Lassen Hike - Day 3

While hiking, we have sited mom deer and baby bambi. They were curiously looking at us but when we waved hands to say hello, they took off.
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In many places, especially, around lakes, we see clear foot print of all kinds of animals. This is bear foot print. We have not sited any yet but we know they are walking around...

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Captain Peter leads. Guneet and Egor keep up well. Day 3 was very hot and we had to go through volcanic area on sandy road. It was really exhausting but the scenery is always breath-taking.

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Team Peter is approaching "Cinder Cone". We had options to go left (longer rout) and right (shorter rout). After discussing, we took right so that we will be much closer to parking area in Day 4. Beautiful but hot!

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After long walk on sandy road, we finally reached beautiful blue lake! Here is lunch spot as well as swimming spot. After eating nice lunch, all of us jumped into lake. First shower after 3 days of hike. It was such a refreshing moment.

Lassen Hike - Day 2

Day 2 starts. Pack up everything and ready to go. We will hike till we find a place where we can get some water.
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Finally, we arrived at beautiful lake. We decided to take a lunch break here while securing drinking water.

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Using water filter, we pumped out enough drinking water for upcoming hike. Peter usually requires us to maintain 2 litter of water per person to carry. Keep drinking water while hiking is the key to avoid dehidration which usually results in exhaustion.

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Captain Peter is resting after nice lunch. Captain is also responsible team's food supply. He brought really tasty salami and cheese from Whole Foods.

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After lunch, we kept hiking to the target point. It was very hot and team was very exhausted. Though we could hike longer, considering the exhaustion of team members, we decided to set up a camp early afternoon. It was again beautiful night with full moon nearby lake. We could hear animals walking nearby lake during night. We have not sighted bear yet...

Antfoot Sited in San Francisco

Our Ex – Leader came into the office and the site folks haven’t seen him in a while, he moved from San Francisco back to his native land of France. Today he has back visiting the San Francisco, everyone was kinda of shocked to see him. The QA guy just could not resist playing a little joke on him so he posted warning posters around the office.

This is Antoine


This is Bigfoot or Sasquatch

Antfoot or DoumSasquatch is alleged to be an Director-like creature inhabiting remote areas of France, and is sometimes spotted in the in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. Antfoot is usually described as a tall, with a slightly receeding hairline, bipedal Director-Man. Believers in its existence contend that such an animal, or close relatives of it, may be found around the world under different regional names, or at least travel there from time to time. There a rumor that the beast maybe next seen in Singapore.

Lassen Hike - Day 1

It is already September. Time to go into forest. Like last year (http://teamsnap.blogspot.com/2007/07/snap-mobile-emigrant-wilderness.html), using weekend, we started planning back-packing trip. After considering several options (Jun Mur Wilderness, Yosemite, Emigrant) , we have decided to hit Lassen National Forest this time.

After getting all the gear/food in REI (one block from our SF office), we hit the road to north east.
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After driving 4 hours, before going into mountain, we stopped Peter's favorite diner to get some energy. They look relaxed and don't know they have to hike in a dark after this except for Peter... **********

This diner, Black Bear, serves excellent dish in quality, price and amount. You need to try this T-bone meal. Awesome!

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After arriving the parking site around 9pm, all of us except for Peter were ready to go to bed by setting up tents next to our car.

Peter: "OK. Take our your flash light. We will hike to camp ground"

Atsushi: "What? Can't we sleep here?"

Peter: "Not allowed"

Guneet: "How far to camp ground? 10 minutes?"

Peter: "3 miles"

Atsushi/Guneet/Egor: "ok......"

We ended up hiking till mid-night with flashlight on our head setting up tents in a dark (even we got lost on the way to camp once...).

Man, Peter knows how to train us in a hard way...

Next morning, We woke up with the strange noise. When we looked out from our tent, deer was looking at us from nearby field. Nice surprise in the morning.

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Day 2 starts. Everyone looks clean and fine. We all thought 1st night hike was the hardest hike but we will find out Peter has prepared us with tougher assignment...

Friends get together again!

One Friday, our friend/ex-team member Heidi from Mt. View office called SF office people to join her in Montara beach. Waves look good!

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Ari from 1st party publishing team has already completed several sessions. Montara beach is always beatiful as you see. We love this beach, 40 min from our office ;-)

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Heidi is going in! The wave is pretty big today but she is determined.

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Sun is coming down. After several sessions, Atsushi is heading back to base.

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Here is the gang this time (+ Ari who left a bit earlier). The weather was beatiful and we enjoyed chatting on the water while waiting for waves. Heidi, let's do it again!

Usual beach check on Friday

When weather is good, some of us will go to usual beach check on Friday evening after work. During summer, we can surf from 6pm till 9pm.

Stacey is checking Montara beach. "Wow, big closed out..."
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But beautiful. We were hanging out for a while. **********

We came back to Pacifica Lindamar beach. Looks nice!

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Stacey and Atsushi are going in! Shot with N-95 looks pretty good ;-)