Mary and I went hiking in Big Basin Redwood State Park on Sunday over Labor Day Weekend. We don’t go there very often, but I’m not sure why. It’s a really beautiful park. When we have visitors, we usually take them to Muir Wood. I guess that’s because you can combine Muir Woods with a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge and other sites in San Francisco. As for redwoods, Big Basin is every bit as nice.

Mary and I decided to do a loop to Berry Creek that was listed at 10 to 12 miles depending on whose account you read. Maybe the extra distance depends on where you park, as we were a good half mile from park headquarters. The trail starts out at park headquarters and proceeds between the Redwood Loop and the Amphitheater. You quickly come to a tee with the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail (pictured left). I had read that going in a counter-clockwise direction has a slightly elevation profile, but somehow I decided we were supposed to go to the left at the tee. So we proceeded in a clockwise direction.

We quickly passed the back side of the Redwood Loop, and I figured we would not see many more for the rest of the hike. I was happily surprised to fine redwoods along nearly the entire trail. In fact, most of the time we were hiking in old growth forest. The first half mile or so winds its way up the Middle Ridge. Another half mile brings you to Kelly Creek. The trail follows the creek until it meets West Waddell Creek. Here you can take the Timms Creek Trail to cut the hike down to about 6 miles. We were interested in seeing Berry Creek Falls, even though there isn’t much water this time of year, so we pushed on. After passing Timms Creek Trail, the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail follows the West Waddell Creek downstream. There are still plenty of redwoods around and there was even a bit of water in the creek. We spotted a couple of fish in one of the pools along the creek, but they were pretty small.

Eventually the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail meets the Berry Creek Trail, and immediately you have a decent view of Berry Creek Falls. If you continue on Skyline-to-the-Sea, you eventually hit the Pacific Ocean (with Skyline referring to the road of that name along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains). Following the Berry Creek Trail you soon reach a large wooden viewing platform with a great view of the falls (picture left). Mary and I stopped here fro lunch (with quite a few others). Even with the limited water flow, we were both quite impressed with Berry Creek Falls. After lunch we continued along Berry Creek Trail, passing both Silver Falls and Golden Cascade. I think both of these falls would be much more impressive in the winter and spring where the water is really flowing. Even so, this portion of the trail is quite lovely.

After following Berry Creek for a mile or so we reached the Sunset Trail. Near the junction is the Sunset Camp which is probably a great destination for a backpacking trip. After climbing up from the creek bed, we were in open sunlight for a while (picture right). This was pretty much the only open area on the entire hike. There are some great views of rolling hills and evergreens as far as the eye can see.It’s probably about 4 miles back to HQ along the Sunset Trail. Other than the open part near the Berry Creek Trail junction, most of the rest is forested with a fair share of redwoods. Upon reaching the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail again, we were able to cut over the the parking area and get back to the car, saving a good half mile or more.

Big Basin is an awesome park, even though we seem to forget about it. I think we’ll be visiting more often in the future and are already talking about a backpacking trip there sometime. Usually for backpacking and long hikes I take my Cannon S3, but this time I decided to carry my Cannon 40D. It gave me an opportunity to use my wide angle lens, which I rarely do. Good thing its a fast lens, because there wasn’t a lot of light in the forest. Even so, I should have been using a tripod. Check out my Big Basin gallery for more pictures.

It seems I have been slacking-off as far as blogging goes lately. I’ve mainly been passing my time watching the Olympics and trying to figure out what I should do with my life…

Two weekends ago, we did our Mission Peak hike on Saturday (August 9), but we went up from the Ohlone Trail. We haven’t done that in a while. I brought my 40D for once, and was rewarded with an encounter with a coyote near the top (pictured on the left). I saw it not far from the junction where the Ohlone Trail meets the trail from Stanford Ave. On the way down, near what I dubbed the “Cow Pond”, Nick spotted what turned out to be a Cooper’s hawk. Initially it was sitting on a rock having a staring contest with a squirrel. The squirrel won, and the hawk flew to a fence post. After a couple minutes there, it flew off. We also encountered a Northern harrier on the way up. It was right next to the path, but I didn’t have my camera ready. I did manage to get a few shots from farther away. They are posted here.

