Irrelevance Glorified

Fresh off of almost killing them two weeks ago, Dan and Ashley were up for another hike. I suggested the Pleasanton Ridge, a collection of trails overlooking Pleasanton and other East Bay cities. There is no one entrance to the Pleasanton Ridge; there are a number of access points along the trail. Dan knew of a secret one behind the gates of a secured community. After convincing the guards people that were of no threat to all the rich people (obviously they didn’t see me in the back seat), we weaved our way through streets lined with mini-mansions up to Augustine Bernal Park, a park open to all residents of Pleasanton.

This park has some biking and hiking trails that state that they are a part of Pleasanton Ridge. However, looking back on it, I think this was just a small adjunct of Pleasanton Ridge. We ended up covering a loop of everything displayed on the park trail map within about an hour. Rather than run around on trails that I didn’t have a map for, we decided to make it a short day and just head to Dan’s place, where Dan and I played some tennis.

Overall, I give this particular hike a C. It doesn’t get a D, because no one punched me in the face. Maybe sometime I’ll get on Pleasanton Ridge proper and be able to make a statement on it. I was only inspired enough to take two pictures, so here they are.

We went to Augustine Bernal Park in Pleasanton, nestled away behind a high class neighborhood of Pleasanton. Here’s the trail map. Wow! Look at all that trailage. Unfortunately, that map is like at a 1:4 scale.

A view of cookie cutter houses in Pleasanton and I-680 from this portion of the Pleasanton Ridge Trail.

I decided to celebrate July 4th by doing some hiking. It was still pretty hot out there, so I traveled to another redwood-dominated state park, Portola Redwoods State Park. I think this park probably gets overshadowed by Big Basin, since this place doesn’t have the gigantic redwoods, but this park in the Santa Cruz mountains is still a welcome respite from the heat, the bustle, and the noise of Bay Area civilization.

I’m normally used to solitude when I go on my hiking trips, but for the early part of this hike, I was surrounded by the sound of noisy mobs. Apparently, a number of groups were out at Portola Redwoods this weekend, and were enjoying themselves loudly. Interestingly, most of the voices I heard were foreign; the groups appeared to be south asian, and large packs of teenagers were scrambling over rocks and falling into the creeks. While somewhat distracting, these sounds faded away as I ranged away from the heart of the park. I imagine that the long weekend played a role in all this activity.

This hike started out on the Nature Trail just outside of the very informative ranger station. From there, I took a short hike to Tiptoe Falls (fairly unimpressive at this time of year) before doubling back and taking the Iverson Trail to the Pomponio Trail. This trail crossed me over to Pescadero Creek County Park, where I continued on to the Bridge Trail and then Old Haul Rd., a fire road that was once used to haul lumber out of the area. Eventually, this fire road took me back to Portola Redwoods, where I took the Summit Trail up a decent hill before following the Slate Creek Trail back down to the parking lot. Before ending, I took a little trip to see “Old Tree”, apparently the largest tree in the park. According to my guidebook, this was about 7.5 miles.

Overall, I give this hike a B. No vistas, but a nice hike through coastal redwoods, and decent variety.

Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures After the Jump.

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So, this week I was determined to do Diablo. Mt. Diablo is a prominent “mountain” out in the East Bay, just east of the San Ramon valley. Summer is not the best time to do Mt. Diablo. In fact, its the worst time. But I was determined to hike Diablo in the Summer, if nothing else but for the experience to contrast it with a winter hike. And, since I’m a manly man, there’s no doubt that I could handle any heat related issues. For a change of pace, though, I would have some hiking partners this time. You see, Freshman Dan lives in Dublin, right at the base of the Mt. Diablo State Park!

I will explain the etymology of “Freshman Dan” because it amuses me so. You see, back in grad school at UIUC, Dan joined our group as an undergraduate worker when he was a freshman in Chemical Engineering. We enjoyed his contributions to the group, but there was a problem — we already had a graduate student named Dan. Clearly, we couldn’t call them both Dan; that would just lead to confusion. So Dan H. remained Dan, and Dan B. became Freshman Dan. Dan eventually stopped being a freshman, and actually transferred out East, coming back to Illinois for his senior year. But he still remains Freshman Dan to this day.

Dan is in East Bay working for Clorox, and he was game for hiking. Sure, it was supposed to be hot — a forecast high of 92. But I was planning on leaving my place before 8 am (on a Saturday!) and driving up to Dan’s. Dan, Ashley (his wife), and I would drive to Diablo, hike, and be off the mountain before it got hot. That was the plan, at least. Of course, we didn’t get around to leaving his place till almost 9 or so. Also, he lived near the southern end of Diablo, and the trailhead I had picked out was at the North End. So it was probably almost 10 am before we got up there and on the trailhead. We all had Camelbak’s, but Dan’s wasn’t fully tightened, so it leaked a whole bunch by the time we parked.

The trail I had picked out covered 7.8 miles and a little bit shy of 2000 feet of net elevation change. We started off on Mitchell Canyon Trail, a boring old fire road which was flat long enough to make you fear the steepness that you knew had to come. After the first climb, we were pretty tired, but encouraged at our progress, and stopped to rest at a pair of picnic tables. Continuing on, we staggered up the (excessively) steep fire road, periodically passed by people on horseback. I felt bad for the horses. They clearly shared our feeling as to the degree of the grade of this part of the trail. Finally, we made our way to the Eagle Peak Trail, which departed from the fire road and followed the crest of Diablo in the form of a thin hiking only trail. The views were nice, if hazy.

