The Newest Adventure

As most of you know, I’ve always been curious and passionate about the world and our universe, but never in a million years, would I have thought I would be where I am today. This past week I visited my 7th continent and skied on my 6th. By the time I’m 40, I plan on skiing on all seven. Africa is going to be a tough one, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

A lot of people have called me crazy over the years. To many I am. Who in their right mind would quit their job and move to Malaysia for 6 months? Who wants to ski on all 7 continents?? Who buys an RV and quits again to travel the USA for a year??? That sounds downright mad! It brings me joy. Well, 90% joy, and 10% fear.

Life is an adventure and that adventure is different for everyone. For some, it’s having kids and raising a family. For others, it’s building a career. For me, it’s traveling the world, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. We are only here once in this life and in this body.

It’s for this reason that in September, I’m setting off on yet another adventure. Traveling around the USA in a new 25ft RV. I hope you’ll come with me on this journey. It’s going to have ups and downs, but it will be amazing. I hope to learn more about myself, relationships, and life outside the tech bubble. I also hope to discover if what I believe about our country is, in fact, true. We are united in kindness. Even though we see stories in the media about how divided we are, I think we are actually still good to each other. I can’t wait to see all the awesome places each state has to offer and find out if my belief is true.

You can follow along via Instagram, YouTube, or our website. I would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe to our YouTube. We want to hear what you think and if you have any suggestions on places we should visit! I also plan on having a cooking show eventually, which should be “interesting”. Cooking in an RV is going to be a fun, new challenge.

Insta: goteamadventure

YouTube: http://youtube.com/brianeddy

Website: https://www.goteamadventure.com/

Helicopter Kayaking in British Columbia

This past weekend the hubby, some friends, and myself headed to Abbotsford, British Columbia for a heli kayaking adventure that was almost a year in the making.

In August of last year Brian and I were hanging out in Kirkwood with our friend Jeremy and his partner Randy when we saw a viral video that had been shared around on Facebook. It showed some people taking a helicopter to the back country of British Columbia and kayaking down glacier snow melt in beautiful, unreal blue water.  We called up Nick, the owner/operator of Compass Heli Tours, and chatted with him about all the details before ultimately deciding to book our trip for June of 2018. Why June? Because that’s when the water is the amazing bright blue color.

Fast forward to June and Nick was very accommodating when Randy was no longer able to go and we had to switch our reservation to include 2 more friends. Day of our trip  arrived and again Nick was on top of it. He emailed to let us all know that conditions were not perfect like the above video and that he would give us other options. We met up with him to discuss said options and talk with the previous group that had just gotten back. Their pictures looked amazing, so we decided to go and check it out for ourselves.

Nick took us out to the helicopter for a safety briefing and then we climbed in and took off for an amazing adventure. 

Now I haven’t been in a helicopter since I was airlifted to Stanford back in high school, so I had a few butterflies in my stomach when we took off. That wore off pretty fast though, especially once we were in the back country. It is so beautiful there!

After a 50 minute helicopter tour, we landed at our first destination. A lake that was beginning to melt and create that amazing blue water from the video!

We hiked down to the beach where Nick had the kayaks ready to go. One by one, we each took off and started kayaking the rim of the lake. It was a little slushy but not that bad. The temperature was perfect and the company was fantastic. How often do you get to say you took a helicopter to the back country and kayaked in snow melt!??

After kayaking for about an hour we had lunch on some very nice picnic tables and discussed our next destination. The lunch was from Lepp Farm Market, a local market that is organic and gets all of it’s ingredients from British Columbia. So tasty. Especially the dessert. I had a brownie that had a marshmallow middle and rice crispy top. OMG!

We loaded back into the helicopter and headed off for our next destination. A rainforest lake where Nick had been going since he was a kid. Back story on Nick; he’s been flying helicopters for 11 years, and comes from a family of pilots. He used to collect pine cones for seedlings and also helped fighting fires using helicopters. OMG this guy is awesome! He’s planning on building a lodge for helicopter glamping trips on Paradise Lake, which I think is fantastic.

He landed us on a sandy beach with not much room for error, but he’s a pro, so no big deal. The kayaks were hiding under some camouflage. We all got in and enjoyed a little piece of paradise. The water is very clear and you can see all the trees that are now submerged due to a rock fall that happened many years ago. When the snow melted, it created this breathtaking lake.

After another 25 minutes it was time to go back. 😦 We loaded back into the helicopter and this time, I got my turn at sitting in the co-pilot seat (not really a co-pilot, but up front!!)

The whole trip was 5 hours long and worth every penny. Nick is amazing and he offers multiple kinds of trips. Next ski season he’s offering heli skiing, so you know I’ll be back!

https://www.compasshelitours.com/glacier-kayaking/

Check him out above and tell him Team Adventure sent you. He’ll take VERY good care of you and you’ll have an experience of a lifetime!

The Maiden Voyage

For those of you who didn’t know, Brian and I purchased our very own shiny new RV about 2 weeks ago. It’s a Prism by Coachmen on a Mercedes Sprinter. It has one slider that makes it feel almost as big as a studio. Stove top/oven, microwave, and all the other basic life essentials. It sleeps six and is 25 feet long.

I have driven it once, and plan on driving it a lot more. It’s like driving a big boat, except it has cameras on the sides and in the back.

Onto the maiden voyage. We headed up to South Lake Tahoe early Saturday morning. It drove really well until the part outside of Sacramento (that first big hill)… that was rough. Peddle to the metal and managed about 55mph. Once were past that though it did surprisingly well. Highway 50’s curves and climbs were pretty much no problem. We arrived too early to check into our campground, so we stopped in the TJ Maxx parking lot and made some sandwiches. We also tested the TV antenna and discovered that we got a few channels!

1pm rolled around, so we headed to our campsite at Campground by the Lake. It’s in the trees right across the street from Lake Tahoe. I highly recommend staying there if you’re in the area. The only caveat being there is noise from highway 50. At least to me, it sounded like a constant waterfall so no big deal. Our site, B009 had 30 amp power, but shared water. In loop A, you get both water and electricity, but I booked way last minute, so I was happy with anything!

We hooked up and immediately went to work making it home for the next 2 days. First things first, put the slide out out. Yeah, that was a little scary as it didn’t come out evenly and then almost got stuck. I want to say it was because the RV wasn’t level. After re-evaluating, Brian used the levels we bought to make it level before attempting to slide out again. This time it worked fine. By this point, it was starting to drizzle so we decided to go for a short walk around camp and do a run to Safeway.

Once we got back it starting raining, so we stayed inside and tested out everything. I even climbed up into the bed above the cab. It’s pretty comfortable, but seriously not really for adults. I smacked my head into the ceiling.

