The Gingey WILD Heart

Monday was designed for Bodie Ghost Town and paddle boarding. Well, the SUP vendor didn't come into town, so my friend Em had a great idea to go to Rainbow Falls in Mammoth. I headed 18 miles South on highway 395 to 167 East and followed the windy road to Bodie State Historical Park for 13 miles. If you don't know the story behind Bodie, I'll enlighten you with the cliff notes from their walking guide brochure. Bodie was an old mining town from 1877-1881. Short lived, right!? Well, following the 1849 Gold Rush, mining declined along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. So, people in the town left abruptly to cross the Sierra Nevada to find the next big strike in the Eastern slopes. Bodie, was actually named after a miner, W.S. Bodey, who discovered the gold and died months later in a blizzard. What's crazy is his bones were discovered in 1879 and then "misplaced" after burial. Umm.. what. They believe his r

This morning I woke up at 3:45am. First thing I did was register for the daily lottery of Cables at Half Dome in Yosemite. By 3:52am, I was checked out and trying to lay back down. With no luck, I was wide awake and ready for the day. Even Oliver and Cooper (my 2 lil, but very curious cats) wanted to sleep more and weren't prepared for my rise. So we all got back up out of bed around 4:10am. Many know this isn't uncommon for me to get up this early, but I had a long drive ahead of me and the extra sleep could have helped. (By the way, the lottery closes at 4pm and they announce the lottery results by the end of the day whether you got the permit or not. It's currently:422pm for me) Roughly around 6:40am I'd had 2 cups of coffee, breakfast and was twiddling my thumbs waiting for my mama to stop by and play with the boys while I packed up the jeep; let's be honest, she was there to see me off and I needed a hug from her before I left. By 7:30, the jeep w

Yesterday morning,  Kim and I took the tram up to hike San Jacinto Peak. This was an 11 mile hike from the tram.  We stopped at the ranger station to get a permit and the ranger began telling us and another group, make sure to go left, and then right and then right, and on the way back don't stay past 4pm and make sure you take left or you'll end up 7,100 feet down the wrong side of the mountain and will have to hike back up and end up camping over night. Remember Wellman equals Wellness in my belly. And little Round Valley equals Little Bad Valley.  We ran into a few guys, at the Wellman Divide, that came from the desert floor, which from the desert floor would have been 21.2 miles and they were beyond tired. We also ran into a few groups at the divide, that chose to hike in from Idyllwild and camp over night in round valley before the peak. From Idyllwild they said it was 8 miles, but when I look it up it says 18 🤷🏼‍♀️ okay. I'd say m

This morning I met Kim in 29 palms and we made our way into the North entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. We probably got about 20 minutes in when Kim looked down and realized she was in flip flips and not her hiking shoes. So we turned around and headed back to her hotel. Coming through the gate again the attendant laughed and welcomed us back.  We headed to Ryan Mountain, which is about 1,059 elevation gain in 1.5 miles and the loop in and out was 3 miles. Over the course of the mile and a half up, two hikers were trying to say hello to me and almost fell over. One, I attempted to like reach my arm out, like a driver shielding a passenger when they unexpectedly have to slam on their brakes, which makes no sense because when you think of the act done in the car it doesn't help the passenger. You're basically setting yourself up for a broken arm from the airbags, but whatever. Anyway, same thing here. What exactly was my arm going to do for this gentleman after