Irrelevance Glorified

Merry Christmas everybody! I’m not Christian myself, but I do enjoy myself a day off. For all my loyal readers out there, I have a special treat for you, one that’s been on all your wishlists : a new post about a hiking trip I took in September! Yeah, towards the end of — wait, what? That wasn’t on your Christmas wishlist at all? Well, I don’t know, I have the whole list right here, and it clearly shows “A new hiking post from Ranjeet” for all of you. I don’t know what to say, take it up with Santa. At least it’s not a lump of coal.

Back towards the end of September, I visited The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, a redwood-centric state park a little bit southeast of Santa Cruz. It’s pretty much the southest I’ve traveled for hiking, although the trip took less than an hour, thanks to its proximity to major highways. Although the area stopped being a logging camp in the 1920’s, it only became a state park in the 60’s. Compared to a lot of the other state parks, that’s pretty young. This park is close enough to “civilization” that many people eschew the Park’s parking lot. They park at businesses that exist right outside the park and then bike or run inside, thus avoiding the daily park fee. I kinda think this is a rude move, because they are using the park while not supporting it. It’s also a tiring move, because even if you park right outside the park, it’s a long, windy, uphill climb to the park interior. Basically, if you park outside, it’s a 5k just to get to anything worth seeing.

Nisene Parks State Park was sorta disappointing. Not too much signage, so I often didn’t know where I was. This is especially true near the park entrance, where the trails meander and I found myself back-tracking quite a bit. There are some very long hikes available here, but I found myself wanting to hit trails that were really far apart, so I ended up driving between trailheads. The first trails I hit included really old growth trees, including some real monsters, while the later trails were ridgeline trails through previously logged areas.

Alongside the issues with trail signs, there was a real dearth of historical information as well. The pictures I show pretty much detail the entirety of the documentation on site, which was disappointing, because I like to think that I’m learning while I’m hiking. Also, one of the main reasons I picked this park was that the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake is actually close to one of the trails! There is even a sign! Imagine my horror when I got there to find out that the Aptos Creek trail was closed! A great disappointment. Whatever. Overall, I grade this place a C. Again, no one punched me in the face.

Anyways, enjoy the pictures, and Merry Christmas to everyone! I successfully ordered a Bag of Random Crap from Woot today!

Flickr Set Here.
Slideshow Below.
Pictures & Descriptions after the jump.

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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.

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On August 15th, I took a trip to Butano State Park, again on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. This park is kinda tucked in behind Big Basin, and is much more annoying to get to. Much of the route is on winding country roads, so it took about 75-90 minutes to travel the 45 miles. The only other intrigue was the presence of a nearby wildfire, the so-called Lockheed fire. It was called the Lockheed fire because it was close to some Lockheed R & D facilities, which were in such “remote” locations so that if they exploded, they wouldn’t endanger a populated area. But that’s a different story. By my Google Maps estimates, that fire was over 10 miles and a few state parks away, so I figured I would be safe. However, the fire’s presence was definitely felt in the form of haze and the smell of smoke.

My hike was roughly 9 – 10 miles or so, and covered forests and canyons, flats and ridges. Bay Area Hiker doesn’t particularly like Butano, and I can’t disagree with her notion that Purisma Creek provides a better creekside hike. So I’ll give this hike a B+.

Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures & descriptions after the jump.

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Even though I have been concentrating on parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I have nowhere near exhausted all my options. For the weekend of July 26th, I chose the Purisma Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, a patch of protected redwood forest on the western slope of the Santa Cruz mountains, right near Half Moon Bay. In a theme that has been shared with a lot of places that I’ve visited, this preserve is centered around a creek (Purisma Creek) and the canyon that surrounds it.

One thing I liked about this park is that for me, it had a good balance of ease-of-access and getting-awayness. It was about 50 minutes to an hour away, taking I-280 North to Hwy 92 West to Half Moon Bay, then getting on Hwy 1 going south for only a mile or so before making a left onto Higgins Canyon road for the final 4 miles or so. In other words, I spent a minimum of time on narrow, unmarked roads. But I still felt fairly secluded, even though this trailhead was relatively popular.

I started out on Purisma Creek Trail, which climbs gradually as it follows the creek farther into the canyon. This multi-purpose trail meets up with the Soda Gulch Trail at about the 2.3 mile mark. This trail is refreshingly hiker-only, and it weaves through the forest and into hillside quasi-meadows for another 2.5 miles before hitting the Harkins Ridge Trail. The suggested trail plan calls for heading back to the trailhead to complete the loop at this point, but I decided to extend the hike and headed uphill, to the northeast. I had to watch for a bunch of mountain bikers on this trail, but I found myself up by Skyline Blvd before heading back down to the trailhead on Whittemore Gulch Trail. Overall, I estimate my hike to be between 9.5 and 10 miles.

This hike was suggested to me by Jane Hubers “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of San Francisco”, who preferred this place to most other redwood parks. And for the most part, I would have to agree with her. I really enjoyed this hike, for reasons not quite definable. It did not have fantastic vistas, and indeed few places where I could see much beyond trees. But I seem to value varied landscapes, a nice mix of steep climb and gradual grades, and nice trees, and this trail delivered. I just remember getting back to my car and thinking “Gee, that was an enjoyable hike”. I give it an A.

Not much pictures of this hike. Well, I took a number of pictures, but a greater than average number of them turned out to be not worth posting (and as you have seen, I have pretty low standards for what I end up posting) due to redundancy or horrible composition. I did come across a family of quail bustling across the trail. They were actually really funny, because they seemed to be panicking due to my sudden arrival. Since quail don’t really fly, though, they didn’t burst up into the air, but mainly tried to scatter into the brush. But some of the baby quail couldn’t really decide which side of the trail they wanted to be at, so they zig-zagged back and forth like a trailside version of pinball, until they sorted themselves out. Unfortunately, by the time I had the presence of mind to turn my camera to video mode, they had scattered, so no proof. Sorry.

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

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After my debacle at Diablo, I resolved to better consider the heat as I continued my summer hikes. For the most part, that means East Bay is off limits until Fall arrives. South Bay isn’t all that much better. North Bay is far away and almost certainly requires paying a bridge toll somewhere. So the Peninsula it is! Once you cross over the Santa Cruz mountains, summer temperatures are much milder, and the clouds often don’t retreat until noon approaches. There are quite a few state parks that straddle the crest of the Santa Cruz mountains or lay on it’s western slopes, so I figured now’s a good time to try them. For the weekend of July 18th, I chose Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, near the town of Felton and about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz. There are actually two large separate sections of the park. The southern part is more heavily used by campers, and as such, has parking fees and the like. The northern portion was donated to the California State Park system at a later time, and just has trails and stuff — and parking is free! This portion, the “Fall Creek Unit” used to be a big source of lime; the stuff was mined and calcined in limekilns before being shipped off in redwood barrels. Some of the relics of this legacy is still there in the park.

I started off this hike on the Fall Creek trail, which begins at the entrance and follows the canyon created by Fall Creek. After passing by some barrel-making equipment, I made a right onto Big Ben Trail, which proved to be a decently steep climb up to Truck Trail, an old logging road (now a fire road). This hooked up with the Ridge Trail, which took me back to my starting point, forming a 7 mile clockwise loop trail.

The redwoods are nice, although not old growth by any means. The rangers here seem to want to give this park a bit of an “untamed” feeling, as there are a lot of fallen logs that you have to pick your way around. So, while this hike wasn’t spectacular or anything, the rusticness and the little pieces of history bump this hike up to a B+

Flick set here
Slideshow below.
Pictures after the jump.

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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.

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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