About us and Backpacking in the Sierra Nevada
We are M and P, married for 43 years, and with a ton of experience in camping, hiking and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. We both grew up camping and hiking as kids, and we’ve continued that interest through raising two wonderful kids who have also grown up to love the mountains, too.
P’s father worked as a state park ranger in the Sierra for a couple of summers when P was growing up, at Donner Lake and D.L Bliss State Parks. Says P: “I don’t know if it felt like a vacation for him—but for us kids, it was heaven!”
(One of P's first hikes in the Sierra was on his mother's hip when he was about ten months old...a ten mile hike to Velma Lakes! There may have been others before that, but he doesn't remember... in the photo below left, that's him in the blue overalls, standing in front of his older sister.)
Over the past few years we’ve spent more and more time backpacking in the Sierra, and thought it was time to share some of that experience with people who might be a little intimidated by the idea of backpacking. And we also hope to encourage others with experience to share their knowledge and expertise.
After more than 2,000 miles of hiking in the Sierra, both as day hikes and backpacking trips, we don’t know it all—but we are learning!
In the pages below, we've answered a few questions and explained our philosophy about backpacking, the Sierra Nevada, and issues of interest to hikers.
Please take the time to look around and see what we put together here. We hope it's fun, and we'll know we've achieved our goal if we get a note from you after a backpacking trip into the Sierra.
So go ahead!
Explore!
OMG Don't you have to sleep on the ground?
Trail Etiquette: Leave No Trace (LNT)