I would not have had any intention of rehiking the trail to Murietta Falls (deemed a “Butt-Kicker” in 101 Great Hikes), except that it, the Ohlone Wilderness Trail, reaches all the way to Mission Peak, covering 28 miles with 7,600 feet of cumulative elevation gain. So of course I had to rehike the trail to Murietta Falls (and then some)—the next “logical” stage in my quest to discover how far I can hike in a day.
Last Sunday at 7 in the morning, Stephanie dropped me off at the trailhead in Del Valle Regional Park, and I started walking, and I didn’t stop until I emerged at the Stanford Avenue parking lot at 4:20pm, exactly 9 hours and 20 minutes later—a perfect three mile per hour pace. It now stands as the longest I’ve ever hiked in a day after Skyline-to-the-Sea, and the first time I’ve crossed the marathon threshold. Onto 30!
If you haven’t seen Will YouTube Ever Run Out Of Video IDs?, it’s worth a watch, not only because Tom Scott recorded the 5-minute video in a single take, but also because in the middle of it he managed to recite seventy-three quintillion, seven hundred eighty-six quadrillion, nine hundred seventy-six trillion, two hundred ninety-four billion, eight hundred thirty-eight million, two hundred six thousand, four hundred sixty-four from memory.
There’s only one problem: he recited the wrong number.
Actually, there are a few problems*, but first, let me provide some background.
Last week, my Grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Barnette (née Lasher) passed away, just 5 days shy of her 94th birthday. For much of my life I knew her formally as Mary Elizabeth Myers (that’s how we addressed our Christmas and birthday thank-you notes), using the last name she acquired from a short second marriage. When my mother and her sisters moved her to an assisted-living facility several years ago, she surprised them by asking to revert to her married name from their father, Kenneth Ashel Barnette, who had passed away when my mother was still in high school. It was something they’d hoped she’d have done decades earlier, but it was all the more touching for her to do so at the outset of her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Friends and family affectionately knew her “Mary Lib”, but to her six grandchildren she was Grandmommy.
I cook with whatever I have on hand, so when I make an omelet, I fill it with whatever I have on hand. Sometimes my omelets are just “ok”. And sometimes I have bacon, green onions, sauteed mushrooms, and fresh goat cheese. Sometimes I have fresh thyme that I whisk in with the eggs. I will continue to fill my omelets with whatever I have on hand, as long as I have bacon, green onions, sauteed mushrooms, and fresh goat cheese.
A day hike doesn’t have to be 25 miles. The Peters Creek Loop in Portola Redwoods State Park is “only” a mile long—you just have to hike 6 miles to get there.
Unfortunately I didn’t practice very good poison oak hygiene last weekend (I wore shorts and didn’t shower immediately upon returning home), and now I’m suffering from a few small spots on both legs and a swath on my left arm—my worst exposure since my first. Lesson re-learned.
