Camping in Central California!

This past weekend a few of us drove up to Bishop, CA, which is just south of Mammoth Lakes on the east side of the Sierra Mountain range.
Camping Partner, Special Friend.

Our tent site at the Pit, which was free, courtesy of the research groups that rented out the whole place. High desert, yum!Hard to beat butter, eggs, avocado, tomato, and cheddar. Really hard.


We took time out to do some hiking up to Treasure Lakes, through the snow that we weren't quite prepared for.

John Muir Wilderness is one of my favorites, for sure.
Retreat!!! Snowballs aren't supposed to be that big!
South Lake, outside Bishop, CA. 81 degrees, 10,000 feet, Sunny, Snow on the ground. Bliss.
Aspen groves were out in full force! So beautiful to see the shimmering leaves!

And I forgot to take any snaps, but this is a reasonable stock photo of one of the TWO hot springs that we visited during the weekend!
Thanks, iStockphoto!

Also, the Bishop area has some of the best bouldering around, so we naturally had to take it easy with some climber friends
Dynamic move to the crux of the problem!
Soft hands to cradle.
Harder than it looks.

Stuck~!

Hooping with the Sierras as a backdrop (and a canyon just behind the cameraman).


Triumph! Love this shot because of the colors. It's got a swath of green in the center/right, blue at the top, and reddish tones on the bottom left.

Blog Action Day 2009

About this time last year I did a quick post about Poverty, highlighting my thoughts on the global situation, as well as a few groups that are doing their best to alleviate the pain involved.

I encourage you to read the post here, as not much has changed. However, I have to say, since then, I have donated to Kiva, enabled a few loans, gotten my money repaid in full, and loaned it out again. And it feels great. Give it a try for as little as $25, please! And let me know how it works out!



This year's Blog Action Day focuses on climate change. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of discussion on whether "global warming" is "real" or not, and whether humans should feel responsible. Personally, in my daily life, I could care less whether the temperature is rising or falling, though I do admit that is important. What I do care about is living sustainably. I would like to be able to say, 100 years from today, that I did my best to preserve the Earth for future generations.

Certainly none of us (that I know of) can say this today, as we are living as major consumers, and in an extremely carbon-negative way.

Thankfully, lots of us are working on long term solutions, from cleaner transportation, cleaner energy generation (and use!), as well as trying to re-set the environments we've destroyed so far.

For some of us it's been a while since we've honestly thought about these types of issues, and if so, perhaps we (you, me, everyone!) should take 5 minutes out of our day to reflect on how we're living, and how we're treating the Earth!


(Image from random website here.)