Photos and trip reports for the first half of last week's Southern California trip have been posted. 
We spent 3 days in the Scorpion Ranch campground on the east end of Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands National Park.

It turned out to be a near perfect time to visit the park.  The weather was beautiful and there were only ~10 people in the campground.  (The campground has 40 sites and holds 250 people)

We spent each of the three the mornings sea kayaking out of Scorpion Harbor.  The ocean temperatures were cold enough (~62) that we didn't want to end up in water but the winds were calm for all three days and the water surface was mostly clear and placid.   Tons of wildlife in the waters-  In low tides there were starfish on the rocks a multitude of fish amidst the kelp beds.  Out past cavern point we were visited by numerous sea lions and seals.  The seals in particular were curious and would follow the kayaks with their head poking out of the water.  On the first day, a group of sea lions shadowed our kayaks for about a half hour and on day 2 several of them passed underneath us as we headed into the mouth of Potato Harbor.

The afternoons were spent exploring the limited set of hiking trails out of Scorpion Harbor.  Most of the trails climbed up to ridgetops above the Scorpion Canyon and provided great 360 degree views north to the mainland, east to Anacapa Island, west to the center of Santa Cruz Island, and south to the Montaton Ridge.

Pictures and commentary are here: 
Monday -  Kayak to Cavern Point and a hike to the Campo Grande Pasture north of Scorpions Harbor
Tuesday - Kayak to Potato Harbor and a hike to Smugglers Cove
Wednesday-  Morning kayak 1 mil north and south from Scorpion Habor, hike to the Potato Harbor Overlook

I don't have the on-kayak pictures up yet-  My brother had the waterproof camera shell and I'm waiting for him to send me the prints.

This site gets a fair amount of traffic from people looking for broken ankle information so I wanted to repeat/bump up a link that I mentioned a few months back:

The discussion forums on MyBrokenLeg.com have an enormous wealth of information on all things leg injury related.  I didn't discover the site until about 5 weeks into my injury and wish I had found it sooner.

Good luck with your recovery.

This weekend I attended the first annual 2006 "Outdoor Blogger Hoedown" near Mt. Shasta.  

The storm front that passed through California last week had moved on and we were treated to three near perfect Indian Summer days.   Interesting conversation, some light hiking and two of the best camp dinners I've ever had. 

The 2006 Bloggers along the PCT with Mt Shasta in the distance.
Photo stolen from Tom Chandler.

One of the benefits of being the slowest to post is that you get to be the aggregator.  Here's what the other bloggers had to write about the weekend:

Tom Mangan's Two Heel Drive:  Photo Journal , Tom's Impressions of the Bloggers 
Russ Beebe's Winehiker:  Overview Post
Tom Chandler's Trout Underground:  Friday Night, Saturday's Hike 
Climb CA's GetOutdoors: Overview Post
Rick McCharles's Best Hikes:  Overview Post, Photos on Flickr
Sze-ting's LittlePo:  Hmm, guess I'm not the last to post. 

Pictures are coming soon.  Apologies to those who hit the site from the RSS feed looking for them.  (Forgot to remove permissions after uploading, I'll get them back accessable once I've got the captions written)
When posted, they'll be here.

p.s.  'Hoedown' has an 'e'.  A 'Ho Down' is something else entirely.

Had my final doctor visit for my ankle on Monday, about 4 months after the injury.  The Xrays were clean with a little bit of osteoperosis in the lower ankle.  This is supposedly common and one of the things that takes the 12 months to heal completely.  Unless I have complications there will be no more doctor visits.

He commented that my recovery time was remarkable given the extent of the injury.  I don't know if my routine had anything to do with this, but here's a summary what I did for rehab: 

- Nothing but bed rest while in the cast.  Started going to the gym once I was in the "Darth" boot at 6 weeks.
- Calcium suppliments and multivitamin daily, extra hydration
- Recumbent exercise bike from first day after getting cast off week 6.  Once daily 30 min sessions w/ gradually increasing resistance.  (This did wonders for the initial strength, range of motion, and provided a gentle return to cardio exercise after being more or less houseridden for 6 weeks).   While still using the boot, I would wear it to the gym and take it off to use the bike.
- Lightweight compression sock for once I returned to the office.  Sitting in a desk chair for 8 hours was causing a fair amount of swelling and the sock help prevent this.  Also iced the ankle every evening for about 20 min.
- Physical Therapy twice weekly starting week 8.  The best exercise I did at the PT sessions was to stand on the injured leg and bounce a ball off a trampoline that had been angled into a backstop.  At first, just balancing on the ankle was enough effort to break a sweat. 
- Trail hiking starting with 5 mile outings at week 11 and working up from there.  This did wonders for my over/under pronation range of motion.  Theres all sorts of stabilization muscles that you don't work until you're walking on uneven ground.   Wore (and still wear) and ankle brace for these trips and used hiking poles for extra stability help.
- Single leg Rotary Calf Presses srarting about week 10.  My gym has a nice machine for this, which helped.  I'm still missing an enormous amount of strength here-  I can do 300/10 with the injured leg but have been slowly working my way up from 120/10 to 160/10.  Hoping to get to 220/10 so so I can lift my full body weight on the ankle.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, talk to your OS/PT before planning a rehabilitation srategy)

Time for another season 'o Fantasy Football. 
Here's how my draft went this year (we start 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 2 WR/RB, 1 TE, 1 DB, 2 DL, 1 K)

1.    Larry Johnson (RB, KC)  
16.  Chad Johnson (WR, Cin)
17.  Torry Holt (WR, Stl)
32.  Willie Parker (RB, Pit)
33.  Tom Brady (QB, NE)
48.  Kevin Jones (RB, Det)
49.  Jamal Lewis (RB, Bal)
64.  Mike Bell (RB, Den)
65.  Adam Vinitinri (K, Ind)
80.  Alge Crumpler (TE, Fal)
81.  Jonathan Vilma (D, NYJ)
96.  Adrian Wilson (DB, AZ)
97.  Mike Peterson (D, Jax)
112.  Jake Plummer (QB, Den)
113.  Thomas Jones (RB, Chi)
128.  Reggie Brown (WR, Phi)
129.  LenDale White (RB, Ten)
144.  Marion Barber (RB, Dal)

Reasonably happy with how things ended up, though I can't say I was expecting to pick WRs with my 2/3 picks.   Got the #1 RB on my list, the top 2 WRs, the #2 QB, the #1 K, and 3 of the top 5 D.