The following Sunday (August 10), Mary and I took Nick to Point Reyes. We picked up some sandwiches at Safeway and coffee at Peet’s, then made the 1.5 hour drive to the visitor center. The Big Bear Visitor Center has a really nice display of local wildlife. I highly recommend it. After the visitor center, we drove out to Drake’s Beach to eat our lunch. It was really foggy at the beach. I was concerned we would have bad visibility at the lighthouse. After lunch we drove out to the point and walked to the lighthouse (picture on left). Fortunately, it was completely clear by the time we got out there. On our walk to the lighthouse, we saw some deer grazing near the path. From the light house we watched various birds and a few sea lions far below. We could even see some huge jellyfish floating in the surf. After we got back from the lighthouse we drove to the Chimney Rock trailhead. We did not find any elephant seals at their haul-out beach. We did spot a Northern harrier on the hunt. We walked out part of the way to Chimney Rock for a view from the Overlook (picture on right). We spotted the harrier on the way back to the car. On the way home we stopped in Emeryville to look for Esperanza, one of the peregrines from last year’s brood in San Jose. She is often spotted in the area, but we did not find her.

I spent most of the week watching the Olympics. I’m not real impressed with NBC’s coverage, but somehow I keep watching. It was pretty exciting to see Michael Phelps win all those medals, but I’m glad swimming is over. I also managed to meet up with my friends Reed (from Austin) and Milya (from London) who were in town on business. Mary and I had dinner with them on Monday and I met them again for lunch on Wednesday.

This past Saturday (August 16) was Nick’s last day in the Bay Area. Instead of our usual hike, we went to Windy Hill with Jeff, Alta, Catherine and Hien. It a bit shorter and easier then Mission, but still a pretty good work out. After the hike we all went to Mango Cafe in Palo Alto. Mango Cafe is a pretty good Jamaican and Trinidad/Tobago restaurant. I think they have changed owners a few times, so the quality varies from visit to visit. Later that evening we took Nick to the airport so he could fly home.

On Sunday (August 17) Mary and I met up with Prabha and Steve for lunch. We met them earlier in the year when we went out to visit a bald eagle nest site. Prabha was also quite involved with the San Jose falcons. It was nice catching up with them since the falcons fledged. Otherwise, we watched some Olympics and had a relaxing day.

Other than that, I’ve been mulling over what my next career move will be. I feel like I’ve reached a bit of a dead end regarding clean tech. At the moment I’m leaning towards a position with my old friends at Oregan Networks. They are based in London, but they need a technical person to interact with their partners and customers in the US. It will probably involve a little more travel than I prefer, but the technology is related to what I was doing for a few years at LuxSonor, networked entertainment. I’ll be meeting with Mark, the CEO, over the weekend to work out the final details. We’ll see how it goes.

Last week Mary and I went to see The Dark Knight with some friends. We went to the Camera 12 theater in downtown San Jose on a Wednesday night. It was not crowded, but there were more people than typically there for a mid-week movie. I suppose the elevated attendance would attest to the popularity of this movie, which has already made it in to the All-Time Top 10 USA Box Office and #1 on IMDB’s Top 250.

To start with, I enjoyed this movie very much. It has good action and character development, an uncommon combination. As with Batman Begins, this is a much darker portrayal of Batman the the older movie series. With that said, I’m not sure it lived up to all the hype. I think a lot of the hype stems from the tragic death of one of the stars, Heath Ledger. He does put in a great performance as the Joker, but I’m not sure why people keep talking about it in terms of the Oscars. To me it’s not so much better than Jack Nicholson’s portrayal in the 1989 movie, though it does benefit from being in a stronger movie over-all. The older movie series was a bit campy at times, especially in the later installments.