I made my first dinner. Chicken Pad Thai on the stovetop. It went fairly well, but it’s crazy how steamy things get in a hurry. Especially when you don’t have the windows open. It’s a learning experience for sure. I had the fan on, but you also need airflow. After dinner, we worked as a team to clean up the dishes/stove area, then we settled in for an evening in.

The temperature dropped to 45 outside by 10pm so we decided to try the heater, which, by the way, is pretty darn loud. It turns on the internal fan for the AC to push the warm air around. It’s fairly quick, but after 9pm, there are quiet hours, so we turned it off after it got up to 64. By then, it was time for bed. Another note to self: the bed cover that the RV comes with is NOT actually warm, nor is it actually a blanket of any kind. Luckily I was smart enough to have brought an extra blanket. Still, not super warm at first. Brian closed the drapes to the kitchen which isolates the bedroom/bathroom area and we headed for dreamland. Another note: one person has to climb over the other to get out and use the bathroom…. probably not wise if you’re not as mobile as we are.

When we got up in the morning, the temperature in the RV had dropped to 50. I knew I should have brought my slippers! We turned the heater back on and waited for a little bit before getting up and starting our day.

Unfortunately we had forgotten the kayak, so we decided to walk to the lake and see what we might want to do. We walked along a path and ended up in the marsh land near the Tahoe Keys. It ended up being too muddy to go much further, so we watched the birds and enjoyed the view for awhile instead.

We headed back to our RV for a quick lunch and then back out towards Stateline to see if we could find the beer Brian likes at Raley’s. It was about a two mile walk and in the places where the wind wasn’t blowing, it was pretty darn warm. There was lots of traffic on highway 50, and at times, we were walking faster than the cars. Sadly we discovered that Raley’s did not have Track 7’s Nukin’ Futz, so we ended up with Belching Beaver instead.

Once back at camp, I decided it was time to use the oven! I had read that you need to put a pizza stone on the bottom rack in order to have more even temperature so Brian cut my stone down so it would fit. We lit the pilot light and turned it on to 350. I prepped the frozen cookie balls and waited. The other thing we forgot was an oven thermometer. Whoops. There is no light, so you have to open the door, which, of course, then lets all the heat out. After a few minutes, I decided it seemed warm enough, so I put the cookies in and set a timer for 9 minutes.

6 minutes later there was a very loud pop. This was my pizza stone breaking in two. Yay. Another 2 minutes went by and then the smoke alarm started going off. The bottom of the cookies were burned, but the tops were still raw. 😦 Apparently I need to re-think the oven by moving the rack around. I’ll be trying again next weekend.

Later we tried making a fire with wood we purchased from the check in area. Sadly it was very wet, so we really couldn’t get it started. Brian went to take a time lapse of the sunset, and I continued my attempts at making the fire. Our friendly neighbors saw I was having a hard time and one of them, Brittany, came to help. In the end, she invited me to come join them as they had a raging fire. They even offered a beer! Super nice people from Chico. When Brian came back, he joined all of us and we chatted for a few hours until bedtime.

Another cold night, and another morning turning on the heater. We had a quick breakfast, packed up everything, and headed off after hitting the dump station. Yay, the dump station! First time dumping my dump. Lol. Not too bad actually. Just remember everything goes down. Gravity is your friend.

We stopped to get gas and when we started the RV back up, the friendly check engine light was on. Yay so much fun. It still drove fine, so we headed towards Sacramento in hopes of catching my friend Ellen at the Track 7 Brewery. I made an appointment online to bring the Mercedes in on Thursday. Thank goodness for the internets.

After stopping at a parking lot to have lunch, we made it to Track 7. It’s in a warehouse and it’s awesome! We got a Nutkin’ Futz to share and said hi to Ellen.

We stopped in Stockton to say hi to Brian’s sister and show her our awesome new house. Then we headed home through wonderful bay area traffic. I ended up taking a nice nap on the bed with the window open and a nice breeze.

In the end, it was a fun weekend, but I still have a lot of testing to do with that oven. I hope to figure it out this weekend at Big Basin!

The check engine light was on because some critter chewed through one of the hoses. Mercedes in San Jose was fantastic and fixed it for free. Rodent control people. Ideas? Next up: Big Basin!

 

 

 

BRB – Clouds Rest on a Whim

So last week Brian and I decided it was time to check another item off our bucket list. Ever since we hiked Half Dome, we wanted to hike Clouds Rest to get a different view of the Valley. In fact, we were at a Pizzeria in Groveland when we saw a map with all the “must see places” in Yosemite which included Clouds Rest. It was me that said, yep, that’s going on the list. We have prep for Machu Picchu in October, so Brian figured now was a good time to train at altitude.

Saturday

So Saturday as I was packing I realized I couldn’t find my cutaway shorts. Apparently sometime in the last 6 months they decided to wander off. Not acceptable as I needed quick drying clothes for the hike. (you have to wade through some water). Last minute shopping at Sports Basement made me realize that size 10 is hard to find in a pinch. I didn’t have much of a choice, so I paid $70 for a pair of shorts! 😦 Shout our to Prana? We finally got on the road at 1:30pm, which was too late for the bay area. So much traffic as everyone was trying to leave and crashing into each other in a hurry.

We got to Oakdale around 4pm and grabbed a sandwich and continued to Yosemite via highway 120. We arrived around 6pm and being that I had never seen Hetch Hetchy, we decided to go check it out. I had no idea most of the bay area’s water supply came from Yosemite. Pretty cool to see in person! Driving along the road to our destination, I realized that this side of Yosemite was pretty freaking incredible! I must come back!

 

Water pouring out

Beautiful

After eating our sandwiches at a nearby picnic bench, we heading back up to highway 120 and to the forrest roads to find a camping spot. Brian’s “secret” camping spot. He had to move a tree to obtain access, but we got there and it was pretty awesome.

Moving a tree

yeah!

We pitched our tent and headed to bed. Something to note: the mosquitos are pure evil. I got bit on my elbow and it was so achy and unfun that I barely slept. It was a perfect temperature… around 60 degrees.

Campsite!

Sunday

We woke around 5am, which is so late in comparison to what we are used to (1:30am, 2am, 4:30am). Car camping is awesome because you can throw all your crap into the car and take off, which is exactly what we did.

We arrived to the parking lot near the trailhead around 6:30am and had some tasty backpacking oatmeal meals. After applying bug spray with Deet (a necessary thing!), we headed off toward the start of the trail, which starts out with a water crossing where you’re in cold water up to your knees.

The start of the water crossing. Those rocks disappear under the water!

Once you get out the water, you have to be super quick in drying off your feet and getting your hiking shoes on because the mosquitos are waiting for you. Drooling. It was rather terrible!

From the other side of the water crossing, it’s 7.1 miles to the top of Clouds Rest.

