Half Dome

Jeff and I decided that it was time to hike up Half Dome. We got up early on Saturday morning and drove to Yosemite, parked at Glacier Point and started our journey. The sites along the way to Half Dome were amazing. Here are some photos of the day:

We started on the Panorama Trail at Glacier Point. Above is a picture of Jeff with Half Dome in the background. This trail was a lot of down hill switchbacks and then we climbed back up hill to the top of Nevada Falls and then followed another trail to Half Dome.
The neat thing about the Panorama Trail was that we got to see Half Dome from a ton of angles.
There were many times when I told Jeff to leave me behind and go, but we was very encouraging and we moved along. There were also a few people along the way that we talked to and they encouraged me to keep trucking along. The most difficult part of the trip while going up was the last 900 feet. There is about 500 feet of granite "steps" followed by 400 feet of pulling yourself up cables. The picture below shows the line of people ascending up the cables of Half Dome.
We were very happy to make it to the top. While we were climbing the cables, we were behind some slow people and it took way longer then it should have to get to the top. I was completely exhausted! We ate lunch on top and enjoyed the views...

We stayed up on top of Half Dome for about 45 minutes and then had to start our climb down. (There was only a few hours left of sunlight.) The climb down was a little easier then climbing up, but it was still a little scarey...
Above is Jeff getting ready to climb down. The pictures below show people climbing down the cables. It gives you the idea of what we were climbing down!
We hiked down to Nevada Falls without stopping and then Jeff hiked back to Glacier Point and I proceeded down to Yosemite Valley. I wouldn't have made it the additional 4 miles that Jeff had to go. In the end we both climbed around 20+ miles. We met at Curry Village and drove back to Stockton. It was an amazing day and my body is quite sore today.

Weekend Update...

The majority of our weekend was spent watching football, but I can't complain! We woke up early on Saturday morning to find out that he had rained! It also rained on and off all day Saturday so that was very exciting!! We went to the Spoonful of Stories 5k run. I decided not to run that morning and held everyone's stuff and took pictures. Jeff did great - he came in around 22 min 42 sec. or something like that. I believe he was 7th overall and got 3rd in his age group. The picture below is of the General Mills group that was there.

After the race, we went to our friends house and watched college football. Then we had people over at our place after that for games and fun. I think everyone left around 2am! Of course, we had to wake up and be to Valleybrew by 10am so we could watch more football. There are a few other Packer fans that watch football there, so we have a great time and get pretty loud during the game - it is also great because we usually get the big screen!! Jeff gets to watch the Vikings as well and also got to watch it on a larger screen!! We are very excited for next weeks game - not sure what the bet will be this year though...

After watching the Packers win and Vikings lose :-) we went to Vino Piazza in Lockeford with Courtney and Jeremy. It was Jeremy's first experience wine tasting and I think he had a good time. Below is a picture of Jeff and I outside of on of the wineries.
It is also harvest season, so many of the grapes have been picked, but here is a picture of the grapes on the vine!

Heidi's mini trip

I had the opportunity to travel to Yosemite this past weekend with 150 first-year students as part of our FYE program. This is the first year we did a "Taste of Yosemite" and I think it was pretty successful. Students were able to service projects in Yosemite and explore the park a little. Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Above is a picture of El Capitan and Half Dome. Right before I took this picture I saw a couple of bears running through the brush. It was pretty cool!

The first night there we had a campfire and some of the student staff members and I did a skit of the Lorax by Dr. Seuss. The photo above is of the group that I was a co-leader of.
My group's service project was to measure some of the giant sequoias in Tuolumne Grove. We camped at Crane Flats and walked a little over 2 miles until we found tree number 27 - our tree! I supervised a sub-group within our group to take the BHD (breast height diameter). I learned a few things about the sequoias that day and I heart 27 :-)
After the measurements were taken we walked through the grove to see some other sites. Our first stop was at Dead Fred (above). It is a giant sequoia that fell over a while ago and when it fell, it was hollow inside. We were able to crawl through the tree and had a great time. We then walked to the tree tunnel (below). It was carved out in 1886 to encourage visitors to go to the park. The neat thing about this tree is that they have no idea what happened to the top of the tree!
We then walked a few more miles to the fire station lookout. We were able to visit with the fire fighters and ask them questions about their jobs. Below is a picture of the helicopter dropping off some of the fire fighters who had been working on a small fire in the park.

I had a great time and I can't wait to go back to Yosemite again. It is one of my favorite places!

In other news, life is busy. I have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. The rest of my days are spent in meetings for the most part! I supervise 4 graduate students, who supervise 22 RAs, who are responsible for around 700 residents in 10 buildings known as the Quads. I love the position, but it is hard to stay on top of homework and everything else. I just hired an assistant, so hopefully life will get a little easier! Our weekends are spent watching football. There is a 5k run this weekend that Jeff is running and I haven't decided yet. No official adventures planned as of now, but we are working on it! We are excited for people to come and visit though!

Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park

Jeff and I had an amazing weekend at Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park over Labor Day Weekend. We left on Friday and got back on Monday. Catherine and Court, Gabby and Humberto, and the Schrag's joined in on the weekend fun. We were able to see a lot of really cool things, so here is a picture journal of our weekend:
We set up camp on Friday night and just hung around the fire. The next morning, we drove to Burley Falls. I think they are my favorite falls we have been to.
The falls are all spring fed so they don't dry up. We were able to climb pretty close to the base.
We walked around some trails by the falls. Gabby is showing off her Limbo skills below!
Later that day, we went through Subway Cave. The pictures didn't really turn out. Subway Cave is 1/3 mile in length and is a dried up lava tube. It is actually one section of a 16-mile long cave. It was pretty neat to walk through.
On Sunday morning we drove into the park and walked to Cold Boiling Lake. The picture below shows how big the "lake" was at this time!

We then hiked on along trails. The views were amazing!
We finally got to Bumpass Hell. (yes, that is the actual name) It is a sulpher bed that you are able to walk through. It was pretty smelly though!
We went back to the campground after that. We decided to go swimming in the lake and enjoy time by the camp-fire. Jeff, Cat, Court, and I got up early on Monday morning and hiked to Cinder Cone. It is an inactive volcano. The climb up is at a 30-degree angle and it was all soft sand and rock - very hard to climb, but well worth it!
We were able to see the "inside" of the volcano - it is pretty full of dried lava, but is very cool! Below - we had a great time taking shadow pictures!! Mt. Lassen is in the background.

We had amazing views from the top of Cinder Cone! Besides Mt. Lassen, we could also see the painted dunes and a lot of lava beds.

The picture of Jeff below just makes me smile :-)


We drove through the park on our way home. Above is a picture of Mt. Lassen's peak and below is a picture of Sulpher Works.

We had a great mini-vacation, but were very excited to get back to our apartment and take showers and have warm water! Everything else is going great! Will update more soon!