Pretty much anyone who has known me for any amount of time knows this. I don’t like bugs, I don’t sleep outside, and I refuse to be too far away from a place with a shower and facilities. Perhaps it was Girl Scouts that did me in…I was always afraid of spiders, but one year my good friend MC spotted a gigantic wolf spider on the ceiling of our platform tent….she tried to kill it and instead knocked it down into the middle of a pile of screaming 12 year old girls. I didn’t camp again or really do much in terms of outdoorsy things until I went to college…where orientation was more disorientation and they tossed you into the woods with 12 of your classmates, a sleeping bag, and no showers for 3 days.
Now, I still am wary of the whole camping things, but in the last year, my attitude towards hiking, packing food into the woods, and generally enjoying a good trail has done a 180. I’ll give that credit to my good friend Russ. I’ve had the fortune to make multiple trips to Northern California and everytime, Russ, the Winehiker, has been there to urge me out onto the trail with him. So much so that Matt and I independently took a vacation to go hiking, tubing, and communing with nature in the Smoky Mountains! I give Russ full credit–he’s been a fantastic trail guide and I’ve enjoyed every minute of hiking around Northern CA with him!
This time, he kindly picked me up at SFO yet again, and whisked me off to do a few moderate hikes up into Mt. Tam. While we didn’t see any Banana Slugs (it’s too hot and dry), I did manage to snap a few lizard shots. I’ll leave you with the rest of my pictures and highly recommend hiking with Russ on your next adventure out West.
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