Training Log Archive: Lori

Ski backpacking trip with Sam, Tori, Carlo, and Presto! A few months ago Carlo noticed that the ski out to the Ludlow Hut was actually doable by a not-especially-good skier, and amazingly some spots were still available for a weekend in which none of us had conflicting plans, so we signed up!

The ski out to the hut was fairly uneventful. I wasn't really prepared for how much harder it would be to ski with all my overnight gear, but it wasn't impossible, just a lot of work. It was typical Tahoe spring weather - so like 50 degrees with blindingly bright sun and 15 feet of snow :-).

It was pretty much all uphill to the cabins with a few steep sections, but nothing too difficult. We stopped for lunch at Lily Lake, which was gorgeous, and then skied across a string of lakes to get to the turn off for the hut. It was sort of unfathomably bright on the lakes. It sort of felt like we were on a different planet. Even with sunglasses and a hat on, my eyes didn't quite know how to deal with that level of brightness.

We weren't 100% sure where the hut was, but after a bit of confusion about which tracks to follow found it without too much trouble. The entire first floor and part of the second floor of the hut were completely buried in snow! Luckily someone had dug a hole out so we could get in the door. Hilariously, instead of digging a hole down to the ground to get into the outhouse, the door to the outhouse was just built like 10 feet up in the air. When you went into the outhouse, you had to climb down a 10 foot ladder to get to the toilets.

We set up our sleeping bags in the loft of the hut, and then headed back out to see if we could summit something. We headed up Lost Corner Mountain, which had awesome views across the Desolation Wilderness. We made it to a false summit that was maybe 25 feet below and 500ft away from the real summit before deciding that we should turn around before dark. The ski back was challenging, but doable. I did much skiing back and forth and back and forth, which confused Presto quite a bit. He wasn't exactly sure what to do, especially when Sam and I were on different sides of our back and forth skis. We were almost back to the hut when I fell and somehow managed to seriously whollop the back of my head with my ski pole. I have a nice, big, painful lump now, but was otherwise unscathed. Other hut denizens had nice fires going in the wood stoves when we arrived, so we just had to cook dinner, filter water, and head up to the sleeping loft. Awesome day!

Running with Presto after lab! I had to take the car in for a smog check today, which meant leaving lab earlier than usual, so I decided it was a good day for a slightly longer run. Presto was a bit confused when we didn't turn on the normal street, but was pretty happy to go a bit further once he figured out what was happening. Nice to run in the daylight this evening!

Normal abs.

Normal stretching.

Running with Presto after lab! I had to talk to my parents tonight and also wanted to go for a run while it was still light out + had a bunch of stuff to deal with later in the evening, so I decided to try running while talking on the phone (using headphones). It was moderately successful in that I was able to run without too much trouble, but actually understanding my parents was a bit of a challenge. Anyway, the multitasking more-or-less worked, so yay!

Normal stretching right before bed.

Running with Sam and Presto at Point Pinole! We just spent yesterday resting (and doing taxes...), which was a good move. I'm feeling a lot better today, although still clearly not 100%. Sam's worried he's getting this cold now, but we both wanted some time outside, so we decided to do a nice easy run at Point Pinole. Sam joined me for about 2/3rds of the run and then headed back to the car. I was feeling ok, if slow, so Presto and I did the full Point Pinole loop. Glad to get out and glad to start feeling a bit more human again!

Normal stretching back home.