SBGAL: Jesusita Trail to Inspiration Point

28 February 2015

Today the Santa Barbara Girlfriends Adventure League hike was up Jesusita Trail from the water treatment plant up to Inspiration Point. The weather was cool and beautiful, and due to the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, there were an amazing variety of native plants in bloom.

Everyone loved the awesome ear warmer Miz D was wearing, very stylish! I just might try making something like this...

 First pause at the picnic tables to regroup. 

 There is a fungus among us! The shapes and colors and patterns are so beautiful, like ocean waves.

In the next two photos, remnants of the fire are quite visible, but it's heartening to see how much has grown back already.

We made it! (In case there was a doubt..)

 Gorgeous view from up here.

 Snack time!

 No wait, make the cell phone time!

 She caught me. Yes, I too was using my cell phone to take photos! It is so much smaller than my camera I have only been carrying it with me.

I love SBGAL! ♥

SBGAL: Baron Ranch Trail

21 February, 2015

Today's Santa Barbara Girlfriends Adventure League hike was up the Baron Ranch Trail, near Gaviota.

Ready, get set....

 Go!

 A pause at the beginning of the loop portion of the trail.

The house ruins. Just a one room house with no windows, but what a beautiful location.

 Finally passed the top and heading down again, what a view. We are hoping these clouds will bring some desperately needed RAIN.

We saw several newts in the woods, cute little naked vulnerable creatures. They are rather hard to spot as they are just the color of the fallen leaves around there; thank heavens we didn't step on any, as we had 17 people in the group.

 Another pause, for a discussion about shoes and socks for hiking. Timely, as I discovered on this hike that apparently my toes have grown, or something, since I last wore these hiking boots regularly some years ago. The tips of my toes are sore and feeling a bit raw. Time for new boots.

 Home by 11:00AM, to have the rest of the day free (after showering off the ticks and poison oak!). Great way to start the weekend!

SBGAL: Franceschi Park Walk

31 January 2015

I am excited to be a new member of Santa Barbara Girlfriends Adventure league, a group of amazing women who get together and brave sunburn, poison oak, blisters, and ticks to spend time together hiking in the Great Outdoors.

Here are some photos I took on the first hike of 2015 and my first hike with them. Have to be quick to take photos or take them while walking, as pauses are infrequent and the pace is fast. I was quickly disabused of the idea that these were leisurely hikes.

Here we are pausing for about 3 minutes at Franceschi Park to admire the view.

 And a gorgeous view of Santa Barbara it was, too. Perfect sunny day.

The "Frog Wall". I would be interested to know how this got started, as it's clearly been there for a while and is a real piece of community collaboration!

Heading back to Rocky Nook Park at the finish.

And that was Day 1... I met so many people, it's a good thing we have name tags. Looking forward to getting to know these fabulous women!

Rafting in Três Coroas

21 April 2012

The rafting trip to Três Coroas was awesome. The weather was absolutely perfect for the duration of the rafting and only after we got back to the base camp did the rain clouds roll in.

Here we are on the way, very excited; only one person in our group of 9 had been rafting before.

Here is our group, all suited up to go out.

A little life vest sumo...

Once the group photos were done, the photographer took pics of anyone who wanted.

This is the whole group.  After giving us instructions (see below), we were all loaded like cattle onto the truck in the background.  We were packed in so tightly that the guides had to cling to the sides of the truck because they didn't fit on the truck.

Me, watching the demonstration in rapid-fire Portuguese and trying to understand. .

After the cattle truck ride, we are finally in the water!

First the guide had us steer straight up against the dam - they seemed to delight in directing us to ram things.  It was pretty funny.

Our first taste of "rough" water.

Woohoo!

I hollered so much I think my mouth is open in every photo!

Good grief, my outrigger canoeing coach would have a conniption if he saw his paddlers this badly out of synchronization.  The paddling in our boat was like a drunken spider.  Only in the photos can we see how hard the guide really had to work in the back.

The other half of our group is in this raft.

I didn't see this butterfly, but look how amazing its markings are. However, there was one place where the guides had us ram into the rock at the side of the river.  We were the first raft to do so and when we arrived there was a flock of white butterflies sunning on the top of the rock.  When we bounced against the side of the rock they all fluttered up in a cloud, it was so lovely.

Our first activity stop to "shoot the rapids".

Do these red shorts make my butt look big?

Here we are shooting the rapids.

I was not at ALL sure about doing this after watching the folks before me get sucked under...

But I did it anyway.

This is the owner of our school - so awesome that he not only drove us the three hours each way but also accompanied us on the adventure.

Oh my god, they forgot the raft!

After watching this group go down in a train, I decided to try it too, so here I go... just about to inhale half of the river into my brain through my sinuses.  Ow.

When there was a particularly cool place the guides would take each boat in one by one to play around in it. In this spot the raft filled with water but it drains out again rapidly after.

One thing I found amusing was that in giving directions the guide would shout at us to paddle forward, only the word for "front" in Portuguese sounds like "French".  So it was like some bizarre national chant. French, French, French!

This trip was super fun, no one fell out of our boat (there were a couple of spills from other boats). I would do this again anytime!