Hiking Donner Canyon, part 2

In part 1 of my blog about hiking Donner Canyon I quipped that it's not about hiking the canyon, it's about seeing the waterfalls. Well, there are plenty of little waterfalls to see, but it's also about seeing the canyon.



In the lower reaches the canyon feels about the same a mile in as it does at the beginning, but up here nestled below the peaks fo Mt. Diablo the views change every 2 minutes as the trail winds around the sharp folds of the mountain.



Hidden in some of these sharp folds are those waterfalls. The one in the pic above, for example, really can't be seen until you're almost on top of it. And getting below it? Whew, that'd be a tough one. It would take some technical climbing skills and equipment to get down and back up.



This falls (above) is also in the category of not visible except when you're practically on top of it. Like the previous falls it's in a narrow side canyon. And like I said at the top, hiking this trail isn't just about seeing the falls. Check out this short video showing the view when I swivel to look away from these falls:

Watch on YouTube

Oh, and another falls; this one on the smaller side.



There were so many falls flowing on Sunday when we visited. In the days prior we'd considered a number of different hikes we could take. I'm glad we chose this one!

Update: Keep reading in part 3!

Hiking Donner Canyon, part 3

I didn't expect our hike at Donner Canyon last Sunday to stretch to 3 blogs, but here we are. The hike felt longer than expected, too. Mapping tools said distance was about 5.7 miles with 1,150 feet of elevation gain. I know we're kind of out of shape; partly a consequence of poor weather/conditions most of the past 4 months. The hike really kicked our butts. But we didn't mind (much) because in beauty we walk.



I remarked in my previous blogs (part 1, part 2) that while the attraction of this hike is the waterfalls it's also about the canyon itself. The upper canyon has plenty of interesting bits where the trail snakes along the side of steep mountainsides. You can see examples in the pictures above and below.



When hiking I always remind myself, "Check your 6." It's a military term meaning to look backwards periodically, as enemies or other threats may approach from behind. In hiking it means to look at where you've come from, not just what's ahead of you. Beauty lies in all directions.



"Check your 6" was key to seeing the two waterfalls in the picture above. Heading in the direction we were walking we could have missed them if we were only focused on putting one foot in front of the other and admiring the vista ahead.

Speaking of the vista ahead...



This view down across the town we started in, the cities beyond it, and the northeastern neck of the San Francisco Bay in the distance, can distract you if you're not mindful.

Also, it's like, "Dang, we hiked up from down there?!" It's going to take a lot of putting one foot in front of the other.



...But again, don't just put one foot in front of the other. While descending from the high reaches of the canyon on a different trail than we hiked in we spotted a quiet little waterfalls 50' into the forest.

We saw so many little waterfalls on this hike. I'm glad we chose to do it after several weeks of rain. And what a beautiful day for hiking, too. It was 70° (21° C) when we got back to the trailhead at 3pm.

Off to Vegas. SNOW?!?!

Vegas Travelog #1
SJC Airport - Tue, 14 Feb, 2023. 3:55pm

Today is Valentine's Day so I'm off to Las Vegas... alone. 🤣 My company scheduled its annual Sales Kickoff (SKO) meeting for this week. They were aware it could cause some conflict for US staff. Is it only the US where Valentine's Day is celebrated? Probably it's only the US where it's commercialized to a ridiculous degree. Thankfully Feb. 14 is just another day of the year for Hawk and me so there's nothing disruptive about this trip.

...Nothing disruptive except the travel itself, that is.

Rolling Delays

My flight to Vegas is delayed. Delays are pretty common with Southwest. Usually they're small. Usually they don't result in stranding me somewhere overnight. Usually. Fortunately SJC-LAS is just a 90 minute nonstop trip (only 58 minutes in the air) so it's hard to screw it up that bad. But, you know, if they try hard enough....

While I bash Southwest for their habit of delays building up pretty much every afternoon, and they have stranded me overnight twice, this delay wasn't due to their antiquated operations systems. Las Vegas got socked with a surprise storm this afternoon. There were high winds and even sightings of snow. Snow in Vegas! A ground stop at the airport inflicted delays on flights on all airlines.

Our flight was on a rolling delay. Our 1:30pm departure was pushed back to 2:00, then 3:09, then 3:38, then 4:35. Over 3 hours late. All for a 90 minute flight.

Update 1: Flight Canceled!

Can it get worse? Sure it can. My flight got canceled.

I got rebooked to a flight originally scheduled for 12:15pm that had already been pushed back to 3:52. Over 3.5 hours late.

It's after 3:52pm already, so who knows when I'll actually get there. I assume at least it will be tonight, because Southwest has already canceled multiple SJC-LAS flights and piled everybody onto this one aircraft. Seriously, multiple flight crews are aboard. They all need to get to Vegas, too, to staff flights tonight and tomorrow morning.

Update 2: Overweight, Call for Volunteers

Update 2 (4:30pm): Twenty minutes ago the pilot announced we are overweight. After the airline canceled 2 or 3 other Vegas flights and piled everyone (including me) onto this one, filling every seat, it's not too surprising. They advised us they would look for 10 volunteers to deplane.

Five minutes ago an operations agent came aboard and made the offer. Take another flight, currently estimated to leave 3 hours later, and Southwest would provide a $600 voucher for future travel in addition to refunding the ticket for this flight. The first volunteer jumped up out of his seat so fast at the mention of $600 the agent had to say, "Not yet, let me finish." 🤣

I'm on this flight with two colleagues headed to SKO. Tim needs to be there ASAP to rehearse for a presentation, Tiffany decided to volunteer for the voucher. I considered it myself. If it's only a 3 hour delay that's reasonable for a ticket refund plus a $600 voucher. The thing is, with all these delays already today, there's no guarantee a flight scheduled 3 hours from now will actually leave 3 hours from now. Flights later today could well get canceled, stranding us 'til tomorrow if we take the deboard. Well, enough other people jumped up ahead of Tiffany that she was #11 in line. She remains on the plane with us. And BTW none of us are going anywhere. It's 4½ hours past this flight's scheduled departure and we're still parked at the gate.