08.17.2010 Assembling the stroller

After spending a few days shopping for strollers, we decided on a Bumbleride Indie Stroller.  Although it's a bit bulkier than the 4-wheeled type strollers, we figured we could sacrifice on the space for the versatility and robustness.  It is like a jogger stroller and can go over all sorts of terrains (cement, wood, carpet, grass, dirt, trails), so it can be our only stroller for many years.  We had tried out this stroller (along with many others) at Lullaby Lane in San Bruno, but ended up buying at diapers.com with a 15% introductory discount.  It's tough being in the showroom business nowadays... it's unlikely stores like Lullaby Lane can last much longer given the online competitions.  Anyhow, after receiving the stroller, I proceeded on assembling it.  How long does it take?  Well, in the time-elapsed video below, it took only 1 min 47 sec :)

08.14.2010 Pyramid Peak

I went on a solo hike at one of my favorite hiking locales - Pyramid Peak in Twin Bridges, CA - just half hour from Lake Tahoe.  It is a climb that involves a lot of class 2 scrambling.  Elevation is from about 6000 ft to 10,000 ft over a very short distance of about 3 to 4 miles.  It's one heck of a workout, especially in the summer.  But the views are beyond gorgeous - not just the mountains and lakes nearby, but also the alpine blooms.  The scrambling experience is fantastic - no bush whacking, no mosquitoes, and easy handholds for the most part.  Definitely worth going back to every year as I did twice this year.

 This is the 4th time I've hiked Pyramid Peak (near South Tahoe, California), the other three times in 2006, 2008, and 7/17/2010. This time, I did the hike solo. I left Bay Area (Sunnyvale) around 5:10 am, stopped in Cameron Park for breakfast, and got to the Twin Bridges trailhead at about 8:35 am. Started hiking about 8:45 am, but after a few minutes, had to turn back as I had forgotten my sunglasses. So the official start was close to 9 am.

More tiring than the July hike even though probably not as hot, not sure why. Went up horsetail falls, emerged to the left a little, but still went right and then cut left to the lakes. Had to go up/down quite a bit before reaching bottom of gulch, next to Gefo lake. One bit of moderate scramble at bottom (because of loose rocks), then up the green gulch to top. Then veered fairly left to base of Pyramid peak, did not circle around to the right. Then went up the peak slightly to right of the gentlest portion. Started ok, but got loose rock quickly and then finally pass that to more stable rocks and the bushes.

There were quite a few people at top already, including a group of young men. On way down, looked for the ridge, went directly towards it – and found the trail rightaway. About 15 min from Rt50, ran into an another gentleman (from Sacramento?), who did the same hike solo as well, probably had an earlier start by 15 min?

I got back to parking lot probably just after 3pm. But locked my keys in the trunk as I was putting things away. Called AAA, truck came about 1:15 later. Got in, headed home, stopped twice for food. Got home about 7:40pm.

On this hike, instead of the usual photos, I took a series (34) of video clips, I've uploaded all of them onto youtube and embedded them on this page. They're all HD, but the initial playback resolution is probably 340 instead of 1080p, so if you want to watch in HD, you'll need to change the setting.  

For the list of all videos, see here.  Below are just a few of the clips.