This hike would have been better if I had been smart enough to postpone it for nicer weather. When you combine our late start with the fact that it hit 102 degrees (at least), clearly the hottest day of the year, we quickly came upon the edges of heat exhaustion. My water ran out with probably 1.5 miles to go, and my backup Gatorade went quickly as well. I was trying to figure out if I had “stopped sweating”, a sure sign of severe dehydration, but I couldn’t tell, because the sweat was evaporating so fast that all I found was salt. There are no pictures from the last 1/4 of the hike, because I was just concentrating on shuffling from meager shade to meager shade, fighting the urge to take a nap. It was quite a relief when we rounded the last corner and saw the parking lot.

After I stuck my head underneath the restroom sink and doused myself, and gulped down water that I had left in the car (yeah, I didn’t actually carry all the water I brought), we went out and got giant Slurpees from 7-11. I consumed mine in about 20 minutes tops. For perspective, I went back to 7-11 two weeks later (on 7/11) to get their free 7.11 oz Slurpee, and I could barely finish the thing. Ah, the magic of dehydration. I give this hike a B, although I suspect I’ll think better of it when I come back in the Fall/Winter.

Anyways, enough talking. Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Images and descriptions after the jump.

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For this outing (June 21st), I was planning on trying out Mount Diablo, in East Bay. However, it was forecast to be pretty hot, so I decided to pick a hike that would be cooler, temperature wise. For the most part, that means the coast. Since I had never been, I made the drive up north of San Francisco, a hike-rich area that includes Muir Woods, Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore, the Marin Headlands, and my destination, Mount Tamalpais State Park. However, I was not alone with this idea, as it seemed like half of San Francisco was up there with me. Once past the Golden Gate, I saw signs letting me now that the Muir woods parking lot was full. Luckily, I was heading to a trailhead that wasn’t quite as popular. I had just received my first trail book in the mail, and had picked out a 7ish mile hike. Starting at the Rock Springs Trailhead, I started on the Cataract Trail, which follows the Cataract Creek on it’s way to Alpine Lake. From the Cataract Trail, I then continued on the High Marsh, Kent, and Benstein Trails to make a large loop. Although this was only supposed to be a 6.5 mile hike, I missed the turn from Cataract to High Marsh…so it ended up being more of a 10 mile hike. Because of the varied cover and the topography, this hike wasn’t much for the vistas (except in the parking lot). However, the varied landscape, moving from Douglas fir forest through chapparal and meadow, made for a real enjoyable hike. Once off the Cataract Trail, it was blissfully uncrowded, with few intrusions to break the illusion of solitude. I give this hike an A.

Flick set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures after the jump.

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Another weekend (June 14th), time for another hike. This time, I wanted to do something closer to home, so I picked Russian Ridge, part of a large amount of Open Space Preserve that exists just southwest of south bay. Part of the “Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District“, (which thankfully has a concise web page URL), which covers over 50,000 acres of land, Russian Ridge exists alongside Coal Creek, Long Ridge, Los Trancos, Monte Bello, Rancho San Antonio, Saratoga Gap, and Skyline Ridge. Admittedly, this is a poor time to visit Russian Ridge. It’s known for it’s views of the South Bay and wildflowers, both of which are better in the spring and late winter, when its less hazy and more flower-filled. All in all, I wandered around for about 7 miles, and I give the hike a C+, with a notice that it should be redone in another season.

Flickr Set here. Slideshow below, pictures after the jump.

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Recently, I decided to stop being so lazy and start doing the hiking that I had been putting off for oh, say, a year. I found a nice website, Bay Area Hiker, and picked one of their highly rated trails. Destination : Big Basin Redwoods State Park. One of the oldest State Parks in California, Big Basin is located in the Santa Cruz mountains, about halfway between Mountain View and Santa Cruz. It’s full of some of the largest redwoods in the Bay Area. I showed up at the Park at about 11 am to catch the guided tour, which covers the short 0.5 mile Redwood Trail. This was a nice trail, since it passes right by the tallest and widest trees in the park. I was a little surprised to see that it took 1 1/2 hours, so I was a bit concerned when it was almost 1 pm and I still hadn’t started my real hike. My intended hike was the Waterfall Loop, a 10.5 mile hike on the Skyline to the Sea, Berry Creek Falls, and Sunset Trails. Since the estimated hiking time they list is 5-6 hours, I was really worried about taking too long, so I booked it, running downhill and really pushing the pace. The result : a 4 hour hike. I paid the price, though. Having not done much hiking, this particular loop killed my legs. I spent the entire week wincing around. Both my legs hurt, so I had to pick a leg to limp on, and then switch it up every once in a while to keep it even. However, I have to say that it was a very good hike; I would rate it an A. While there were no “vistas”, I do love redwoods, and the waterfalls were nice, if a little underwhelming after visiting Oregon.

So, hit the Flickr Set for pictures, watch the slideshow if you’re lazy, or hit the jump if you want to see all the pictures and descriptions at once.

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