First Ascent

On Saturday, our Team in Training Hiking group did our first actual on-the-trails practice hike. Two hours dashing around the hills of Edgewood Park, on the ridge between 280 and Redwood City, just north of Canada College.

The expected rainstorm held off for half a day, so we enjoyed sunshine instead of a drenching on this first hike. We woke up at 5:30 am (very, very early for me) to meet for carpooling at 6:45 am and and the whole team at trail head at 7:45 am.

I'd driven past this park many times but had never stopped there; didn't even know there was a park with trails. We both wore our new backpacks, and Christina her second pair of new hiking boots. And I tried out our new tiny camera. As directed, I drank lots and lots of water on the way to the hike. Bad idea!

Where's the bathroom??!! By the time we all got underway at 8:15, I badly needed to go, but there was nothing around except bushes. Uh Oh. Maybe there is a proper facility at the other end of the park, where the main public entrance is?

We divided into three groups, depending on what hiking pace we expected to match. Those of us who hope to qualify for the Half Dome hike were told to get into the fastest-pace group led by mentor Debra. We dashed off, with me trying to keep up. TnT hikers have a motto 'Hikers don't run!', but this was not walking like I'd ever done out in the woods. More like the fastest heal-to-toe scamper you can do without running, a bit like the Olympic walking race event.

We stopped at every trail intersection, to practice reading trail maps and getting un-lost. At our first break, another guy ran into the bushes to relieve himself, but I was too embarrassed to join, and we were soon on our way again. Debra reminded the group that we should aim to synchronize our pee breaks, so that we didn't need to wait for just one or two at every break. Two stops later, a second guy scampered into the bushes to pee, and I decided that just peeing was maybe better than nothing, so I found my own bushes and went. And went. And went. Longest pee in a couple of years. Ahhh, the relief! Thankfully, the need for #2 was now gone and I enjoyed the rest of the hike. I could even sip more water and try out the energy bar trail snacks.

I learned that this park is famous for massive displays of spring wildflowers and for butterflies. This early in the year, I spotted just isolated examples of four kinds of flowers: Lupine (Christina called these "blue ploopins" as a child), Hounds tooth, an unidentified tiny ground-level blue star, Indian Warrior. None of use knew what any of these were, but this page has helped me. We also saw a large jackrabbit 60 feet off the trail.

The fast hiking pace makes it hard to see what there is to see. If it weren't for the goal of getting up to Half Dome this spring and raising money this way, I would definitely not choose to be so hurried. I gather that TnT aims for a fast pace in the Half Dome hike partly because of the long duration of that hike, but mostly because of the traffic congestion that happens at the bottom of the final 45-degree 1050-ft-climb cables near the summit. We have to reach that point before the summertime crowds arrive: early birds, rush hour begins, and metered on ramp.
And so, I'll make a game of seeing what I can at speed, and stealing quick photos of what I've found. Others are already helping me at this.

Today, we both kept up with the fastest, fit hikers in our fastest group. It helps a lot to have long legs. This will hopefully get easier to sustain, as we drop weight and get in shape. I've lost 5.5 pounds of my -35 pounds target. Christina began earlier and has already lost even more. Fitness wise, I can already see and feel a huge difference from where we started and even since last week. No aches the day after! But I did have a three hour nap when I got home.