This was going to be a short day, just 25km up the hill to Sibley Backpack Camp. Because it was so short, and I had an event in the morning, I let myself procrastinate on trip prep, and almost had a disaster when I couldn’t put my hands on my ultralight clip-on coffee screen filter. Fortunately I remembered that Nathan&Co carries hipster-coded camping trinkets, and they had a very cute brass folding filter cup that was good enough for the trip.
Then, when I was about 10 minutes into the ride, I realized in my packing frenzy I’d forgotten to put my helmet on. I seriously considered just going without, but since I was planning to do gravel riding on my 700x28s, I thought it would be imprudent. Looping back home I happened to run into Tiff from Bike Rescue riding the other way. [Not wearing a helmet.]
Lid on, I got back on the road. I’d decided my camp stove would be just for coffee and breakfast, so I planned to stop at a market on the way up the hill to grab something for dinner. It was quite windy and threatening rain as I prepared to get on the road, so I decided to take the more wooded Butters&Burdeck route up the hills. That put me up near the Skyline Community Market, which has a good selection of Stone and other beers, and also has some food. I got falafel and hummus with caramelized onion.
Getting to Sibley from the market meant a climb into the wind, which felt more enervating than it should have been. Maybe because it’s a segment I ride all the time, usually in lighter winds and without extra weight. But it wasn’t far, and I made it to the campsite and set up. Because of the wind, I chose the more protected of the two tent pads, and after heading back down to the staging area to fill up with water (there’s none at the campsite), I decided to get done with dinner and skip the idea of a sunset hike.
The spring hills were still lovely, with the eucalyptus stands showing up as red, with french broom as patches of yellow. But the rain was coming in and it was time to hunker down.