7.1 Miles!

The trail up follows the water for a while (Tenaya Lake) which means mosquitos everywhere. Seriously, bug spray is NOT optional. Because we left so early we didn’t need to worry about the sun and sunscreen for awhile. Thank goodness!

The trail kept up with this water theme most of the way up to the junction at Sunrise Mountain. Stupid mosquito hatcheries! We also began to encounter snow, which was rather awesome! 70 plus degrees and there’s snow. That’s just goes to show how much of a winter California actually had.

Mosquito hatchery

OMG SNOW!

So as an FYI, there is a bit of a gradual down after about a mile, which you’ll come to be reminded of on the way down. 🙂 There is also a fairly steep down with lots of granite steps around 3.5 miles. I kept thinking to myself, this is going to suck on the way back… and boy did it!

There are also multiple creek crossings. Luckily all of them had options to wading across them. Trees, jumping, and rocks.

Tree crossing!

YAASS! TREE!

I only almost died once, which is really good odds in my opinion. 🙂

Here’s a picture of the steps going down with a mosquito hatchery.

It’s important to note we had only seen 2-3 other people on the trail by 10ish. 2 people coming down and 2 people at the junction of Sunrise Mountain. It was VERY different than the Yosemite Valley side. I kinda loved it. 🙂

At the junction you’re only 2.5 miles out. Surprisingly a lot of which is relatively flat. Until you reach the bottom of the last climb. Then it’s slabbed granite and the views start to become quite breath-taking.

The last push to the top

Ooooh, the view!

Once you’re at the top, the sense of accomplishment is quite amazing. It’s very similar to Half Dome. It’s so beautiful. Please bring binoculars so you can see the little ants (aka humans trying to get up the cables)

If you look real close, you can see the cables…

I did forget to mention that we saw a lot of flora and fauna. My favorite of which was the fauna. 3 lizards, 2 marmots, 1 crow, 1 pheasant, and 1 snake. Though the fauna was pretty cool too. The wildflowers were pretty!

Marmot!

Wildflower

Once at the top, we had to take our infamous couplie. This time with Half Dome!

We took a lunch break and then started back down around 12:00ish. It definitely did not take as long to get down, but it was WAY harder on my knees. 😦 This getting old shit is for the birds I tell you!

The best part about finishing the hike? That initial water crossing! It is a treat at the end of a 13.5ish mile hike. 🙂

I think I may have stayed in that water crossing for way longer than the original crossing!

Overall, an amazing adventure. I highly recommend this hike. Bring bug spray, start early, and enjoy!

 

 

Adventures in Camping – Portola Redwoods

This past weekend the husband and I, along with a few friends went to Portola Redwoods for what turned into a pretty fun adventure that included multiple river crossings, a four leaf clover, trolling leaves, freshly baked cookies in the woods, rude neighbors, tick removal, and a jolly good time.

Friday:

After about an hour of driving, Ethan, Brian and I showed up to the main entrance around 5pm. We set up tents and started a fire because the mosquitoes were attacking in droves.

We had ourselves some beers and then some pasta with sausages after Kimberly showed up. No cell service meant we were taking bets as to when Thomas and Allison would arrive. So we decided to make cookies while we waited. That’s right, my husband bought an oven that runs off of propane, so we made cookies in the woods!!!

By Sunday people were stopping by our campsite to see this little oven! We were famous. 🙂

Anyways, eventually Thomas and Allison showed up and we all went to bed at a reasonable hour. There would be little to no sleep for me though. Our neighbors snored so loud it shook the ground. Note to self: car camping = ear plugs. Always.

I ended up getting up in the middle of the night and sleeping Brian’s car because I couldn’t take it. Of course, kids on their razor scooters woke me up around 8am.

Saturday:

Breakfast. Bacon + Eggs. Tasty. So much bacon. Made sandwiches for our hike and headed out around 10ish, mosquitoes in tow looking for a tasty meal because apparently my face wasn’t enough. I ended up with around 7 bites on my money maker. Oh well. Up up and away. Into the beautiful redwoods. Thomas discovered a leaf with a face. We decided it was a very creative caterpillar.

The redwoods were so beautiful. We had the trail mostly to ourselves. I think we saw one other person the entire 5 hours we were out hiking, which is ridiculous.

We noticed a metric ass ton of clover as we were hiking, so we started searching for a 4 leaf one. I have never found one, but apparently others in our party had. I wanted some good luck so I became determined.

In the end, I was the only one to find one. I plucked it from the earth and within minutes it was droopy and sad. 😦 But still, I WIN!

Once we reached the grove (our destination), we had a lunch break near a creek. Then we headed to the junction where we would decide whether to come back the way we came or go back another way. Of course, there was a river crossing involved.

 

I did forget to mention that Thomas discovered another leaf with a face so we decided we were, in fact, being trolled by someone.

After a brief discussion we decided to head back to camp a different way than we had come. Even though the trail was supposedly closed. We were positive we could overcome any obstacle that was presented. Those obstacles would be one more riving crossing and some busy beavers cutting down trees.

We managed to make it back to camp in one piece. We started a fire and gathered around the fire to relax. That’s when I noticed Brian had a black growth on his arm… of course it turned out to be a tick. He was super prepared and tried to get the tick to back out by heating up a bottle opener and holding it near it. Sadly, that didn’t work, but he did manage to pull it out with tweezers.

We all checked ourselves after that. Ethan had 3. Luckily only one had bitten. The other two were just chilling. It was determined that the ticks had come from the firewood bought at the visitor center. Note to the reader: check yourself for ticks after you buy firewood!!!

Dinner was frankfurters and hamburgers. A tasty end to our adventure.

Of course, our adventure was not over. Long after we had all gone to bed, our neighbors showed up at 3:30am with a crying baby, yelling, and obnoxious snoring. Another night in the car for me. And in the morning, no apology from them. They talked loudly about inappropriate things and walked in and out of our campsite as well as others. Completely rude. I was glad to leave them.

I had a great time with my friends. It was incredibly nice to disconnect and my hair still smells like campfire after at least 2 showers! 🙂

I look forward to our next adventure!

Goats, Glass, and a Great Time!

This past weekend the boyfriend and I decided we would go car camping. The weather was nice and we had a full 2 days of nothing planned. A rarity for us, let me assure you.

Saturday morning, after having some coffee, Brian came up with a plan. We’ve been meaning to check out this famous Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, so why don’t we head up the coast, stopping at John Muir Woods for a small walk, Calistoga to see the geyser and 3 different types of goats, and finally, making our way west to Fort Bragg? We could find someplace along the way to camp. It sounded great to me, so off we went after a bagel at Starbucks.

On our way to John Muir, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and we noticed something. Girl Scouts. Not just a few. Probably a few thousand. In the end, it turns out it’s an event called Golden Gate Bridging. All the troops do it every year. In fact, I recalled that my sister did it back in the day with my mom. Awesome. There were so many of them. Different color shirts to represent their troops. A group of silly hats. A group of bright pink. A group of face paint. All the way across.