I like Christian Bale as Batman, though he’s not a prominent in The Dark Knight as in Batman Begins. Aaron Eckhart is also pretty good as Harvey Dent, [spoiler alert] although I think they ran out of time to fully explore his fall from grace. Even as it was, the 152 minute movie is a bit long by my reckoning, not so much that it had a lot of unnecessary scenes, I just don’t find it so comfortable to sit in a theater for 2.5 hours. I suppose this is the price you pay to add plot and character development to a summer action blockbuster.

We went to a couple barbecues over the weekend. On Saturday, after hiking Mission Peak, we went to Joe and Cam’s house for some good pulled pork and lime pie. Joe is one of Mary’s old co-workers, and Mary is the one to introduce him to Cam, a friend of a friend. They are married with two kids now. On Sunday we went to Than and Mike’s house. They are cousins of Mary’s and were having a barbecue since a lot of extended family was in town for a wedding of another of Mary’s cousins’ kids. There were folks in from all over the country and even one cousin from Vietnam.

Earlier on Sunday we had gone to check out the owls by the “Magic Fence” and for a walk around Don Edwards. There’s still one little owlet in a burrow near the road (pictured on right, taken by Mary). The burrow is under the cement support for one of the street lights. It sits just behind the light quite often then darts for the burrow when spooked. There are still a couple other young owls in the field, but I think they are a bit older than the one by the light post. At Don Edwards we saw most of the usual suspects, including the black phoebe pictured above left. Click the phoebe picture for a full sized version, or click the owl picture to see the rest of the pictures we took on Sunday.

Last week Mary got me a new camera body, the Canon EOS 40D, to replace my old Canon EOS 10D. The 10D is still working, but the shutter is starting to stick. The 40D has higher resolution (10.1 mega pixels), faster frame rate (6.5 frames per second) and a larger LCD (3 inch) among other things. It comes with a longer life battery but is compatible with the batteries I already have for the 10D. It also uses the same CompactFlash cards as before and of course is compatible with my EOS lenses.

I haven’t done a lot of shooting with the new camera, but I’m pretty happy so far. I’ve taken it out to my normal haunts like Don Edwards and the “Magic Fence” (where I took the shot of the burrowing owl on the left) and I even brought it along to Mission Peak this past weekend. The resolution improvement is quite obvious and I feel like the focus is a bit faster, though it’s still a challenge to capture sharp images. One of these days I’m going to have to break down and start using a tripod.

I’m still trying to figure out what the next phase of my career is going to look like. I had more or less given up on the green technology field since I just can’t seem to find much that matches my skill set. However, after Al Gore’s speech last week about moving to 100% carbon free energy in 10 years, I’ve become somewhat reinvigorated. I blogged about it on GreenValhalla titled Al Gore’s Challenge to America. I’ve even started getting involved with the We Campaign by writing to elected officials and the local newspaper. I’ve even submitted a form to become a volunteer and applied for a job at the parent organization, The Alliance for Climate Protection. Don’t be surprised if you get an email from me asking you to get involved!

Yesterday I had to go downtown to City Hall to pick up the picture I had on display at the library falcon exhibit. I took the opportunity to scout for the peregrine falcons. I ended up going on quite a long walk around SJSU, downtown and along the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens. The park is a narrow strip of green along the Guadalupe River along the west side of downtown San Jose. There’s quite a nice path for biking or walking. I didn’t see any falcons along the walk, but I did see ducklings and egrets and herons (also pictured on left). I did eventually find a peregrine when I got back to City Hall. One of the young was sitting on the nest ledge. While I was fiddling with the scope it magically disappeared. It was a nice adventure in any case.

For the Independence Day weekend Mary and I are going backpacking with our friend Alta. We’ll be going to Lassen Volcanic National Park in north-central California. We’ve been to the park a few times before, but this will be our first backpacking trip there. It will also be my first backpacking trip longer than one night as this trip will be Friday through Sunday. Hopefully I’ll have some photos to post next week.