Day Hikes
  • Big Basin: I went to the Berry Creek trail(13miles) sometime in December 2001 along with Joyopriya, Sugata and Shoubhik. It was one of my first hikes but I still cherish the place since it was really beautiful.
  • La Jolla Caves: I went there with Shoubhik sometime during the spring break of 2001-02. We started late but it was still low tide. We managed to venture quite far but we had to haul us out of the place(there were some flimsy ropes handing from the top) as the water began to rise.
  • Cuyamaca peak(6512'): I did this during the spring-break of 2001-02 along with Joyopriya, Sugata and Shoubhik. We started at 4870' and reached the peak from there. The view from the top was quite enchanting in spite of it being a bit hazy.
  • Torrey Pines: This was more of a coastal walk rather than anything else. I also did this during the spring-break of 2001-02 along with Joyopriya, Sugata and Shoubhik. It gets a bit wet out there but still its a short and nice walk.
  • Tamales Bay: This was my first day-hike with the Stanford outing club. I met a lot of nice people. It was a 8-9 miles hike and at places the view was really nice. It was also about the right time for wild flowers. It was lead by Catherine on June 8, 2002.
  • Grand canyon: Undoubtedly the most ambitious and strenuous of all my day-hikes till date. I started at 6:20am along with Santosh and Amal down the Bright Angel Trail. We reached the Indian Garden around 8:30am. Amal decided to stop there(later he went to Plateau Point from there) while we headed down toward the riverbed. We reached the Colorado river after a hour. I swam in the river & cooled myself while Santosh took a smallish nap. After that I was eager to go for the silver bridge but decided to head back since I didn't have the map from that point onward. After a series of switchbacks we reached Indian Garden before noon. While Santosh decide to take a nap, I went ahead to check out the Plateau Point. The view from there was awesome. Well after that we started on our way back and were on the top of the rim before sunset. It was during July 5, 2002 and the temperature for that day went up to 120+. So I was happy that I managed to do a 20miles trail in one day.
  • Presidio & Crissy Fields: This was a day-trip led by Julio on July 20, 2002. I started with the group but after lunch we(me with Joyopriya, Sugata and Shoubhik) got separated from the group and went around by ourself. We had a nice dinner at a dhaba though some people didn't like it.
  • Fall Creek Unit: Lead by Sherry, on August 11, 2002 I went to yet another of the Stanford Outing Club day-hikes. The hike was a moderate one with one long uphill section. The Big Ben wasn't impressive, at least to me. The stream going along the trail was very nice and clear. Near the barrel workshop there was a nice swimming hole and I went for a refreshing dip there. After the hike we went for ice-cream at a small shop in Fresno.
  • Mt. Manuel(3380') After a gap of about 2 months, I started hiking once again. I went on this trip lead by Sarah on October 26, 2002. We started driving for Big Sur from Stanford at around 7:45am. On the way one of the cars had an accident; the 2 passengers decided to quit the trip and take care of their car. So we were left with 9! We reached the park at around 10:30am(after making a brief coffee stop) and had to park outside the park since some 'Big Sur race' was going on. The trail was supposed to be around 9 miles roundtrip with 3000' elevation gain. I expected a moderate/stenuous hike and was looking forward to it. It began well as we started to head up and kept going. We soon lost the tree cover and were negotiating switchbacks with practically no shed. However, it was partly cloudly which made things easy. Towards the middle of the trail we came across a foresty area where the trail was covered with leaves. It was kind of disturbing since we couldnt see the trail ahead of us and some areas seemed quite 'slide-prone'. I spotted a deer down the valley. Once we got out of this place, the trail became less well marked as we headed forward though lots of bushes and plenty of poison-oaks. There were some fallen trees but those were pretty easy to negotiate. At around 1pm we were still heading up(the bushes slowed us down a lot) and it seemed around 0.5 mile more to go; at that point it was only 4 of us(one person had already decided to head back, the other 4 were some distance behind us). So we decided to just call it a day and return. The way down was pretty easy as we gathered the rest of our group members. We reached the trailhead at 3:20pm and drove back to reach Stanford at 5:30pm. On the whole I found the trip quite nice(because I am a bit fond of bushwhacking) though I was a bit sad that we didnt make it to the top.