The start of the Girl Scouts!

Our first stop, John Muir Woods. I had heard from a few friends that it’s awesome. We got off the highway at the exit for it and it was a traffic jam nightmare. After sitting in it for a few minutes, we decided to shelf our plan and head on towards Calistoga.

After a couple hours of driving, thanks to some awesome traffic, we reached our new first destination. Old Faithful California!

Me. Mid step. No, not dub step.

Folks. A word of caution. This place is cool for about 20 minutes. The cost. $14. Per person. They do have a nifty geyser that goes off every 5 minutes. It’s cool, for sure. And they have awesome goats, some scary looking sheep, and a guard llama. Otherwise, no bathroom, and no food. A once in a lifetime kind of trip. For those of us, like me, who love goats, TOTALLY worth it. Especially once inside and discovering they had a couple baby fainting goats. So cute. So soft. Who knew they were such escape artists? Yep, this one we found had escaped from it’s pen and was bounding about like a crazy person trying to avoid the two little boys who were harassing it.

Geyser

Tiny Goat

Tiny Goat eating Beddy’s shoe

Awwww.

Me with Tiny Goat

I loved my time with the goats, but it was time to move on. Find some food and head to Fort Bragg. We found a cute cafe called Sarafornia in downtown Geyserville and then headed towards the coast. While the drive out there is long and twisting, it’s quite beautiful. You start out driving through vines. Then, out of nowhere, you’re in the foggy Redwoods. For miles. Finally popping out at the breathtaking California coast.

The glass beach can be hard to find, if you don’t look it up on Google Maps. In fact, for those of us who used Google Maps, we still almost missed it. So here are the directions:

Drive through the town of Fort Bragg. Towards the outskirts of town, turn Left on Elm Street. Drive to the intersection of Elm and Glass Beach Dr. Park. Take the trail to the end of the end where it drops you at the beach. Here is where we made our mistake. We turned right instead of turning left. We went down to the beach/rock area, following the groups of people. Turns out, these people were clearly not in the right place. We wandered around and, after braving some cliffs, found what we thought was the glass beach. It was cool, but not at all like the photos.

The view from the end of the trail

We spent some time taking photos and finally decided to head home. But not before racing over to a rock. This is when fate smacked me in the face. I spotted a secluded beach to my right that looked as though it was covered in gravel… or was it… GLASS? AHA!!!!!!!!

Another questionable ledge/cliff later and we jumped down to the ACTUAL Glass beach. And it was as amazing as the pictures had shown. So freaking cool. We spent a good 30 minutes taking it all in. When you walk, it sounds like snow and the waves are so musical as they polish these beautiful pieces.

The real glass beach

Oh swow that’s a LOT of glass!

So pretty!

I wanted to take some home, but I didn’t.

Taking a nap on my glass mattress

The story behind the Glass beach is a sad one, with a happy twist ending. In the early 1900’s the people who lived at Fort Bragg would just throw their trash off the side of the cliff, including glass bottles. It was actually a dump until the late 1950’s when they finally closed it. In the 1970’s they began a massive effort to clean up the beach and by the late 1990’s it was purchased in order to give the public access once again. In this instance, pollution turned to beauty. After many decades, the water made our waste into a TripAdvisor Top 10 beaches.

Because it is now an attraction that brings people from far and wide (yes, we saw a Canadian license plate), we have a new problem on our hands. Tourists are taking the glass that makes it famous. Yep, that’s right. Nearly every single person I saw took some pieces. If you imagine that there can be thousands of people in day during the summer, eventually there will be no more Glass Beach. So please, if you do go, please enjoy the beauty, but leave it there for future generations to enjoy as well.

In the end, we ended up driving all the way home after stopping at a campsite that happened to be down the street from a prison. Safer that way. And we got to enjoy a pretty amazing sunset on our way.

Sunset o’amzing

Onto the next adventure.

Shasta.

Months of training and planning finally came to head on Thursday night. Shasta summit attempt weekend had arrived! Packing was complete. List was checked and re-checked. I was 90% excited and 10% scared… or was it the other way around…

Jeremy, a fellow adventure/travel seeker, had decided to join Team Adventure on this crazy endeavour. We had not trained with him, however, I had no doubts about his ability to kick ass based on his past activities, such as running marathons and climbing Kilimanjaro.

We decided to leave our apartment in Belmont at 5pm on Thursday in order to get to the Bunny Flat trailhead before midnight. And of, course, I was running late. Some last minute things came up at work, so I wasn’t able to leave until 4:30pm, which, of course, put us behind schedule.

I arrived home at 4:50pm and the car was already packed. I quickly looked at my checklist to make sure I had everything. There was no time to double check, even though Brian told me more than once to slow down and think clearly. I rushed, which I should not have done. Luckily, before we actually left the apartment, I realized I hadn’t packed my hiking socks, which would have resulted in a bad day. I had a second pair of skiing socks as a backup, but they are called a backup for a reason. Add that to the list of things I will do differently if there is another trip like this. Buy two pairs of the GOOD socks. No DUH!

6 hours and a stop at Subway later, we had arrived. Bunny Flat. It was still covered in snow.. I wouldn’t say 4 feet. More like 2, but there were patches of dirt showing through. After some talk of sleeping in the car, we decided it just wouldn’t work with 3 people, so we set up camp in a patch of dirt in the snow. Got inside our tent and into my comfy 15 degree down sleeping bad. Let me tell you… BEST INVESTMENT EVAR! Seriously. I did cry a little when I saw the price tag on it, but it’s worth EVERY penny. Not only is it waterproof, and rated at 15 degrees, but it also packs down to a very manageable size for backpacking. Hooray!

Night 1: Though warm in the beginning of the night, I was not able to get more than an hour or two of sleep. I’m not sure if it was nerves, the cold, or a combination of both, but I just could not stay asleep. I woke up numerous times because my nose was so cold. I ended up synching down the sleeping bag so only my nose was exposed. When Brian’s alarm went off at 6:30am, I had been awake for awhile. I soon found out why I felt so cold. It was 29 degrees in our tent. Yipes.

Day 1: After reading that you should keep your clothes in your sleeping bag when camping in sub 30 degree weather, I realized I should have taken that to heart. Putting on cold jeans is really not a fun way to start the day. Got out of the tent and saw the goal ahead of us. Shasta. Yep. There she was. So far away. So big. So daunting.

Camping in the dirt

Shasta!

After changing into the hiking clothes for the day in the bathroom (the second to last one on our journey), it was time to have some breakfast and fill out our summit and wilderness passes.

Filling out my permit!

