Irrelevance Glorified

It’s still been pretty hot out here, so I’ve been continuing my redwood forest tour along the Santa Cruz mountains. This week, I traveled to Huddart County Park, just west of Woodside. The one interesting thing about Huddart is that it is directly adjoining the Phleger Estate, a piece of donated land that is actually part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, although it’s quite a bit of distance from the Golden Gate bridge. Actually, the Phleger Estate is best accessed through Huddart County Park.

One nice thing about Huddart is that it’s easily accessed; I took I-280 to Woodside Road, and after a few minutes made a right on King’s Mountain Road to get to the park. In all, it only took 30 minutes, although I had to proceed carefully through the town of Woodside because it seemed like 50% of the population was out jogging or biking. The bad thing about the park, something I really only realized during the hike, is that it’s on the wrong side of the mountains. Since the park is on the east side of the mountain, it isn’t really sheltered from the heat of the valley, unlike the other forests I’ve been hiking through on the west side of the mountains. So, the only real respite I had from the heat was when my path took me close to Skyline Boulevard, and cool breezes sometimes wafted over the ridge.

This park was full of strange noises. It’s possible that I was being tracked by some terrifying predator, but in general, there were lots of rustles, pops, and creaks throughout the woods. I did see one deer, but nothing else substantial. Of course, I tramp through the woods trying to make a decent amount of noise, so as to not surprise any ornery creatures.

While a nice hike in general, this park isn’t “special” enough to make up for the fact that it doesn’t provide a break from the heat. I give it a straight B.

Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures/Descriptions after the break.

 

While my hike started out in Huddart County Park, it spent most of its time in the Phleger Estate. Also, it looks like I took this picture under moonlight.

 

While old growth redwoods are awesome, all those juicy, tall, giant redwoods were too tempting, so most of them were cut down to make ship masts and telephone poles. In their place, more redwoods were grown. While redwoods are prolific growers, 200 foot tall trees don’t appear in a decade, much less overnight. A lot of state parks were once logging areas, and so a lot of state parts are young-growth forests, full of forests planted 50 years ago or so.

 

Normally, this would be some sort of babbling creek. I’m not a huge fan of using these metal tubes to pass streams of water underneath trails; they should just man up and build a bridge. This just ruins the illusion of being in a wilderness. Also, since it hasn’t rained in some months, there isn’t any water anyways.

 

The Phleger Estate adjoins Huddart County Park, and is a part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. When I think of the GGRA, I think more of the area north of the bridge, and the areas immediately surrounding. I’m actually pretty far south of S.F. right now. But whatever.

 

The Phleger Estate is known for having some of the best signs in the Bay Area. They are nice, metal posts topped with a figure of an indian on horseback. It’s a nice touch, I have to say. They decided that they were going to be the best at something, and they went after it whole hog.

 

I think this madrone tree was just attention starved. I mean, standing straight up, he’s just one tree among thousands. But propped out at 45 degrees….it sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s a life lesson for you, by the way.

 

Here’s the next sign that I saw. You can get a little better idea of the indian outline here, since this post isn’t bent like the last one. Here, I leave the Mt. Redondo Trail and head out on the Lonely Trail.

 

I thought this tree had something weird going on. First of all, it was split quite high up on the tree, unlike most redwoods, which mostly split right at the ground. Secondly, there are all those strange looking mutant limbs coming out. I wonder if those branches are actually redwood branches and not some other parasitic organism.

 

Finding benches in the "wilderness" is pretty normal. They’re often dedicated. However, finding benches with invitations like "Rest and Be Filled With the Grace of the Forest" is a rare treat.

 

True to its word, this bench did indeed feel me with the Grace of the Forest. For a brief period of time….I could speak chipmunk.

 

King’s Mountain would be a decent name for an amusement park or a Renaissance Fair. Here’s, it’s a little area along Skyline (don’t even think it’s a real city or anything) of a few shops and this volunteer fire brigade station. I saw it’s presence through the trees along the trail and decided to investigate.

 

Not exactly sure what this bench is depicting right here, but it looks like it might be dedicated to art in general. I mean, there’s a palette on the left, a guy making a sculpture in the middle, and a harp on the right along with a lot of musical notes.

 

It’s a little bit more obvious what this mural is about. The way the sun was angled here, it was really hard to get a decent picture that didn’t have too much glare and sun. Anyways, this seat depicts the fire station that is currently at my back.

 

This volunteer fire brigade seems pretty well equipped to me. And that bench mural did a pretty decent job of depicting the scene.

 

The back of this little shack is actually what drew me out of the woods. Once up at the top of the hill, I found out it was a Verizon…something. I mean, it’s not a cell phone tower, because it’s not a tower. But it’s something else. Perhaps firefighters in the area use Verizon.

 

It’s somewhat hard to see here, but that sign points the way to Purisma Creek Open Space Preserve, a hike that I had done earlier in the year. You could make quite a loop of parks, I think, going from Huddart County to Phleger to Purisma Creek to Wunderlich, all along Skyline.

 

Just because there are no paved roads, that doesn’t mean that I can escape construction related detours. This trail closing meant I needed to take an extra 1/2 mile detour.

 

Not sure if there’s just a slight slope on the hill to my right, or there’s just some prevailing winds, but these trees are acting a bit protective. Or threatening, depending on your aboreal views.

 

While I did not see any horses on the trail during my hike, there was plenty of….evidence. The evidence has decayed a bit to be "ground-colored", but there are still 3 or 4 clumps in this picture.

 

This may not be very exciting, but this is pretty much the first picture of a butterfly that I’ve taken while hiking. Oh, there’ve been plenty of butterflies; it’s one of the few obvious and attractive forms of mobile wildlife that I have encountered. But they never stand still long enough or allow me to get close enough to take a picture. But now, I am just a little bit closer towards my goal of photographing every type of animal on Earth.

 

Apart from all the trails, Huddart County Park has facilities for picnics, beach volleyball, and other sorts of frolicking.

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