December bike ride

Nice day for a chilly ride

I know right? A bike ride in December in snow country? This year I'm totally thankful for, a so far, dry (yet very cold) winter. It's the first week of December and we have NO snow to speak of (hope I didn't jinx it). So I'm being sure to take advantage of such great weather. The other day we went for a small 2.5 mile bike ride and did a little caching. Including placing a new cache on the Almanor Recreation Trail.

A particularly evil cache I placed

Here's to hoping the weather holds out a little longer for some more hiking and biking opportunities. Happy trails!

Ok all my adventure following fans, all two of you out there in cyberspace. I’m getting ready to take on my annual JDRF walk to Cure Diabetes adventure and I need YOUR help! How can you help? Easy, just by donatin a few dollars to the cause to help support me in my goal (only $125.00 we can do this together!) Just click this link JDRF and it’ll take you to my personal funraising page wher you can learn more about juvenile and click the ORANGE button to donate. OF COURSE the girls will be walking with me. Together all of us can help stomp out Juvenile Diabetes

1000 caches found!

Well this was the big week that I hit 1,000 geocaches found. We picked a fun and exciting cache for #999 and #1000. #1,000 was a nocturnal cache called " Nocturnal Mission: Eyes of Bigfoot". We followed "the eyes" a little less than 1/4 mile into the woods, dodging lights from cars on a near by road for about 20 mins until we found the red eyes, and of course, the cache.

#999.. INSIDE the log, had to crawl in a ways

the big #1,000!

Geocaching has indeed lead me to some adventurous and fun times, but I must say that these two are in my top favorites. Not because of the numbers they represented, but because of the interesting fun they allowed me to indulge on.

Making our own trails..

My Adventure Guy and I decided to pack up the dogs, load our CamelBacks, and break out the hiking grear. We found this great spot last week while exploring our surrounding area.. We parked the car, grabbed the caching containers, the dogs, and started on our way across the creek.

A steep hard climb resulted in a great rewarding view

Once we got on the other side of the creek the trail (old forest service road) was looking in pretty good shape, but once we got about .5 mile away..the story changed. So we took a side jaunt up a ridge line to a rock outcropping to check the view. And it was pretty amazing.









After our side trek to the amazing overview, we headed back down and back on the track we were headed. The trail continued to degrade and eventually, vanished completely. So..we made our own path, we stepped into the creek and walked upstream...dogs joyfully splashing behind us.

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads

We placed a few caches along this beautiful area, took a ton of photos, and headed back to the car.  We had a wonderful time on our first hike of the season.

One happy Adventure Crew!

#900 caches found!

Thats right. On 6-29-11, this Adventure Girl officially found #900! I've only been at this 2003, but its the thrill of the hunt, not the number of finds that the important thing. But, I still having fun with the count!!

#900!!

Then after caching, we went exploring up a forest service road and quickly explored Rock Creek and the surrounding area. We scoped out the area for a near future hike with some geocaching placements.

                                                                       Rock Creek

We hiked half way up Star Butte and had some great views of the heavy flowing creek below. The area was very beautiful

The View from the middle of Star Butte





Geocaching, sneezing, and Chico

Thursday the other half, the girls, and I all went to Chico for some fun in the warm sun. We intended to do some hiking, but because I seemed to be sneezing my brain out every 30 seconds, we decided just to grab some geocaches in and around Upper Bidwell Park.  We spent the better part of the day finding various geocaches, click here if you want to know about geocaching, and just loved the weather...well.. except the crazy pollen blowing winds. The best one we found that day was the one pictured below. It was hiding under a burnt log and gave me a good scare because of how well placed it was. I nearly fell off the log and onto my butt. Then after I realized what it was, I couldn't stop laughing! A fun day was had by all, even me in my allergy invested state.

A geocache container inside a fake rat.



Susanville Ranch Park

After what seemed like an insanely long, cold winter, I finally ventured into the garage and rescued my mountain bike from the perils of dust, cobwebs, and a cocooned cluster of Christmas decorations. After a quick inspection, and some much needed air in the tires, I tossed my trail deprived Novara in the back of the car, grabbed the dogs, some essentials, and headed to Susanville Ranch Park for a quick trip around the trails.



While out cruising the trails, I managed to find a geocaching in a nearby meadow. After the find we took a break and the dogs caught their breath, rolled in the grass, and were ready to hit the trails again. We rode for a couple more miles through another meadow when we came across a brook. The girls were hot again and decided that a impromptu wade through the shallow water was in order. I must say, I agreed with them. After they filled up on cold water and rolled in the grass once more we continued on our way. While our trip was only about 4-5 miles, it was an amazing 4-5 miles on a beautiful warm spring day. By the time we got back to the car, the dogs were tired and hungry...but 5 minutes later they were looking longing at the back in the back, whining, wanting to ride more. "Another days girls, I promise. Another day."

