Diamond Head - Oahu, Hawaii

9:06am to 10:08am (1 hour 2 minutes)

Trailhead to Top
Party: Self
Distance is 1.76 miles
Elevation gain is ~440
Trail head to Top - 21min

Since I am in Oahu, Hawaii, on vacation, might as well take advantage of doing a tourist hike. It is certainly proven to be a tourists favorite. The entire hike is so crowded. After all, this is more like a vacation within a vacation... getting out by myself for a quick hike...

Even it is relative early in the morning, it is still way up in the high eighties, and with the sun beating on me, it was not the easiest hike...

Victoria Peak - Hong Kong

5:11am to 8:08am (2 hour 57 minutes)

WanChai to Victoria Peak
Party: Self
Distance is 9.12 miles
Elevation gain is ~1500
Trail head to Top - 1 hr 41min

Taking advantage of my jet lag to wake up at 4:30am for this commemorative hike to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong - the city I grew up. This is also a route similar to one I take every year in my secondary school year to help raise money for charity. This hike certainly bring back tons of memory. This is the hike which I was soaked in sweat even before the sum came out as the heat and humidity of Hong Kong in July offers. Here are a few pictures from my childhood neighborhood to the infamous Victoria Peak.

Celebrate 4th of July on Maguire Peaks

7/4/2008 8:20am to 1:15pm

Sunol Visitor Center to Maguire Peaks (via Flag Hill)
Party: Thomas
Distance: 10.8 miles
Elevation gain is 1368ft net (>3100ft total)

Visited Sunol Regional park and Mission Peak quite a few times since March. Covered quite a few different trails in all directions.

Yosemite Half Dome

5/31/2008 5:58am to 6:30pm (12 hour 28 minutes)

Happy Isle to Top of Half Dome
Party: Simon, Jin
Distance is 17 miles
Elevation gain is 4800 feet net and 5500+ total
Trail head to Top - 6.5 hour

I am not going to re-capture the trail in details as others have done far better job doing so. A very good site can be found here at http://www.yosemitehikes.com/. This site descripts almost every trail in Yosemite including the one in interest here - Half Dome.

We used the Mist Trail going up as that saved us 2 miles of walking. We did used the John Muir Trail coming back down to save our knees for another hike some other days.

Here is the Topological map of the route we took.
Red is the route up and blue is the route down.


A long 16 1/2 miles of hiking. Climbing over 5000 feet total. The views are well worth it. The climb up the cable towards the top is not as steep as it is seems in this elevation profile as the height and horizontal distance are not to scale. It is still an incline of over 45 degree.


Here are the aerial view, front and back view for the day's hike.

This is actually the 3rd time I hike up half dome but this is the first time I carried a camera and secure evidence of my present on top of the rock.

Ohlone Widerness Trail (1/2 Way to Rose Peak)

5/18/2008 ~7am to 12:30pm
Sunol Visitor Center to just pass SF water district
Party: Thomas
Distance is ~11 miles
Elevation gain is ~2100ft net (~2800ft total)

A sunday morning after the spring hot spell, we decided to trek some new ground instead of the previously done trail up to mission peak - the Ohlone Wilderness Trail leading to Rose Peak. It was a moderately hot day, both of us has a bit more than 2 litres in our pak and we both exhausted the supply about 1.5 miles before we got back to the visitor center.

I have to mention here that this just happen to be the same day the 50K run was taking place. "People" runs from Stanford Ave up mission peak, down to Sunol park, up to Rose Peak and go all the way to Del Valle.
Purple route is the way up and Red is the route "down". The reason down is double quoted is that it is a more challenging route coming back. It almost feels like it has more up than the way up.

Mission Peak evening hikes

The days are getting longer and longer. It is possible now to get some exercise in the evening after work. Need to shape up a bit more for the planned hike at the end of May with some friends. The weather is getting dryer but not necesary to much warmer. These evening hike I have done so far are quite enjoyable. The hill side is turning quite brown bu there are still big purple flowers lingering.
Also brought a pair of trekking poles to try out to reduce the stress on my knees. I found them hurting a bit about 2/3 the way down from the Mt Diablo hike on 4/6. Since I plan to do this for a while still, better to do something to reduce the stress as much as possible. I have used them a couple of times now and find them quite helpful even for this short hikes up and down Mission Peak. I will really put them to the test for the hike at the end of the month.
There isn't really any thing new about these hikes except I am trying to get better ime up and down the mountain...




