Since I was the designated “planner” for this trip, I’ll take the blame for under-preparing ourselves for the hike. The unfortunate issue with backpacking is that there’s sparse details about a trail and what to expect. When I searched on Google for information about Rancheria Falls, I found sites indicating that the trail was about 6 or 7 out of 10 in terms of difficulty (Half Dome is 10) and there was only an elevation gain of 800 feet. And the kicker – it’s only a 7 mile hike.

If we are to trust my GPS, I’d say both measurements are wrong. According to the data uploaded onto MotionBased, we ended up hiking 9.73 miles each way and ended up doing far more than 800 feet of climbing, due to the numerous ups and downs of the trail.

So Rancheria Falls was hardly what we expected. As a whole, it’s a beautiful trail, which starts at the O’Shaughnessy Dam, which was built in the 1930s to create the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which provides water to over 2.4 million people in the San Francisco area. The trail winds its way along the northern side of the reservoir, providing breathtaking views of the water and the granite rock that surrounds it. Along the way, you pass a Wapama Falls:

And wind your way along some ups and downs before finally reaching Rancheria Falls and the campground. All in all, it’s a gorgeous hike.

If there’s any moral to the story, it’s that backpacking is hard and you need to prepare. I really do feel bad that I didn’t emphasize the importance of bringing along plenty of water – some of us only had one water bottle, and when you’re hiking with a heavy pack, in 90 degree weather, with the sun beating down on you and with air quality that’s less than ideal due to the Northern California Wildfires, 16 oz of water is only going to last you so long. We had a lot of external factors working against us during the hike-out (the hike back was a lot better), but that’s the whole point about camping anyway – to be outdoors and have fun.

Although much of the humor centered around our slim chances of survival or relative pain experienced at various moments of time, looking back, I can’t help but laugh. Jenny’s shoes broke less than 5 minutes into the hike, requiring her to hike with sewn up soles. Charlene lost her sunglasses. Nelson fell in the water (and Wysz saved him). Koklynn was the best target for mosquitoes. I got sunburned and hiked the entire trail back with a bum knee that hurt with every step. And Wysz, he’s the best – turning his jeans into shorts on the hike back, curling up in a fetal position after Nelson and I hiked ahead to Rancheria Falls to get water and bring it back for him and using a wine bottle to hold water on the hike out.

So would I do it again? Definitely. In fact, I’m hoping to get out to Yosemite at least once more this summer, so if you want to backpack, hike and camp at a drive-in campground, let me know. Here’s a photo by Wysz that highlights the vastness of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir:

More photos:
Nelson’s photos
Koklynn’s photos
Wysz’s photos

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Rancheria Falls, Yosemite

But, I’m not complaining.  Bay Area weather is still the best.  It’s in the hundreds in SoCal.  It’s hot AND humid in St. Louis.  It’s raining in New England.

So, the Bay Area wins…except in cost of living and gas prices…

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Hotness is relative

This entire week is Googleserve, a company-wide initiative to get out and serve our local communities.  It was initiated by an all-star Googler who used to be on our team, Seth Marbin, who manages to do his full-time job, organize GoogleServe, and raise a child.  My team went out today to the Oakland Zoo to help them out with various maintenance.  The work was set-up with the help of Hands on Bay Area, a pretty awesome non-profit that gets volunteers into the community to help with initiatives throughout the year.  Our group of around 50 split up into various groups to tackle some stuff the zoo needed help with.  I think many people expected this work to be pretty easy and then we could go off and pet the animals.  We were quickly mistaken, as groups ended up cleaning out the carnivore feeding room, reseeding grass near the elephant exhibit, or clearing brush near the flamingo exhibit.  I ended up pulling weeds in the area where goats in the children’s area could run around.  It was a really hot day however, so the goats all hung out in the barn, while we toiled in the sun.  Overall, the groups did a tremendous job helping out, and the zoo staff was really appreciative of how all our work put them weeks ahead of the tasks they needed to do over the summer.  So that felt good :)  My group did get to walk around a bit – petting the goats, looking at some tigers, and almost getting spit on by the chimpanzees.  The biggest issue was simply that we had no idea what we were getting involved in to begin with, and our instructions were to wear long pants and layers.  It was way too hot to be wearing all that clothes while pulling weeds.