Would have preferred Heath Miller at TE, but he went much earlier than expected.  Manning lasted well into the 2nd round in our draft.   I think I drafted Viniteri a little early (I hadn't done enough homework and didn't know about his foot issues)  Also probably picked Parker a bit early, but needed some Black and Gold in the lineup.

Clouds Rest has always been one of my favorite Yosemite hikes and has been the subject of some of my more memorable outings over the years.  It was my first hike in the Sierras outside of Yosemite Valley and (with Half Dome) my first hike of over 25 miles.  It had been a few years since I had last been to the peak, so I decided on it as my destination for my first trip back after breaking my ankle 14 weeks ago.

Its almost exactly 200 miles from Mountain View to the Sunrise Trailhead (on Tioga Road just past Olmstead Point).  This was my first long drive since my injury and my first time above sea level in 3 months.  The drive didn't bother me at all, but the elevation gain was bothering me a bit over the course of the day. The weather was nearly perfect and there were zero mosquitoes.  (On prior trips on this route, the mosquitoes were bad enough to make standing still impossible and I've been snowed on Clouds Rest in the summer). 

My ankle held up admirably today-  Almost no pain for the first 12 miles or so.  The final mile or two descended a series of rocky switchbacks that tended to hurt my knees even before the injury.   For this section, I just slowed down and made sure I was leading with my good leg on the downsteps.  Once back on flat ground I was able to pick up the pace again and finish without issue.  My stamina didn't fare nearly as well- I'm relatively out of shape and had to stop frequently on the uphill sections of the back half of the hike.

Pics and commentary are here.

I had my final physical therapy visit this morning, having reached the point of diminishing returns with the biweekly visits.  I've made a substantial amount of progress since starting PT (and still feel that I have a fair amount of recovery needed) but the remainder will be without professional supervision.

For most daily activities I'm back to pre-injury levels.  Squatting still is a bit painful-  I don't quite have the ankle flexibility for that motion this is the same motion that occasionally causes me issues when walking down stairs.   Other than that, things are pretty much back to normal.

I'm still missing an enormous amount of strength in the injured leg, and the muscle isn't returning as quickly as I had hoped.  I'm able to calf press ~225 lbs with my left (uninjured) leg where 120 lbs is my maximum on the injured right leg.  

Next up for the leg is my (final?) exam with the Orthopedic Surgeon on September 18.

For my third broken ankle recovery outing I headed down to Butano State Park along the Pacfic Coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.   BAHiker.com gives this park a less-than-glowing review, but I found it to be quite enjoyable.  Not as impressive as Big Basin (mostly due to Big Basin's waterfalls) but a definite number two for local redwood forests.  The ridgeside slopes in Butano tended to be very gradual allowing you to see much further than in Big Basin's comparatively steep and narrow canyons. 

My ankle held up well for about 7 of the 10 miles and was causing me a rather substantial amount of pain on the back end of the trip.  Downhill still hurts much more than uphill and I still am missing quite a bit of range of motion.  I held an average 2mph pace for the outing for the first time since returning to the trails.

Pictures and commentary are here.

Spent a little too much of my Saturday afternoon perusing the archives of the Virtual Apple project.  This site has a faithful browser based Apple IIe/IIgs emulatior and *many* of the original disk images from the late 80's era Apple II platform.

In particular, I hadn't played Karateka in somewhere approaching 20 years.  (Forgot about that gate before the final boss battle, :))  Karateka, released in 1984, was the predecessor of the Prince of Persia series that continues on today's platforms.  

You just don't see this kind of thing anymore:
The Apple II version came on one apparently single-sided disk. As an easter egg, a second version of the game was placed on the flip side of the disk. If one put the disk into the drive upside-down, the game played identically to the first side, except that the game was displayed vertically flipped. According to Mechner, this was done as a joke, causing naive users to call tech support and ask why the game was upside-down. Invariably, they would receive the reply, "take the disk out, insert it right-side up, and reboot".  (from the wikipedia article)

And if that doesn't quench your Apple II nostalgia there's always the Beagle Bros Museum

http://www.virtualapple.org/karatekadisk.html
(Press K to flip it into keyboard mode once the game starts.  Amusingly, the emulator requires IE.)

I headed up to Castle Rock State Park yesterday for my second hike since breaking my ankle 3 months ago.  It was about 30 degrees cooler than my last trip up to Skyline Blvd and quite pleasant under the tree cover.  (Out in the sun it was still a bit warm).   The hike itself was a 6 mile lollipop loop, half of which had a good view of the San Lorenzo River watershed.  My ankle held up reasonably well, though the ridgeside portions of the route were fairly rocky and uneven.  I'm feeling much less sore today than on the day after my first hike.

For the rest of the summer I'm hoping to get out twice a week- once midweek and once on the weekend.  This weekend's destintation will be out to the coast to Butano State Park.

 Pics and commentary are: here