And then, it was time to start hiking. The first part of the hike is nice, though this early in the season, still covered with snow, so snow/mountaineering boots are required. It’s relatively flat, with slight uphill to Horse Camp, a cute little cabin with outhouse owned by the Sierra club. Roughing 1.7 miles from Bunny Flat.

The bathroom and ranger station

Hiking to Horse Camp

The only part of the trail up to the summit that is a trail is the one to Horse camp. After that, you’re on your own. But the trail doesn’t really exist during the winter months because it’s snow covered, so you follow peoples’ tracks. The problem with that is, like deer, people seem to act drunk and make stupid paths that make no sense. At one point, even checking the GPS, we weren’t exactly sure we were in the right place. Luckily, Brian spotted a Sierra Club sign, so we knew we were going the right way.

A minute or so later, there it was, in the distance, I could see a hut. Hooray! We had arrived! The last bathroom… or at least the last one where you didn’t have to poop on a target and carry it off the mountain with you. Oh, and it was inside and protected from the wind. The cabin itself is cute and cozy. We signed the registry book, had a snack, and suscreened up. The next part was going to be tough.

 

AHA!

Bathroom!

Horse Camp Cabin

Break time means dance time!

From Horse camp, there’s a slight uphill leading out of treeline and then, it goes up. Forever. Quite literally, there is no more flat ground until Helen Lake. The snow was soft, so we did not have to put on crampons, but it was super sunny and definitely made for an extremely warm hike. By Horse Camp most of us had discarded all but one layer; the base layer. I now understand why I see pictures of people hiking in shorts; it’s warm.

The view from Horse Camp

Up we go!

Hiking

The winding trail

The trail winds back and forth through the mountains, but it just gets steeper and steeper. It’s necessary to take water/snack breaks every hour to fuel yourself. Oh, and the sunscreen. Don’t forget that. That bloody sun is bright against the snow and it will burn a pale ass person such as myself in about 3.5 seconds. And it will burn your retinas. Thus, my awesomely fashionable over glasses, polarized sunglasses. Ps, you also need to collect snow along the way to make sure you don’t run out of water.

Lookie at my awesome sunglasses and the bloody hot sun

Snow collection time

Showing the distance.

Yep. That’s a grade.

Almost there!

So this whole going up and only up thing, yeah, it’s tiring. Even with all the training; hiking, biking, running, and carrying a 31lb pack up Diablo, it was rough. I had the idea in the beginning to wear a heart rate monitor and keep my heartbeat below 150. That did not happen.

After 3 hours, we finally saw other hikers. They had caught up to us. One carrying a snowboard. As they passed, we had a few minutes to chat. They were from Shasta City and this was a regular day trip for them. Hike up to Helen Lake and back. We also saw a familiar face; the guide from the class we took at REI on how to safely summit was on skis going uphill. This fine group of folks informed us that we were nearly to Helen Lake. Just up around another corner and one last big hill. “Take it slow and steady and you’ll make it no problem.” With that, off they went as we finished another snack break.

The good thing about having someone in front of you, as I learned, is that you can follow their steps. It’s even better when you know they are experienced. It’s FAR better to traverse back and forth and conserve energy, than it is to go straight up. You’ll overheat and basically crash out from exhaustion. So we followed their tracks. All the way up to Helen Lake.

Helen Lake

Upon arriving at Helen Lake, we spotted the group that had passed us earlier. We scoped out the landscape and discovered, to our much happy surprise, that previous hikers had dug out camp sites in the snow. So many choices! There was even a bathroom of sorts, which I think was actually a camp site, but someone had decided it was sheltered from the wind and therefore, an excellent bathroom. We set up camp and decided it was time for some lunch after hiking up for 5 hours.

This is where Jeremy will sleep tonight

Home for the night

Home from a distance

While prepping lunch, I had time to really look at what lay ahead of us on Day 2. If you look at the picture below, Red Banks is at the top middle. There are actually chutes between the rocks that you have to climb through and then along the right to the left towards misery hill, and finally, the summit. The weather was beautiful. It was warm, relatively speaking, and blue skies.

The summit from Helen Lake

This is when the trip had its first set back. Brian had brought a jet boil, which is a mini stove of sorts that uses fuel to boil water, and then you add that boiling water to your dehydrated meals. Well, after boiling water for my lunch, he started it again for Jeremy’s, and headed off to collect some snow for more water. Jeremy and I watched it, but apparently not that closely because the flame went out. Brian tried to start it again, but the spark mechanism wasn’t working. He took out his knife and tried to get the metal parts that create the spark closer together, but it still didn’t work. Without a way to boil water for the next day, our trip was over.

Luckily, by that point, at least two other people had showed up. Brian went and asked for help, and a nice hiker gave us a small carton of matches. 12 to be exact. So yeah, I’ll have a list at the end of things we learned, but for SURE, bring a lighter or matches as a backup. ALWAYS. We ended up boiling enough water for lunch and drinking for the next day, but definitely had a moment of panic.

Boiling water

After lunch and the boiling water party, Jeremy decided it would be a great time to try our self arresting. Self arresting, for those of you who don’t know, is when you use your ice axe to safe your ass when you’re sliding down the hill after tripping/falling. And you better know how to do that, because option B is waiting until you run out of hill, hitting rocks, or dying. The climb up to Red Banks is 35 degrees, so you’d be sliding for awhile. There were plenty of hills around so off we went to give it a try. We soon found out, you can’t slide on powder/wet snow. Even if you try to launch yourself, you only go a few feet, which isn’t enough to practice. We did the technique a few times, and then gave up and headed back towards our camp.

Brian wanted to give it a go on a steeper hill, so back out I went. Even the steeper hill was no good, but I had an idea of what to do. I tried it, multiple times, on snow, as opposed to just watching YouTube videos and thinking I’m an expert. Next up; crampons. Who knew how freaking awesome strapping some spikes to your mountaineering boots could be?! I mean, really? Where the hell have you been all my life crampons? You beautiful, wonderful, ingenious invention. Hard pack snow; no problem. Steep hill; no problem. Literally, climbing up a wall; crampons will destroy it! Tahoe is going to be FUN next year!

It was time to get ready for Day 2. Pack up all the necessary gear. Figure out clothing and pack into your sleeping bag so it would be warm. The sun was just starting to set around 7pm and it was time to sleep. We’d be up in 5 hours and on our way up the mountain. It should be noted that by this time, there were many other hikers. Some stayed at 50/50, which is down below the steep hill leading up to Helen. I’d guess somewhere around 15 in total. One crazy person was up on Casaval ridge. Sketchy. Especially when the wind started. And then, it got worse. I had to put in earplugs, and it still woke me up around 1am. We were supposed to get up in 30 minutes and I did not like the sounds coming from outside.

