Comments for Two-Heel Drive, a Bay Area Hiking Blog

Comment on Great links from the hiking blogosphere by tom

tom — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:06:49 +0000

Rick: most impressive. If you did some search engine optimization on your site you could actually make more money from ads and paid links than you’ll ever make from your book.

“Half Dome” got over 270,000 searches on google last month (vs. 5,000 for “bay area hiking”).

Comment on Great links from the hiking blogosphere by Rick Deutsch

Rick Deutsch — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:20:09 +0000

Mr Half Dome has written a daily blog (7 days a week) for 2 1/2 yrs. Only missed when camping or on Cruise ships. Gosh.

Rick D

Comment on $15 fee to support California parks proposed by Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:53:07 +0000

Tennessee’s state parks were closed or open only on weekends for a few months as I recall as our governor threw a temper tantrum that he didn’t get his way on a tax proposal. We had the pay for access at some parks. I actually bought an annual pass to one of them I was there so much. It was a nightmare though… is your pass still up to date? Getting change, etc.

Amazing a few years ago after all that Tennessee got the honor of best state park system in the US. Many of our parks have very strong Friends groups that helped with maintenance and improvements costs and labor. I’m sure that won’t solve all the problems in CA as they didn’t here.

I really lament the fact that we have turned over these natural beauties over to politicians and bureaucrats to steward. There’s got to be a better way.

Comment on Cool, hiking as euphemism for hanky-panky by Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:31:59 +0000

I imagine it’s making some girlfriends awfully suspicious of their beaus “hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

Comment on Great links from the hiking blogosphere by John Pugh

John Pugh — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:38:01 +0000

Tom – thanks for the website plug. I need to get over to your side of the country and see how ya’ll do it up in the big hills.

Ralph – I gotta throw a plug in for Paul Magnanti’s blog – http://www.pmags.com/joomla/ Great stuff there. Paul’s a straight-up hiking machine!

Comment on Great links from the hiking blogosphere by Ralph Alcorn

Ralph Alcorn — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:03:15 +0000

Some fine links there. I read John Pugh’s Source to Sea frequently. He has some interesting posts in the list of favorite posts on the right side of his blog. For instance, how to make a pot cozy. Living in a straw yurt, etc.

Comment on Año Nuevo for the elephant seal molt by John Soares

John Soares — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:51:06 +0000

Thanks Tom. I might be in the market for a small, lightweight, but capable camera that’s more portable than my current DSLR.

Comment on Año Nuevo for the elephant seal molt by Tom

Tom — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:17:18 +0000

John: Canon A710is that Fedak donated to me after I dropped my other camera at Big Basin and bricked it. It has a 6x zoom, which is what I used to get the pix of the elephant seals.

Comment on Año Nuevo for the elephant seal molt by John Soares

John Soares — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:06:32 +0000

Stunning pics, Tom.

What camera do you use?

Comment on Año Nuevo for the elephant seal molt by Tom

Tom — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:47:57 +0000

I think only the elephant seals shed in this manner.

It feels like a bit of tanned leather, it’s not really all that gross to the touch.

Researchers tranquilize the bulls and glue tracking devices on them; they shed the devices on land with the rest of their outer layer of skin and the researchers track them down and find out everywhere the elephant seals swam in the previous year.