko’s “Golden Canyon” which involved rappelling UP a small, frigid waterfall and having rocks thrown at us by monkeys.  The next day we did some light whitewater rafting on the Hsiukuluan River.  Richard posted some pics on Flickr, and there are more here in the monthly pics.
• On Wednesday I felt 3 separate earthquakes.  Next up: Typhoon season.

We ate at an awesome place near our house this weekend: “Stone BBQ”.  There’s a big hole in the table that they fill with coals, then cover with a marble slab.  Then, you char all you can eat meat, seafood and vegetables, and eat it.  They also have all you can drink beer.  All of this costs less than $20 a person.

All the restaurants and shops play Christmas music in the background, which seems completely out of place but has me “in the spirit”.  I can’t wait to get back to the US next week, unwind and see the fam.

Here are the pics. Ben also posted his.

The trip rocked overall . . . a great culmination to our summer of hiking. My worries about altitude sickness proved unfounded – as long as I took it easy it was not a factor. Also, I pooped in a bag – no different from any other time pooping in the woods. I laugh in the face of others (ahem . . . Ben, Melissa) who so feared the wag bag to the extent that they used Immodium for a non-FDA approved indication.

We drove down on Saturday with Mike and Michelle – and discovered we could tolerate six hours in the car with each other. I was blown away by the scenery of the Owens Valley, a huge part of California I had never experienced before. I’ll be pressuring Kristi and Eric for reasons to hang out in Bishop going forward. After picking up our permits and setting up camp at Whitney Portal, the group went to the Pizza Factory in Lone Pine for a great dinner. We left the next morning on the seven mile/3700ft climb to Trail Camp. I was feeling the altitude a bit and needed a nap, but was ready for dinner afterward. The temperature dropped a couple of hours before dark as the sun tucked behind the mountains, and we retreated to our tents a bit early because we really hadn’t brought the proper gear to be comfortable out in the open wind. I think it got down to about 25F or so that night, but our new tent and sleeping bags did great. The next morning I stuck with Mike and Michelle through the pleasant climb up 97 Switchbacks. The scenery was better on the other side of Trail Crest, but with the higher altitude the climb got tougher. After 4.5 miles or so, we finally reached the summit, enjoyed the view, took pictures, Mike puked, etc. The hike down was much easier than the way up. We returned to trail camp, drank some celebratory everclear, and powered through another cold night. We were up at 6:45 the next morning, reached the cars at the Portal by 11:45, and drove home.

We weren’t able to get a walk-up permit for our original destination of Lake of the Woods, and instead decided to stay at Tamarack Lake Friday night. Brea drove us up to the Ralston trail head at about 2:30 and slogged up 2400 vertical feet over 3 miles . . . we were all burned by the time we made it to the trail summit. As we continued on the trail, you could see the lake about 1/2 mile in the distance, and so we decided to bushwhack our way over there to save a couple of miles. This evolved into some rock scrambling, which I think scared the girls who hadn’t been to Horsetail a couple of weeks before (Cynthia only complianed mildly). Melissa became especially concerned when she saw a snake amidst the rocks and had to face her phobia. We finally made it down to the lake level and found a nice campsite as dusk was settling in. I managed to fish a bit, but lost two flies snagging tree branches and didn’t didn’t have much time with the fly actually in the water. It was super frustrating, because the fish were feeding all around me, and I knew I would have had a good chance if I’d had a little more time. As it got dark, bats came and were chasing my fly line around. Unfortunately, the camera we’d borrowed from Dave died at this point (I borrowed it at the last second before leaving and hadn’t had time to charge it), so we didn’t get any pictures of the next two days.
Saturday was relatively easier as we headed to a small, unnamed lake near Lake Aloha about 4 miles away. Most of this followed the Pacific Crest Trail, which I’d seen described in books as a “freeway” . . .it lived up to it’s name with lumber reinforcement and even boardwalks in some spots. Arriving around noon, we found a heavily used camp with a elaborate windbreak made from piled rocks. Chipmunks lived in it and got into our trash and some granola I’d forgotten was in my bag when we were away from camp – basically everything we hadn’t hung. Cynthia and I went for a rock climb on a nearby high point, and we got a really cool view of most of the desolation valley. Lake Aloha was very dry – more like scattered mini-lakes – but we could see most of the other mid-valley lakes on the map in the and vowed to check them out on a future trip. Returning to camp, I waded into the muddy bottom of our lake with my rod. . . there weren’t any fish in it as far as I could tell, but it was good practice casting with and against the wind, and a relief to not have to worry about getting snagged on brush.
The next day was the had longest distance (~8 miles) and best views of the trip as we woke early and retraced our steps via the Ralston again, but this time turned to take the half mile summit path all the way to the top of Ralston Peak- these were the best views of the weekend, and when I most wished for a working camera. We made it back to the car at about 11:45 for a total trip of 16.2 miles, and stopped on the way back in Placerville for some In’nOut burger. Cynthia had really stepped up our meals on this trip to yet another level (I had lemon and shrimp rice with egg drop soup the first night, pasta carbonara with chicken the second), but my animal style cheeseburger was especially fantastic.

Here’s the GPX file and the altitude profile:

We ended up hiking up Horsetail Falls, an aggressive rock scramble I’d done before (but not with an overnight pack), and then camped further in the Desolation Valley at Ropi Lake. I did some fishing again, but it was windy so casting was tough. It didn’t matter because I didn’t see any signs of fish at Ropi, Toem, and Gefo Lakes, although other hikers said they’d had better luck with spin tackle. There weren’t any marked trails once above the falls, and Cynthia really enjoyed having the freedom to go wherever she wanted (within the limits of our permitted zone) to find our campsite – lots of thinking on your feet to find the easiest route instead of mindlessly following a known path. You can see how much faster it was on the way out when we knew where we were going. The Perseid meteor shower peaked on Sunday night, but we still were presented with a pretty good show looking up at the stars in our bug mesh tent. It was a great trip on short notice, and our packs were light at 45 pounds between us (mostly due to less water and food than last time)

Special thanks to Dave for loaning us his camera while ours is on the fritz so we could take pictures.

We’ll be back there in a couple weeks for a two night trip with some friends, and get to explore some different routes.

I saved waypoints where we camped – Kelly Lake and Willson Camp. The car was parked at the Coe Hunting Hollow entrance.

Here’s the GPX file for you tech heads who want to drag and drop it into Google earth for yourself (Note:You need to expand the time slider to see all the tracks and version 4.1.7087.5048 or later). Cynthia wanted to see our net altitude changes, so I did an Excel import and created a profile graph – as you can see, the first day was brutal.

Some other highlights:

• I caught my first fish on my own fly rod – a big (honest!) bluegill in Kelley Lake on a poorly cast wet fly
• Wild Boar repeatedly came to visit us in the middle of the night at Willson Camp on Saturday night and scared the crap out of Cynthia. They don’t run away when you yell at them
• I didn’t get bit by ticks like last time
• We saw 8 other people over 3 days

All in all, it was a great trip. We scratched that long overdue itch to be in the back country, and it was cool to see a new area of the park.