Day 2. Jeremy was already up and ready to go. Brian and I were debating whether to even attempt to summit. After another hour, it seemed to die down, so we decided to give it go. Packed down our camp and put everything we didn’t absolutely need to summit in trash bags at our site to prevent it from getting wet. And at 3:45am, off we went. This was it. Summit attempt day. OH MY! Bundled up to the max with 18 million layers, helmet, ice axe, and crampons on, I was going for it.

And now it’s time for some honesty. This is literally the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted in my entire life. Without a doubt. Even that first hill leading out of Helen Lake up towards the heart, was insanely hard. I know being at altitude makes things hard, but you really have NO idea until you’re trying to climb up 4,000 feet starting at 10,400. It’s take a few steps, take a break, take a few steps, catch your breath, and over, and over and over again. Traversing back and forth across the hill. Going up, up, and up. And that friggin Red Banks isn’t any closer than it was an hour ago!!! And here’s another thing nobody tells you about hiking. It’s very lonely. Especially when you’re hiking at night, with a headlamp, up a snow covered 35 degree slope with the wind howling. It’s really just you and your thoughts. The only thing that really kept me going is the belief that I could make it. I couldn’t look down. I just looked at the footprints in front of me and followed them. One by one, forever going up.

We were the only people on the mountain. No one else even started to climb until we were close to the heart, probably about 2 hours after leaving camp. We saw their headlights in the distance. Not soon after that, the sun began it’s climb up over the mountain, slowly lighting up the sky with light pink.

UP forever UP

Sunrise

After another hour and half, FINALLY we had arrived at Red Banks. The picture below does not do it justice. It’s steep. It’s scary. It’s ridiculous. The entire time I climbed up that chute I kept begging not to fall. Please don’t let me slip. Please don’t let me slip. It was as bad as I thought it would be. This part was the part I had nightmares about. And for good reason. It’s steep. One wrong foot placement and you’d have to self arrest.

Red Banks

The chute

It was in this chute that the wind started to pick up. And it wasn’t any better when we finally reached the top. It was freezing. I’d have to guess that the windchill was below zero for sure and the gusts of wind were definitely blowing me around a bit. This was the point when I started to imagine worst case scenarios. What if I got blow off the ridge? What then? I thought, maybe we could find some shelter and see if it died down in an hour. But, much to my dismay, once you’re at the top of Red Banks, there is no shelter. It’s exposed. That also means that the hard packed snow turns to ice and your crampons don’t work as great.

For all those reasons, plus the fact that I could see the snow being blown over the final ridge we would have to cross and had no idea how we would make it, I decided I was done. My hands were freezing, my nose numb. This time, Shasta wins. So I told Brian and Jeremy I was done, knowing they would be disappointed, but also knowing it was the right thing to do. Not worth losing a finger or nose or your life over. The mountain will always be there, so there will always be another chance to summit. Well, until the volcano explodes again…

This was only the beginning of the nightmare as it turns out. If going up was scary, going down was heart stopping. And then, the weather turned bad. White out bad. There were 2 other people who reached the top of Red Banks before they too, turned around. They were gone by the time we reached the top of the chute. Jeremy got out fast. I kept slipping on the ice. I had a moment when I slipped and had to stop because I was so terrified. Brian wanted to make sure I was ok, but I had to have a moment. It reminded me a bit of the time I was on a 25 ft cliff at Bear Valley and realized I was stuck and the only way out was off that cliff. So there I sat, shed a tear. A tear of what, I’m still not sure. Defeat. Yes. Panic, For Sure. Questioning whether or not I’d make it out unscathed. Most definitely. I just wanted off that mountain. More than anything.

So, as fast as I could, I headed down. Down that evil chute. Where, in my most panicked moment, my glasses actually froze. I could no longer see as I’m trying to get down the steepest, most technical part of the mountain. Fun. NOT! Brian came to my rescue and helped me put on my mountaineering sunglasses. Without my prescription glasses under them. I could only see close up. Talk about scariest thing ever. This is it folks. White out conditions without my glasses going down 35% grade. Oh Shasta, you silly bitch.

I did make it through that chute. And down the rest of the mountain. Stopping every now and again to catch my breath. Took a look back and saw nothing but clouds. Once we got above Helen Lake, we finally caught up with Jeremy. Sat down and had a snack. Decided to take the crampons off and have a go at Glissading. Which is the French word for sliding down the hill on your butt. And oh my! It’s crazy. Certainly the fastest way to get down the hill, however, painful when the snow is anything but soft. It’s fun in the powder. Almost makes up for the crazy pain and panic I had to go through to make it to the top of Red Banks. Except the part where I need a donut to sit for the next week.

Having a snack

Clouds

AHHH, Clouds

We made it back to the car by 1pm. Lots of glissading and a run to the bathroom at Horse Camp. Literally. I ran. On snow. People kept asking us on the way down if we made it to the summit. I’ve thought about it a lot. It’s not about summitting for me. It was about safety. I don’t feel like Shasta won. I did. Because I was not seriously injured. I got to spend a couple of days witnessing beauty and quiet like nothing I ever have. I can’t begin to tell you what it was like to climb up that mountain at 4am. I’ve learned skills and techniques like cramponing that I never thought I would. And camping in the snow isn’t nearly as cold as I thought it would be.

Things I learned: Always bring matches/lighter. Shasta makes it own weather, so when the forecast says 34 and party sunny, that means it’s probably going to have white out conditions with 75 mph gusts. Like it did when we tried to summit yesterday. Bring a mat, or a pad, or something if you want to glissade. Drink plenty of water. Stop often, but briefly. Look at the view! Even if you’re afraid of heights, like me. The view was amazing.

Here is the whole track:

The route we did.

Would I do it again? I’m still not sure. It was ridiculously hard. And I hate being cold. Maybe next year. Later in the season, when it isn’t so freaking cold. Of course, I was really jealous of all the people skiing down. That really is the way to do it. For sure. I know in my heart of hearts that I would have reached the summit had the weather not turned bad. I guess time will tell if “knowing” is enough. Maybe by next year I will have forgotten the pain.

Thanks to my adventure buddy for life, Brian, for helping me down in my moment of panic and keeping me motivated. Without you, life is boring. Thank you to Jeremy, honorary member of team adventure, for being so excited, every day and kicking so much ass.

Always Choose LIFE! 🙂

Bangkok Weekend Fun Day 1

It’s been a dream of mine for quite some time to go to Thailand. I think the first time I was really intrigued by it was in high school. There was a girl’s night at Christine’s house and we watched Brokedown Palace, which is movie where two girlfriends go to Thailand and accidentally have drugs smuggled into their backpacks. They get arrested and thrown in jail and in the cliffhanger ending, Claire Danes’s character begs for the release of her friend and agrees to take on her sentence as well. The movie struck a chord with me, not only because of the story, but also because of the exotic setting: Thailand. It was amazing and a little scary (being that you could die if you try to smuggle drugs).

