GGG #8 January 22-24 2016 Invitation. Do not delay

Cayenne,

I have plenty of room and will be heading to the east bay from SF/Peninsula on Friday afternoon. Not 100% sure of the time yet, but probably around 2 – 3 pm (I’m hoping I might get to the campsite before total darkness). Depending on where you are, I could take either the Bay Bridge or the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. Let me know if that will work for you.

David Gardner

Thanks David,

I’ll send a pm and we can figure how to meet up and get there fastest.

— cameron

Do cell phones work out there?

@Peter

In the past they seemed to work in the parking lot but at least AT&T did not soon after leaving the lot.

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Thanks, all.  I will see you tomorrow morning.

Stop by car camping sites 16 and 19, near headquarters. A few of us are here for tonight.

1. Where is everyone?? Did we miss a memo? Lol :)

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We went to group site this morning and met up with Erik.

Ken, sorry you couldn’t stay. We missed you. And others who were deterred by the weather. We had a total of about 25-30 people, as opposed to the nearly 100 that attended two years ago. But I don’t blame anyone for deciding not to come in such weather.

Erik and Jarrod hiked in Friday. About half of the total number that showed up were there by Friday evening, and either camped in the reserved camp sites or slept in a barn at the Park HQ, then hiked in Saturday morning during a break in the rain. Manfred and his crew of 13 showed up in the evening and nearly doubled the total number of people.

We put up a huge 20′ x 30′ tarp and had a good time. Two great guys whose names I can’t remember now showed up for a total of about 10 minutes, but brought in two packs full of firewood! Which inspired a number of others to hike back to HQ and bring back loads of firewood too. So we had a good fire going next to the big tarp Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Yeah it was wet…but for just a night or two, a great way to test one’s gear.  Saturday afternoon and evening were wet and windy, but not pounding like Friday. Saturday night was merely moist. And Sunday was beautiful. Trail was wet but not boggy or deep mud.

And it was very good test of gear. What I thought would be my “bullet proof” tent set up was lacking. Water came up through the floor, although I stayed mostly dry on my full size Neo Air pad. But condensation was a real problem, and everything inside got moist. Certainly not better than a good-sized tarp. So I’ll be looking for something better, maybe even try a hammock. A few others had gear issues too and will no doubt be acquiring some new equipment as well. But most seemed to have no problems.

See also http://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/ggg-8-henry-coe-2016/

Tony Wong was there and I’m sure will put up a trip report on BPL soon as he has done so well in the past, and others will contribute photos and comments to the thread.

Hope to see you next year!

David, thanks for the update.