Day hiked to LeConte Point (6,388 feet) on Saturday, a superb view point at the East end of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in North Western Yosemite. It proved to be a strenuous day—17 miles and 7,500 feet of climbing. The hardest part, however, is the time limit: The entrance to Hetch Hetchy is only open from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. (the gate is locked after 5). Fortunately, the first 7.5 miles are on good trail followed by a mile of class 2 & 3 cross country. If I keep this up, I might be in shape in time for Bob’s August Sufferfest

Martin

Had a great hike in the Ohlone Wilderness area. How they call it wilderness with all the cows I do not know. The weather was great and the wildflowers beautiful. 12.5 mile round trip with a couple thousand feet of elevation. The destination was a well kept bay area secret, Murietta Falls. It is a seasonal fall and had a small flow the day I was there. It was probably much better Sunday with the rain.
<IMG SRC="http://members.bigvalley.net/DLHarris/muriettafalls.jpg">

Although it is not in the weekend I've been hiking with my father in La Pedriza, Sierra de Guadarrama. We've started at the final houses of Manzanares El Real (940 m) and have walked to Collado de la Cueva (1.122 m) first. Then we've passed El Caracol and Risco del Ofertorio to the place (1.265 m) where Senda Maeso and Gran Cañada join. It was a nice meadow with a little stream so we were having lunch there. Suddenly it started to rain, so we put our rain clothes and began to descend on the same trail. We've seen partridges and vultures so it has been a nice short hike with also good views to La Pedriza Anterior, Castillo de Manzanares and Embalse de Santillana.

Awesome day Saturday. Finally made it up the <A HREF="http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/route_link.pl/route_id/472/object_id/368"> Cresent Moon Coulior </a> on Round Top. A little sketchy at the top with some some soft snow, but all in all a great day!!! And to think about 7 years ago I saw some guys headed up it and I thought they were nuts. Time and experience changes one's attitude.

Neither in the weekend, I was on the mountains the past tuesday. I solo hiked to Cabeza de Hierro Mayor (2.380 m), with an altitude gain of 1.090 m, and back in less than 6 hours. There was not a lot of snow, it was from 2.000 m in a continued form. I could see some vultures, other birds and 2 roe doers that went away when I appeared. The weather was good although there was a thunder storm but with no rain, I was finding a shelter because of that. Another fact was that I had to descend to find the bridge to cross Lozoya river. Once I crossed it over a tree but I couldn't find it this time. I had to use my headlamp until closing to the car but only 15 minutes or so. I saw nobody in all the trip and took some photos that I'll submit here. The hike was over the long Loma del Noruego (2.080 m), wich is a subsidiary peak of Cabeza de Hierro Mayor (see <a href=//www.summitpost.com/mountains/mountain_link.pl?mountain_id=870><b><i>Peñalara</i></b></a> for some pics of it).

Did a nice 15.6 mile hike. Headed up <A HREF="http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/1754">Mission Peak </A>. Started at Sunol Regioal Park, headed over the summit, down tho the Stanford Ave. trail head, turned around and headed back. Saw quite few turkeys and one coyote.

One coyote? Nice, we haven't coyotes here

My sweetie and I had an excellent weekend. On Saturday we did a 26 mile bike ride through the Sierra foothills in Amador County. The sun was out along with lots of wildflowers. Fully supported with food etc. by the Sacramento Bike Hikers. Beautiful! Afterwards we went wine tasting at some Amador wineries. Yesterday we went cross country skiing at Bear Valley. At least 2 feet of new snow fell last Friday, so the skiing was absolutely fantastic yesterday. Cold too - by 4 pm it had fallen to 31 degrees ( F )!

The past Saturday I drived with my parents to Sierra de Ayllón, where we had a nice day in the country. We visited some villages and corners of this beautiful range and could see the cascade, called Chorrera de Despeñalagua, full of water. We also were in the Gorge of Jaramilla and could take some photos of Ocejón. The weather was nice and sunny, over 30 ºC under the sun and more than 20 ºC in the shadow.

Hey Diego, that sounds very nice. If you have some photos of the Sierra de Ayllon you should post them.

wallspeck, you can see those photos in Pico del Lobo and Ocejón pages although I'll post more pics

The weekend before last I was climbing <a href=http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/1014>Frozen Head</a> during the annual <a href=http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/2003.html>Barkley Marathons</a>. We had one runner (out of 33) finish the 100 mile run in just under 57 hours, a new course record. My run was not so successful, made 25 miles (and about 13,000 ft of climb) in 19 hours, a lot of it in cold rain, turning to snow after dark on unmaintained trails.

Spent the day at the crags with the wife and son, Andrew. Perfect weather and a perfect day.<br>
<img src="http://www.jackieandalan.com/images/jackiedihedral.jpg" align=middle border="1" alt="Photo by Andrew"> Jackie leading "The Dihedral" 5.6<br><br>
<img src="http://www.jackieandalan.com/images/alancrazyalice.jpg" align=middle border="1" alt="Photo by Andrew"> Alan leading "Crazy Alice" 5.8<br><br>
<img src="http://www.jackieandalan.com/images/thenarrows.jpg"align=middle border="1" alt="Photo by Jackie"> Our playground on weekends!

On friday the weather was bad on the high mountains near Madrid. So I was checking the mountains when driving to them and saw that that it has been snowing the past night on the Sierra de Ayllón's highest peaks. The clouds covered all the mountains so I decided to go to a less higher range. Then I drived to the pass called Puerto de la Puebla (1.636 m) where I parked the car. It was snowing a few and the temperature was of 6 ºC / 43 F. I started solo-hiking late, at 3 PM, firstly I ascended Porrejón (1.827 m) and had lunch below the top. The recently fell snow of the past night was still on the N face of the summit pinnacle. Then I descended to Collado de las Palomas (1.600 m) surrounding Cabeza del Estillo and ascended Pinhierro (1.692 m). Finally I pushed forward along the long ridge to La Tornera (1.866 m), wich is the highest mountain in Sierra de la Puebla. This range is also known as Sierra Pobre because it's the poorest area in Madrid province. There was still a remainder of the winter snow below the NW ridge of the peak. I was having a rest on the summit until returning following the same track. I only could see some births as vultures, partridges and others; but I saw no people in 6 hours 15 min. The weather was cloudy and the temperature a bit low for April, it was of 0 ºC / 32 F when I passed Porrejón in the descent. I think that the snowstom of the past night was one of the latest in the season. The distance was 11-12 miles and the total gained height of 745 m. I could take some photos because the views to Sierra de Guadarrama (mostly cloudy) and mainly to Sierra de Ayllón were not bad. So it was a nice hike in a lonely and beautiful little range.