Since then, I’ve developed a love of Thai food and seen various other movies that depict the awesomeness that is Thailand. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be going there on a “weekend” trip. Even now that I’ve been, I still don’t really believe it. In preparation for our trip, Brian and I watched “The Hangover Part II” as a list of things NOT to do. It wasn’t as funny as I remember, but still, it had it’s moments.

We left on Friday night from KL and arrived at the Bangkok airport in time to catch the last city train to the station nearest to our hotel off Sukhumvit Road. In the end, we had to take a taxi from the rail station because the light rail wasn’t running at the late hour we arrived. Our hotel room was nice and the bed was super comfy. We both passed out pretty much immediately.

We woke up at a fairly reasonable hour and headed to Starbucks to grab some breakfast and coffee. (yeah, yeah, I know, how LAME, but every Starbucks we go to has different stuff and it’s kinda cool). Planned out some stuff to do for the day, starting with visiting temples and ending with dinner. Got on the light rail and headed towards the last stop on the blue line after asking a friendly guy at the info station how to get to the river.

On our way to the river we came across a man who, at first, seemed genuinely interested in helping us to get to our destination. Then he informed us that there was a celebration of sorts going on and therefore all the stops along the river would be closed and that we should take a tuk tuk to the correct dock. And it was unsafe to be walking around. Only 10 baht per person! Yeah, right. I had be warned by wikipedia, Brian, and Michael Velez that this was a scheme. Brian said no, and we walked on.. finding our dock a few minutes later. A quick visit to the information center inside the River City Mall and we were sent in the right direction to get a water transport down river to the Golden Palace and other temples.

We bought a one way ticket down to the Golden Palace and headed out, packed like sardines in a rather large water taxi. Along the way we spotted a few temples and the water was extremely choppy. Luckily, due to our size, the ride itself was rather smooth. After arriving at our destination, we disembarked and headed through a maze of food stalls to the outside world.

After examining the map, we found our way to the Golden Palace where we were greeted by a lovely golden sign and a poster informing us that our clothes were not suitable for entrance. Oh well. We found that this was the case everywhere, so we did not actually enter a single temple. You cannot wear shorts and your shoulders have to be covered. I was wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse, so no go. You can rent clothes, but let me tell you, it’s freaking hot in Bangkok. It’s about the same temperature as KL, around 90 with 90% humidity. No bueno for pants.

We walked around for awhile trying to find the celebration that the guy had told us about earlier. Found what looked like a venue of sorts and followed some people over to a big park area. Most people seemed to have flowers, which was odd. Made our way to an entrance and discovered it was, in fact, a graduation… explains the flowers for sure. Continued to walk around and check out temples until we were hungry. Headed back towards the dock and grabbed some Thai coconuts. Hopped back on the water taxi and headed back towards River City. Decided on the way back to jump off and check out their Chinatown.

Their Chinatown puts KL’s to SHAME. Streets and streets that go on forever. One could definitely get lost. And what Chinatown wouldn’t be complete without a dragon show and motorcycles trying to wind their way down the tiny people filled streets?

Found our way back to the light rail and headed to the Chatuchak Weekend Market towards the end of the green line. After some misdirection and then some redirection, we found an entrance and proceeded to be completely overwhelmed with the over 15,000 stalls. One could get lost in there. We did. We doubled back and went the wrong way multiple times, but the good news is, we found some awesome gifts for CHEAP! Not going to say what they are because people I got stuff for read this blog and need to be surprised, but what I found is so completely awesome! I probably should have gotten something for myself. Oh well. I HIGHLY recommend this market if you find yourself in Bangkok. You will NOT be disappointed!!

After spending multiple hours in the market, it started to rain, so we decided to head back to our hotel. There we looked up the closest, best Thailand which was right next door, quite literally. Ordered 3 main dishes, plus a soup and had one of the best meals of my life. 🙂 Red curry, green curry fried rice w/chicken in an omelette, beef noodles, and lemongrass coconut soup. OMG! Ridiculously good. 

After dinner, we headed to Terminal 21 (a really awesome shopping mall) to meet up with an old college buddy of mine… Michael Velez. Michael and I were on the same floor in the dorms at Crown College (specifically GUASS HOUSE!!) We ended up living together our sophomore year on Washington Street. He showed me his famous shredding of the chicken for enchiladas and I famously tried to burn down our apartment before he even moved in. Fun times. Hadn’t seen or really even heard from him in years and then found out on Facebook he was living in Thailand. As luck would have it, he moved to Bangkok so we ended up meeting up for a drink at a rather unusual but cheap ass bar. Good times.

After a drink, Brian and I headed back to our hotel, exhausted from time changes and walking around all day. We walked through a mini red light district, which was rather interesting, and then crashed out for the evening before 11:30pm. A fun filled first day for sure!

Perhentian Islands Day 2

Apparently Brian and I were so exhausted from being out in the sun and hiking that we didn’t wake up until 10:30am!! Completely abnormal for us. We’re usually up and about by 8-8:30am at the latest. We packed up our stuff and checked out. Headed to Mama’s restaurant (next door to our hotel) and grabbed brunch. I had a banana roti and a tomato cheese omelette, along with a mango lassi that was sooooo freaking good!

We had decided earlier that we weren’t getting back in the ocean that day because our swimsuits would be wet and we didn’t have enough forethought to bring plastic bags (next time!!) So instead, we followed a paved trail to check out the southern part of the island. We found adventure for sure! Including fiber optic cables (done the Malaysian way: in the trees), a baby monitor lizard, 3 secret beaches, at least one abandoned resort, one resort in the works, and village complete with restaurants/shops and a pier.

The trail was sometimes down near the beaches, and sometimes up in the jungle, but always paved with red cement block and painted black and white on the sides. At one point Brian spotted a Styrofoam box that I was hoping had $10,000 in it, but much to my dismay, it was only trash. 😦

We reached the village around 2pm and were going to head back to our hotel/pier, but I wanted to see if we could take the trail all the way to long beach and then cut back, thereby going around the entire southern end of the island. So we asked someone if they could help us and she asked a local lady who confirmed it would be 30 minutes to long beach. Woo whooo! After downing some liquids, we headed out in search of the red trail.

Walked past a giant barge with supplies to finish some buildings and perhaps it will be a resort… not sure, but it was a pretty awesome sight to see in this amazing place. We located the trail shortly after seeing the barge and headed north towards long beach. We hadn’t been on the trail for that long when it dead ended into what appeared to be a rock slide. Hmmm. Well, we decided to see if we could go around it. Went down towards the beach and walked along the rocks. Never really found the red cement trail, but decided to push on to see if we could make sans paved trail.