  • Went to Arroyo Seco River Hike with Daniel, Sophie and Dan's cousin in July 2003. It was really amazing.. we hiked for some 7hrs in water & finally scampered up a waterfall. We had dinner on our way back at Dennys :-)
  • On 4th October 2003, I went on a long hike (~18miles, 5000' elevation) in Mt. Diablo. Actually we planned to do the five peaks of Diablo. However, I got lost around the 4-5miles point and ended up doing the rest of the hike alone. I ran out of water somewhere in the middle and so decided to take the fire-road to the parking lot instead of following the trail to north peak. It was a good workout. I reached the parking lot around 3:30pm and had to wait for some 1hr for the rest of the group to return(they actually finished the full hike).
  • On 11th October 2003, I set out for the most ambitious hike of my life till now: the Grand Canyon of Tuolumne, Yosemite, a 30 mile hike with the elevation profile somehting like 8000'->4000'->8500', all to be done in a day. The trip was led by Amit, and surprisingly was one of the official outing club trips. It was some 12 of us, and as expected the day was loooong. We started at 6:30am from White Wolf and finished the hike at around 8:30pm at Tuolumne Meadows. The place was beautiful, the waterfalls facinating and the hike tiring. Towards the end, when the sun was down and the moon was out, it felt heavenly to walk softly through the wilderness. Some pictures from the trip can be found here: after this the camera, which I had borrowed from Amal, ran out of battery.
  • On 26th February, 2004 we went to half moon bay to watch big waves. Mark and Natasha took tons of pictures.
  • On 28th February, 2004 I went with the ev crowd to moaning cavern for caving adventure tour. It started off with a 165' rappel and it was just the beginning. It was a whole lot of fun. Pictures from the trip will appear here eventually.

Backpacking
  • Henry Coe: On May 18-19, 2002 I went for my first backpacking. It was one of the Stanford outing club's 20-20 ones. Only four of us went for it: Marcin(leader), Sarah and Daniel. I was definitely the most unfit of the lot :-) However it was quite nice in the end .... I really liked the Mississippi Lake where we stooped for the night. The way back was long... and it started raining for the last 1-2 hrs which made matters worse. It taught me a lot about backpacking and till date its one of the most challenging I have been to.
  • Tamales Bay Kayaking: On June 15-16, 2002 I went on this trip lead by Erik. It was fun & the gourmet dinner was great. Once again I met with a lot of cool people.
  • Trinity Alps: On June 21-23, 2002 I went for yet another backpacking and this one was led by Erhhung. We had a few lakes on our way... there was the lower, upper lakes and of course the L-lake. I joined the polar bear club on this trip. We returned at 3:30am in the morning.
  • Emigrant Wilderness On June 29-30, 2002 we went for this long backpacking which was lead by Girish. The views were great and the weather was nice. The only problem was bugs: there were way too many mosquitoes.
  • Mt. Silliman(11188'): Lead by Arturo, on August 3, 2002 I went for this moderate backpacking. It involved a few class II climbs(which was not that easy given the fact I don't have a very good balance and further I didn't have a hiking pole) and cross-country hikes. The Silliman lake was very clear and nice. The gourmet dinner was one of the best I ever had at that altitude(10000'+). Oh, we also peaked Mt. Idiot before we realized that Mt. Silliman was the one beside it :-) You can look into Arturo's report for more...

Car Camping
  • Tuolumne Meadows: On August 16-18,2002 I went for my first car-camping with the Stanford outing club. The trip was lead by Bill.We arrived at the campsite at 1am and had little option but to set up the tent and go to sleep. Next day I woke up at around 7am, and had a wonderful breakfast prepared by Bill. After that we set off for a day hike to Cathedral Lake. It was an easy hike, some 3.5mile each way. We met a few backpackers going down to the valley. The trail was pretty nice with some good views. Many of us swam in the Cathedral Lake(upper one). After lunch, I went around the lake & also caught a glimpse of the lower lake. While most of the group headed back to the trail-head, a few of us(lead by Ron & Bill) decided to take a cross-country route via the Bud Lake. The trail back was very nice. We reached camp around 6:30pm & started preparations for dinner. We also had a great desert competition where people came up with amazing ideas... the spice boys won the competition(I was part of the team). Next day we woke up early and broke the camp. While a part of the group went for climbing lessons, others headed back home, four of us decided to go for Mt. Dana(13053'). We started from Tioga Pass and headed up... it was up all the way some 3000' elevation gain with practically no trail toward the top. From the plateau I took a route to the right but ended up heading along the center line, bouldering all the way up. The view from top was amazing. After having lunch we headed down... I went for a wash in one of the small pools near the Tioga Pass. On our way back we had a very nice dinner at a BBQ joint(which helped us to erase the memories from "the house of beef") and headed back for the long drive home(I reached home at 1am.)