8/23/2008 1 hr 10 min (1 hr 57 min total) morning

7/19/2008 1 hr 9 min (1 hr 54 min total) morning

7/13/2008 Back to morning hike
1 hr 11 min to the top

6/11/2008 - 1 hr 10 min (2 hr 3 min total) no poles

5/23/2008 - 1.5 hour... Ran into Danny and his friend on my way up and their way down and we talked for a bit...

5/13/2008 - 1 hour 10 minutes to the top; 2 hour 8 minutes round trip
The moon was waxing to about 1/4 and was liting my way down quite well. I was watch the sun set from the peak and it was very enjoyable. Not using the trekking poles, trying out to carry them on the daypack...

5/9/2008 - 1 hour 12 minutes to the top; 2 hour 12 minutes round trip
It was a new moon and I was pushing to get the last bit of light from dusk. Get back just in time to the car... Also using the trekking poles.

5/6/2008 - 1 hour 17 minutes to the top; 2 hour 20 minutes round trip
First time trying out my new trekking poles. On Sale from REI. :-)

4/25/2008 - Not all the way to the top...
Spent 1 hour going up only to get to the shouder of the peak. It was getting dark and so I turn around.

Mount Diablo - South Gate to Summit (ALL THE WAY)

I was still driving a 1986 Honda Civic Hatchback when I drove up to the summit of Mount Diablo the first time. It must have been before September of 1995. I remember I drove to the summit and rock city among a couple of other places. At the time, I look at the trail by the road to the summit and thought - who is crazy enough to hike all the way to the top? I might come back a rent a horse and ride it to the top, someday...

On April 6, 2008, after about 8 times hiking up this trail plus 3 time going up mission peak, about 6 months after picking up hiking again, I finally hike all the way to the top from the south gate entrance. I guess I am crazy enough... (I have to say it is also out of convenient that I live about 10 minutes away from the south gate).

4/6/2008 7:24AM to 12:44PM
South Gate to Summit
- 7:24AM to 10:20AM (Just a tad under 3 hours)
- Summit trail to Live Oak Campground
- fireroad to Rock City
- Trail through Time
- Summit Trail Shortcut/Summit Trail bypass
Summit to South Gate - 10:50AM to 12:44PM
(Just a tad under 2 hours, could be a knee killer)
- Only detour is summit trail bypass
Distance: 11.7 miles
Elevation gain: 3100 feet (+)

It was not a clear day to begin with. Low clouds was hanging around. It was because of this, I got a wonderful experience out of this hike. It is not every day that one can hike up into the clouds and hike out above it again. I hiked into the clouds a bit passed Rock City at the summit bypass. I came back out of it about half way between the water tank and Devil's Elbow.

It is thoughful of the architect of the visitor center at the summit to expose the top of Mt Diablo so people can still stand on the "original" top of the mountain.

It is in the midst of spring and the mountain side are blanketed with beautiful flowers. I took many pictures on the way up. This gives me a chance to rest and to enjoy the scenery as well. I also realized that out of so many kinds of flowers, I can only name the California poppy. The Mount Diablo Interpretive Association realize that many would be intrigued by this and published Mt. Diablo Wildflowers in 2005. Lots of flowers also means lots of pollen. I was sneezing so much when I was in Dan Cook Canyon that I thought I would not be able to complete this hike as planned. But the air is quick enough to clear of pollen once I climbed about 400 ft about the gate

Here are the pictures of the flowers I saw on this one hike. It is wonderful if you love flowers. I do have to warn fellow allegy sufferers to take appropiate precautions.
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Shooting Star Western Wall Flower

Silver Lupine

California Poppy

Blue-Eyed GrassBush Monkey-FlowerIndian Warriors


Ithuriel's Spear Fiddleneck California Buttercup