Summer 2011: The Great Outdoors

This past summer, I spent a lot of time helping my family work on our new home and taking differential equations, my final required math class, at University of California, Davis.  However, I was able to get away with family to go on some pretty fun trips and I got the chance to do some great hikes with my dad.

In the middle of June, my family left to go on a road trip up to Sun Valley, Idaho to see my maternal grandpa, and we decided to lengthen the trip a couple days so we could travel to some great places on the way there and on the way back.  On our way to Idaho, we pulled off the freeway and camped a night in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.  This mountain range is very impressive, especially from the desert below and if you got dropped in the middle of the mountain range, you would never guess that you were in Nevada.  My dad and I went on some neat, short hikes to explore the area.  This is definitely I want to come back to someday.

It was really nice getting to spend time with my grandpa in Sun Valley.  It is a very relaxing and enjoyable place to be.  Ironically, President Nikias and his wife came to Sun Valley over the summer for a vacation!  Seems like the place to go to get away.

http://uscnews.usc.edu/university/cycling_comes_first_for_the_nikiases_on_sun_valley_vacation_1.html

About a week after we got home from that trip, my dad and I headed up to Lake Tahoe, which is about two hours from my house, to climb Mt. Tallac.  It is beautifully positioned above South Lake Tahoe, and it was painted with snow, even at the end of June.  It was difficult hiking through snow mile after mile, but we finally made it to the top and enjoyed the spectacular view, looking out over the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains.

I was amazed by the amount of snow in the mountains throughout the summer.  It was very unusual, but still very pretty.  Two weeks after being close to 10,000 feet above sea level, I traveled down to 0 feet above sea level to Point Reyes National Seashore for a family camping trip.  It has sort of become a tradition to go here as a family every summer.  For those of you who have not heard of Point Reyes, it is a national park located about 30 miles north of San Francisco.  I personally think that it is one of the prettiest places I have ever been to; one could go from being in a forest to a marsh to being in the ocean to walking in farmland all in one day without having to drive more than 40 minutes.  I think my favorite place though in the national park is Drake’s Beach.  It is believed by many historians that Sir Francis Drake actually landed on this beach during his explorations.

We were actually able to find a monument off the shore of the beach a little ways that described some evidence indicating his landing at that beach.

Overall, our trip to Point Reyes was great and very enjoyable.

My last trip I did this past summer was to the San Jacinto Wilderness area to climb San Jacinto Peak a couple days before I moved into USC.  My dad and I drove down a couple days earlier to do the trip and camped below the mountain trailhead.  On summit day, we woke up at dawn and started up the mountain.  The hike is about 12 miles round trip so we had to get an early start.  We made it to the top around noon and had awesome views looking out over Palm Desert and out towards Downtown.  The mountain is over 10,000 feet high and is the county highpoint of Riverside County.  It is very spectacular from the top, especially when looking down the steep cliffs that extend downwards thousands of feet.

I am really happy that I got the opportunity to go on some really amazing trips this past summer.  I love to travel and I love the outdoors.  I hope to go on more trips soon, even with my life becoming busier and more hectic.