  • Hot springs: On August 24-25, 2002 I set out with Robert, Martin and Shoubhik for a couple of hikes & some fun. We started 4:45am from Stanford and reached Tuolumne around 10:30am. Around 11am we started our day hike: Clouds Rest(9926') from the Tenaya Lake trail-head. It was a moderate 14 mile hike but the view was spectacular. Though it was a bit hazy, may be due to the few controlled fires around, but still I loved the hike. It would be great to go for a backpacking along that trail and head toward the valley.. may some other time. We came back to the trail-head at 6pm after stopping for an hour on our way back at a mud lake & going for a 'swim'(oh, I forgot to mention that on our way up I lost one of my tvas, but managed to find it while coming down). Once back from the trail, we headed out of the park, stopped at Tioga store to pick up some dinner & headed for the hot springs. Robert knew the way perfectly and we reached Shepard's. I was pretty excited to find a hot spring out of nowhere. We quickly set up our tents & headed for a bath in the hot springs: it was really nice. A couple of climbers(Chris & someone else) joined us, they also had a bottle of nice port wine to share. Next day we woke up, took a relaxing dip in the hot springs & headed for the Mammoth Lakes. We started on our trail from the Devil's Postpile trail-head toward the Minaret Lake(9700'). It was a 6-7 mile(each way) hike & we made it to the lake around 2:30pm(we had started at 11am). The place was gorgeous. The lake was spectacular, with the ice-line right next to it: we had no doubt about the water temperature. I managed to swim to a nearby rock and come back before I started shivering. The way down was really fast & we made it in 2hrs. I(later shoubhik joined me) headed for the Devil's Postpile. The place looked quite amazing, I also managed to go up another 50-100' to check out the top of the pile. After that we started on our way back & Robert drove back without making a single stop: which was quite impressive...
    For lots of pictures look at Roberts piture-report.
  • Death Valley Trip Nov 27 - Dec 1; lead by Ningjing & Lothar; places visited: racetracks, eureka dunes, scottie's castle, salt creek, 20 mule train canyon, golden canyon, badwater, devil's gold course, devil's cornfield, mosaic canyon, .....

Orienteering
  • My first orienteering experience: Calero, Morgan Hill 17 November, 2002. with Brad, Erika, Francois, Natasha. Details follows....Meanwhile check out the results. Me & Erika finished 10th in Orange :-)
  • On 24 November, I went with Natasha for my second orienteering experience.It was the annual Goat Race. This time it was in Las Trampas. We managed to get a t-shirt for finishing the kid part!
  • 7 Dec 2002, Orienteering, score-o at stanford.
  • 15 Dec, 2002, with Brad, Erika, Natasha; short course Bon Tempe; it was rainy & windy & I got lost...
  • After a long break, on 9 March, 2003 with Erika, James, Natasha, Pancho, I did some orienteering at Shell Ridge. The weather was great, I did a brown (finished 8 of 24) and then we (all five of us) did the orange course.
  • 27 April, 2003 Joe Gramt. San Jose with Erika, James, Natasha, Pancho. I did the brown course.
  • 2003. Golden goat: barely finished the kid with Natasha. We were pretty tired at the end of the day.

Miscellaneous
  • I went for my first treasure hunt with Ann, Chris, Danny on 11 January, 2003. We did pretty well and finished 2nd. Visit http://www.bloodandbones.com/thegame/bang2.html for more details.
  • We did the bang 2 at uc berkeley. It was a lot of fun and the problems were quite interesting.
  • The first annual glab retreat was at Kennolyn Village, Santa Cruz during 8-10 November, 2002. Checkout .... Leslie's description & also Pat's photo album.