Mags cooling off



Katie cooling her dogs





Happy Trails!







A good day on the slopes

So,  while I had fun at the end of the day, that's not how it started.

I have a friend who patrols the mountain and gave me a free lift ticket Squaw. So I woke up at 4:30 in the morning (If you know me, you know this is NOT an easy task) and dropped the girls off at doggie daycare and headed West bound on I-80 to enjoy a day at Squaw.

Top of Links, Squaw Valley, USA





Squaw Valley, USA



                                                                                   

I got my rental gear and my bindings were so insanely uncomfortable, to the point that me feet get going numb. But the line was too long to turn around and go back. Then after standing in line and shuffling towards the cable car then being packed into the cable car like a bunch of sardines (which dangles over 500 ft at one point on the vertical 2000+ foot climb to High Camp), my attitude was horrible at best. I was irritated, sore, and claustrophobic. When I stepped off the cable car, all I did was complain about how "miserable" I was. I hadn't even made it to the runs yet when I called my boyfriend and said I was going to quit and head home. After I hung up, I thought, "Hey! Groucho! You don't quit! Why in the WORLD would you quit now? Look around you! It's gorgeous outside and you're willing to quit, get back in the car and waste a whole day for nothing? I don't think so... get your butt on that lift, NOW!" So, I listened to the wiser inner me, who apparently wasn't in as much pain as my outer me was in. I hopped on the "Links" green run and headed up the hill. After one run I was still cranky, disappointed, and just unpleasant.  But, I kept going back... I REFUSED to waste my precious day.

All the sudden, on my way up on the third run I noticed something that wasn't there all morning, I had a smile. I was having a good time! So, I ignored the incredible pain in my feet, knees, and legs and just went for it, and had fun. After all, isn't that what skiing is about? Fun? I ended up skiing for a few hours and getting in a lot of great practice runs, and improved my skills.  Eventually, my physical fatigue got the better of me and I was forced to call it a day, but I didn't want to.

Life's short, play hard.

Skiing Day 2, Sugar Bowl

Went skiing the other day (April 22,2011) with my friend and coworker, Megan and her 4 year old daughter, who is a far better skier than I. We spent the day at Sugar Bowl and just had a ton of fun. We hit a couple of green runs then I made my debut on a blue run.

While it was daunting, it was overwhelmingly fun! After they left, I decided to hang out for a bit longer and made my first solo run, sucessfully! Only ate snow twice that day, so all and all not too bad.

It was a very beautiful say for skiing, not too hot and the powder was perfect. As an added benefit, it started to snow when I was skiing by myself. I did learn an important lesson though, a person can still get sunburned even if its snowing and overcast. Well worth it. I am loving my new addiction.

First time skiing!

Ok, so as I write this, my first time skiing was last week, April 14, 2011. So I'm going to just tell you what the experience was like for me then: in a word, PHENOMENAL! While I did take a few diggers in the icy snow (hey..who doesn't?) the overall experience was great. Dad and I had been talking about skiing for literally YEARS but, life constantly got in the way. Not this year, because we finally took to the slopes. After my first run, my addiction with skiing started. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Once I find something I like, I tend to obsess over it and bore everyone around me with the same old boring details again and again, but for me... I get to relive the whole wonderful experience again and again to my hearts content, or until my mouth dries up from talking too much and I notice people rolling their eyes in my general direction.

Dad and I at Northstar



Beautiful day at Northstar.

 Skiing Village Run

Northstar was a wonderful place to learn. The hills were gentle and the staff was very knowledge, helpful, and friendly. I feel that if it is your first time skiing, this is one of the best mountain to learn on. Pay the extra cash and get yourself an instructor... it's much easier and much more fun learning with an instructor, you don't fall as much.

Skiing the final .25 mile of Village Run

Welcome to Adventure Girl's blog

Hi! I'm Dawn, the self appointed Adventure Girl. I love everything outdoors, and I take my two dogs with me whenever I can. (You can check out there blog here. )  Some of my favorite outdoor activites include hiking, kayaking, and just recently skiing! I also participate in an outdoor activity called geocaching. Basically, you use military technology to find boxes of trinkets in the woods. :-) Click this geocaching link to find out more, or just google it. Please bear with me as I am still fairly new to blogging. Enjoy!