In other news, I really need to get rid of my biking tan:

Thanks to Koklynn for taking this picture, I guess.

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Googleserve @ the Oakland Zoo

• NASCAR – cars drive around in an oval about 500 times.   Exciting.  If you consider watching paint dry exciting.  100 cars + 500 laps = a lot of gas wasted for a “sport” which is dependent on burning fuel so a bunch of advertisers can get their ads placed on a car and the driver’s uniform.  Plus, many people who go to these events drive huge HEMI trucks that get ~15mpg.
• The “No Waiting Area” at airpots – this one bugs me to no end.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone off to pick-up a friend from the airport and I arrive before they’ve picked up their baggage.  I have to drive around the airport depature gate continuously, waiting for the precise moment when she or he pops out of the sliding doors.  I then have to double-park, load some bags, and drive off before security considers me a threat because I’ve stopped my car.  If cars could just wait at the departure terminal turnaround that would be fine and dandy.  I realize that this may cause a lot of congestion in the pick-up area, so why not let people at last idle for a few minutes, which is usually all they need.  Or, have a nice little area where driver’s can park until their friend is ready for pick-up.
• No more aerial coverage of enclosed stadiums – I wrote about this previously, but all of the effort to get a blimp into the air to film an enclosed stadium is a big waste
• Mail – ever heard of the Internet?  Even things like bills or magazines can all be handled online.  There’s so much junk mail that gets sent and immediately tossed into the garbage everyday, that if this practice was just phased out, we’d save tons of trees.  Plus, no more trucks need to drive around delivering mail door to door, or for the matter, fly around the world transfering letters and advertisements.
• Newspapers – just like mail, why do we need to get a newspaper in print?  News is up to the minute online or on television.  A coworker, who shall remain nameless, always heckled a fellow employee for bringing a newspaper to work everyday.  I remember once, this person, let’s name him The Wise, went up to him while he was reading the news and said “Hey, what anything happen in the news yesterday?”  ’nuff said.

Well, that’s all I have for now – I’m sure there are some more things we don’t really need, so feel free to add some in the comments section!

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

With rising gas prices…

To put things into even more shocking terms, “the energy used for pumping and processing, transportation, and refrigeration, brings the annual fossil fuel footprint of bottled water consumption in the United States to over 50 million barrels of oil equivalent—enough to run 3 million cars for one year. If everyone drank as much bottled water as Americans do, the world would need the equivalent of more than 1 billion barrels of oil to produce close to 650 billion individual bottles.”

Unfortunately, I worry that the most recent AP Report that “There are Drugs in Drinking Water” will push this number even higher. I’m not entirely convinced that the fact there are extremely small bits of drugs in drinking water poses a health risk. Plus, it was from a study by the Associate Press, not a respected medical journal or institution. So I’m not going to change my habits based on the report, just yet.

Anyway, back to my point about the environmental impact of producing bottled water. The numbers are there and so are the facts. But, like any movement, there’s an artistic aspect, and the photography of Chris Jordan caught me eye. I was linked to his work from a post to an internal work mailing list, so I won’t take credit for discovering him myself. His most recent exhibit, Running the Numbers, provides some shocking images of how much waste is produced every second by Americans. Besides showing us what 2 million bottles of water looks like (what Americans use every five minutes), my ‘favorite’ images are of cell phones and prison uniforms. All of the images easily underscore problems with our environment and justice system and can hopefully serve as a catalyst for change. What do you all think? Did any image catch your eye?

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

America’s Obsession with Bottled Water