On May 1st, I joined a group of people hiking Skyline Ridge, one of the state parks on top of the ridge of hills just south of Palo Alto and Los Altos. I had visited Russian Ridge previously, and Skyline Ridge is right next door. Skyline Ridge is much like Russian Ridge, except that the views of South Bay aren’t as nice, and the archeological artifacts are more prevalent. Overall, the trail was a C. Afterwards, we joined up with another group of hikers who were on Russian Ridge for a nice little picnic.

The week after, I joined in on an urban hike, a trail dubbed “Reverse Bay to Beakers”. Bay to Breakers is an annual 12k race in San Francisco that goes from downtown San Francisco to the Pacific Ocean, at the west edge of Golden Gate Park. We were taking a route that was more conducive to lunchtime eating, though, so we did it in reverse. There were a lot of people involved in this hike, which means that we had to go out in teams.

We were told to proceed to the destination, Gaylords at the Embarcadero Center, by whatever methods we saw fit. Once there, we would compare notes and relate any adventures we had. Previous incarnations of this hike had people participating in outdoor weddings and other amazing events. So, there was a bit of pressure to both get to the destination quickly and have adventures. In the end…we didn’t have any adventures. But I took some pictures anyway.

Flickr sets here and here.

Slideshows below
Pictures after the jump.

I knew the shadows would make this picture look weird, but there was this strange rock formation near one of the ponds halfway through our hike. The weather had eaten away enough of this rock that it looked like it would make a decent waterslide in a downpour.

I think this is sandstone or something. Anyways, the Native Americans who lived in this area before the yuppies arrived carved out these hollows in the rock, and used them as mortars to crush acorns in. Acorns were a food staple for their culture, and they used the acorn flour to make their bread and meal.

On the second half of the loop, the trail took us to the Santa Cruz side of the ridge, where the view was a little nicer. You might be able to see the ocean out there.

After this hike, we joined forces with a group hiking the nearby Russian Ridge and had a bit of a potluck picnic. The guy in the Oregon hat is the best kind of hiker — the type that brings beer to an afterhike party.

While the turnout for the hike wasn’t all that great, the turnout for the picnic was overall pretty good. I used this occasion as an excuse to use the GorillaPod to wedge my camera up in a tree and take a timed photo. Now you can play a game of Where’s Ranjeet?

I think this is the most comprehensive iconography-based "Do Not Do" sign I have ever seen.

The hiking rendezvous point was this mill. No Quixote’s around, as far as I can tell.

If I hadn’t given it away with the previous video, you probably wouldn’t be able to figure out which is the real windmill. Such is the quality of my impersonation.

Since there were a lot of people going on this hike, we set out in groups of ~ 10. These were my companions for the next few hours.

We stopped for a bathroom break, and we found out that the little hut that housed the bathrooms also housed this Model Yacht Club. These people were serious about their boats.

The attention to detail was pretty impressive. But I did see a lot duct tape as well.

Along our path through Golden Gate Park, we walked along this healthy little stream, which had a few waterfalls along this path. We never really figured out where all this water came from.

The waterfall in the previous photo flowed in between these flagstones along the path. In between the rocks, there were a few instances of these large foamy deposits. I found them fascinating. I imagine the proteins and plant matter in the water is acting like a surfactant, allowing airy foams to develop at particularly turbulent points in the flow. They pulsated with the flow of water, making them seem alive. Very creepy.

In my opinion, the only reason to do something like this in Golden Gate Park is to get people to look at you. I mean, this doesn’t quite seem like an activity where you get a bunch of people together (even spontaneously) to do something as a group. It’s just a guy spinning in a big hoop.

After a while, our path took us into more residential/commercial areas of the city. Here are the famous "Six Sisters". I think there are other nicknames for this row of houses, but they pretty much all insinuate that these houses are females that are associated either through blood or some other professional linkage. You may be familiar with them from the closing shots of the "Full House" intro. I can’t believe I used to watch that show.

I don’t remember where this mural was, exactly, but it’s size and dense style attracted me to it.

This large plaza lies in front of the San Francisco City Hall (home of the fifth largest dome in the world). I don’t know what type of trees these are, but they are planted in a grid pattern that’s perfect for weaving through, which I am sure was the intention.

