This morning, Lisa and I set off on a hike at Lake Sonoma. The trailhead map showed the trail as “More Difficult” as opposed to “Easiest”. Since the purpose of this hike was to get a good workout, we started what should have been a four mile hike. The weather was warm but I was carrying plenty of water.
The scenery along the trail is what one would expect this time of the year. The hills are very dry, which when combined with the record breaking hot weather, makes the fire danger extreme.
Manzanita grows all along the trail which has a deep red color.
Lurking along the sides of the trail is a nemesis of mine: poison oak. I was unfortunate to have poison oak once many years ago. With the record breaking hot weather we are experiencing in the San Francisco area, we made it just over a mile into our hike when I started to experience the early signs of heat exhaustion. When we stopped, Lisa was also over heating. While sitting in the shade we checked the map and we decided that it would be smarter to turn around than to finish the hike. Now the focus became staying hydrated as well as lowering our body temperature by slowing the pace and taking frequent breaks in the shade. It took us a while but we made it safely back to the trailhead. We were feeling better than where we turned around even though we were both still hot. We both agreed that this hike will go down as one of the worst hikes and proves why you should always be prepared and to be smart when you experience heat distress. We also laughed at our experience and still found happiness in this adventure.
Red Dog Garage 
I have had a few hiking experiences with not enough water.. ):
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It is never good to run out of water. That has happened several times for me too. Fortunately the bladder in my backpack was full because the water bottle ran out quickly. A reminder to be prepared.
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Sometimes we have gone off thinking for a little walk and it turned into a hike and didn’t have sufficient water… wrong…
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You were wise to follow your instincts… gut feelings are rarely wrong.
Stay cool 😉
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Thanks for the words of affirmation. Lisa stated that now she understands how people can get themselves into trouble. If I had truly trusted my gut I would have avoided hiking altogether but did not want to appear lazy. All-in-all it was a good day after we cooled off.
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Glad you brought plenty of water, Patrick. I didn’t know SF is have record breaking hot temperature.
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Lisa was very thankful that I had plenty of water in my backpack. Last week San Francisco had a high of 106 degrees which is the hottest ever recorded. Not unusual for Livermore to see temperatures this hot. That same period we reached 113 degrees. The big difference is that in Livermore every where you go has air conditioning. In San Francisco most places do not so when it is hot there is no place to escape the heat. Even the coast line was in the triple digits. It is finally cooler and I hope we are done with the summer heat.
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106 in SF, awful. 113 is like AZ summer… Glad you are done with the summer heat.
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☺️
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One to do when it cools down a little. 🙂
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