After rock jumping for awhile, we hit some pretty intense cliffs and, you guessed it, climbed up them in sandals. At this point we could see our destination. Though still rather far away, we were hoping to find a way to make it, either via rock cliffs or through the jungle. But alas, we would be disappointed and forced to turn around. Not only was the clock ticking down to 4pm when our boat was scheduled to leave our pier (back at our hotel), but the jungle was too thick and the rocks far too dangerous. So close, and yet so far.

I want to note here that climbing down from said cliffs was FAR harder than climbing up. I only suffered a minor panic attack, but we managed to race out of there and get back to the village in less than 40 minutes when it had taken us longer than an hour to get out there. Found ourselves a young boy (probably in his early teens) who said he could take us by boat to our pier and had his younger brother take us to the beach where he would pick us up.

A quick 5 minute boat ride and we made it to our pier in time to catch the last boat. We had to wait around for another 20 minutes while they tried to find people to fill it up, but we made it! It did, however, turn out to be the boat ride from hell. Extremely choppy seas and an engine that liked to stall every 15 minutes or so made for a VERY bumpy ride. I was completely soaked, as was Brian by the time we reached shore, and there was at least one time where I feared we would be swimming. Luckily we made it in one piece.

 

Once ashore, we tried to catch the bus to the airport, but unfortunately it was closed, so we took a taxi. A rather scary taxi. Dodging other cars and cows along the way, we finally got to the airport. Hooray! The airport was abuzz with life when we arrived, which was a good 3 hours before we had to leave. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a crepe place and then headed through security to our gate where we found NO ONE. That’s right. An entire airport to ourselves. Not a single sole. Just me and Brian, 4 gates and a hundred empty chairs. Kinda creepy. But after about an hour, people started showing up.

Caught our flight back to KL and back to the Haze. Yes, the haze has returned. Joy of joys. We both took showers as we had salt water, jungle ridden bodies that were in dire need of being clean. And then, we passed out.

What a day! And some VERY adventurous trail blazing. I had an awesome time, but next time I decide to go climbing, I think I’ll buy some rock climbing gear. 😉

Perhentian Islands Day 1

Brian and I headed out on Friday evening to Kota Bharu via Air Asia (Asia’s southwest). Kota Bharu has to be the world’s tiniest airport. Seriously. There are only 4 gates! From there, we grabbed a taxi to Kuala Besut (a tiny fishing town on the northeast coast of Peninsula Malaysia), which took an hour. We drove through some small, cute towns that are in way better condition than most places outside of KL. Our taxi driver offered to help us buy our speed boat tickets to Perhentian that night once we arrived in Besut. He took us to an office where we shelled out $70 RM per person for a boat ride to/from Perhentian. The agent told us to meet him back at his office at 8:00am so we could catch the first boat out.

We then headed to our hotel. I knew when I booked it that I really only had a couple options and believe it or not, this was the highest rated hotel. Ha. Yeah. It was old and busted. The bathroom was a toilet/shower combo with a broken toilet lid. It was rather disgusting, but, as Brian said, I thought of it as camping, but one step higher. The hotel cost $30 and it was, by far, the worst place I’ve ever stayed. I didn’t really want to sleep under the covers… so we both slept in our clothes.

After sleeping like crap, we packed up and headed towards the travel agency. We met our guy and he walked us to the Jetty where we paid a $5 RM Marine conversation fee to go to Perhentian. Then he got on his phone and walked around for a little while. Brian and I were not sure what was happening as people started boarding boats. We were told to wait. Our travel agent guy disappeared for a good 10-15 minutes as we sat waiting. Eventually he showed up again with a group of other people. They were asked to fill out a sign in sheet and boarded a boat. Just when we thought we’d have to wait for yet another boat, they waved us over. We started to leave the dock, but turned around to pick up one last person before heading east 10 miles to Perhentian. The boat ride itself was fairly decent. Not too bumpy and I didn’t get seasick. Hooray!

We finally made it to Kecil (the smaller island) and decided to go directly to Long Beach which is where most of the restaurants are. The speed boat only went so far into the bay and then we had to take a water taxi (for $RM2 per person) from the speed boat to shore. Ridiculous. Looking back I have no idea why they didn’t take us to the pier. Makes no sense. It all worked out though. And Long Beach was amazing! A few places to eat, dive shops, bars, and mini shops. We found a cute restaurant and ordered some breakfast. I had a honey pancake and scrambled eggs.

The above photo is of the water in long beach. Simply amazing! You could see fish from the pier!

From long beach I spotted an outcropping of rocks that looked fun to explore, so after breakfast we headed out to see if we could make it. Down from the pier, into the rocks and ocean. It took awhile, but we made it. We had to do some rock climbing and improvising, but we got there! I just want to point out that we were both in sandals the whole way.. cause we’re a little nutty. Here are some pictures of the trail we blazed. We were actually joined by some tourists who took a swim at the bottom of the rock but never made it to the top where we did (though we didn’t make it to the top of the rock because it wasn’t safe).

There came a point where we decided it was not wise to continue, so we headed back towards long beach and found another restaurant where they were offering a buy one get one free strawberry daiquiri. I was all about it! After hiking/climbing for over an hour I was ready for a drink! 🙂

We asked the server lady how to get to our hotel and found the trail, which is a small paved road, to the other side of the island where our hotel awaited us. 

It was only a 10 minute walk and we found our hotel no problem. Tried to check in, but much to my dismay, the room wasn’t ready. Decided to head down to the private beach to check it out and it was freaking awesome! Crystal clear water and tons of coral, which actually sucks if you’re not wearing shoes. 

Headed back to the hotel after 30 minutes and checked in. Dropped our stuff off, changed into swimsuits and went straight back to the beach in search of turtles, fish, and possibly a shark. No such luck with the turtles and sharks, but definitely tons of fishies! It was awesome! Coral, sea cucumbers, fish, and you could see all of it! Did I mention that the water was the equivalent of warm bathwater? Oh yes! Salty though. So much so that it was rather easy to snorkel around and float around for hours. 🙂

After I was so pruned my fingers couldn’t take any more water, we went back to the room to shower and head to dinner on the other side of the island, but not before watching the sunset on our beach. We went back to the place where we had drinks earlier that day for some Italian on the beach. It was so romantical! Food was decent. Not the best, but the setting made up for it.

Long beach turns into a disco dance club on the beach after dark. Complete with torches and fairly decent sized sound systems. Funny, there weren’t that many people around and we were tired, so we went back to our hotel. That’s when we both discovered how sunburned we had gotten. Luckily I had worn the SPF shirt my mom got me, but I missed my thighs, butt, and lower back. No bueno. And Brian… 😦 His whole back was pink. So we went and bought Aloe from our local shop which turned out to have kittens!! After covering ourselves in aloe, we both feel asleep almost immediately.

It was an amazing day!