One of the big reasons that the San Francisco Peninsula and the East Bay Hills are such fine destinations for hiking is due to the efforts of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. Since 1989, their volunteer efforts have fueled grant programs to spur the development of much of the planned 300-mile trail system that […]

I thought it might be fun to determine just where my fellow winehikers’ allegiances lie when it comes to purchasing wine. If you’ve got a minute, let others know what you think by completing the following simple one-question poll:
   

When purchasing wine, which country’s wines do you tend to favor most?

France

Italy

United States of America

Australia

New Zealand

Germany

South Africa

Chile

Spain

Portugal

Make […]

Somebody has finally gone and done what tends to come naturally to out-of-work Silicon Valley oenophiles with too much time on their hands.  Not to mention a healthy disdain for the rigid descriptors printed on tasting wheels!
The Silly Tasting Notes Generator v1.1, a Perl script written by self-proclaimed computer geek Greg Sumner, generates random tasting notes, and is […]

Dan Mitchell, in his blog Dan’s Outside, describes an incident in which, late at night, he stumbled around the house in the dark and smacked his pinky toe on the furniture. Sure — we’ve all done it, right?  But right before a 5-day backpack trip?
Yep, I did the same exact thing once. Only it was my […]

I’ve just been reading a New York Times article (see In vino veritas - but a rating helps by Gary Rivlin) that explores how powerful wine ratings have become since Robert Parker Jr. first began his 100-point rating system back in the late ’70’s. It’s a pretty well-written article explaining the pros and cons of wine ratings […]

At last night’s tasting, we enjoyed five Pinot Noirs that represented California rather well, plus a sixth from the esteemed Bourgogne (Burgundy) region of France. This tasting presented some truly wonderful wines, and the results, though widely disparate, yielded 3 very good Pinot wines worth trying again.
Pinot Noir appears to be all the rage since […]

Back on July 24th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a proposal to extend permanent protection to a portion of Northern California. The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act (HR 233), would protect 289,000 acres of wilderness and 21 miles of the Black Butte River as wild and scenic. All of the lands in […]

Enterprising though they may be, Starbucks has yet to figure out a way to bring their franchise to the trail.
May they never do so!
But heck, we coffee-guzzling wilderness lovers need not fret: now we can enjoy Java Juice, “a pure coffee extract that turns into a bonafide cup of 100 percent organic, and certified Kosher, Arabica […]

No doubt you’ve been waiting with breathless anticipation to read about this man’s first Man-Pedi experience. After over a week of my own anticipation — or should we say trepidation? — it almost didn’t happen! But that particular element had nothing to do with the bubbly.
Breakfast mid-morning was, indeed, immensely satisfying, and a fine way […]

Tomorrow I plan to do something I’ve never done before. Being that it’s my third decade of hiking the trails of the world, I believe it’s finally time to pamper my poor abused feet. And so, I’m going to a spa in Los Gatos, and I’m going to get a pedicure. Not […]