The info poster on this sculpture wasn’t very descriptive, so I have to resort to the internet to get the necessary information on this piece of art. It is unimaginatively titled "Three Heads Six Arms". I like to imagine that it plummeted from the sky, Mir-style, and they just put up the fence to keep people from getting space germs.

For the first half of the hike, we just admired the wildflowers and the rolling hills. The views were not fantastic, although there was a pretty good view of the peaks of Mt. Diablo. The second half of the hike was more shaded, and passed through groves of trees and poison ivy (luckily, I didn’t run into any) while climbing rather steeply back towards the parking lot.

Overall, this hike wasn’t all that interesting. The wildflowers were nice, and the more challenging portions of this hike were interesting, but it was fairly short (~ 5 miles) and the views were not great (it was a little bit hazy). It was nice to visit an area that I hadn’t hiked at before, and we had a great lunch at Sai’s, a vietnamese restaurant in Livermore. I’ll give it a B-, but the whole experience an A-.

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

Its traditional to take a picture of everyone before they get sweaty and angry. The turnout wasn’t that great, but it was a good group of people.

Its Spring, so the wildflowers are coming out in the hills. My camera is not awesome enough to really see it, though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the purple glow on that hill is due to wildflowers.

Since wildflowers were a main feature of this hike, I felt compelled to take some pictures of flowers. Unfortunately, I’m not enough of a naturist to be able to tell what kind of flower this is.

Off in the distance, I could see the twin peaks of Mt. Diablo.

We took a moment mid-hike to share our snacks.

There was really only one point during this hike that I had a look east towards the Sierras. Not that I could see the Sierras or anything.

I walked up to the high ground to get a better look while we took a small break.

Most of the flowers I saw during the first part of the hike were blue, so I was happy to see some different colors.

I took advantage of my tripod + Gorillapod technique to make a good camera support for this group picture. The twin peaks of Diablo rise behind us.

One last shot of the rolling hills and Diablo in the background.

This hike is very accessible, which is both good and bad. Good because it’s only a 30 minute drive from my apartment, and there is no segment of the way that is composed of windy, narrow road. Bad because this means that everyone comes with their kids and their strollers and such. I got a somewhat late start, and arrived to find the parking lot full and the residential streets packed all around. I lucked out and found someone leaving, so my walk to the trailhead was only about 5 minutes.

This hike is not fooling anyone. You get to the trailhead, and you see the peak ahead of you, with the path snaking up to the crest. You know exactly what you’re getting into. The path up from the Stanford Avenue trailhead is wide and graveled. I’m not a huge fan of multi-use trails; I like to pretend that I’m trekking through the wilderness, and that illusion is disrupted if I have to watch out for mountain bikes and if I hear the sounds of babies in strollers.

I also was hoping that the view would be clearer, since it had rained a few days before. Alas, the haze returned sooner than I would have expected. Overall, though, it was a good way to break in my otherwise lethargic body (I was sore for a week) and to get myself prepared for the hiking season. While steep, the view was pretty rewarding. I give this hike a B+/A-.

Picture set on Flickr Here
Slideshow Below
Pictures & Descriptions after the jump.

This is the view from my parking spot. I was really hoping that recent rains would have knocked down the haze in this spot. There were a ton of people here today. It might be because it was one of the first beautiful weekends of the year so far. Or it could always be like this, since this was my first trip. I had to park a bit farther out, on a residential street.

I don’t know what these trees are, but there was a line of impressive trees along Stanford Avenue right before reaching the trailhead.

The trail map for Mission Peak

This is a view up to Mission Peak, from lower down on the trail.

There were quite a few cows grazing along the trail.

I was sorta scared that the mother cow would think that I was eyeing her child for a meal.

The top of Mission Peak is pretty rocky; its crest looks a lot more aggressive from here than it did earlier.

There were a bunch of little chipmunks or ground squirrels or whatever scurrying around. They were cute yet elusive.

From the top, you can see the Sunol Wilderness that abuts Mission Peak Preserve

Here’s a decent little view of East Bay and Fremont below. You can also see the trail switchbacking below.

I was really hoping the haze would be knocked down enough that San Francisco and Oakland would appear, but they’re pretty much blocked out by the haze.

This little pole up at the top, along with being copiously vandalized, had a bunch of little tubes that were oriented towards various points of interest. One might say "San Francisco", for instance. A nice little project.

It could be my imagination or perhaps altitude induced sickness (a shocking 2400 feet above sea level), but I swear I could see the snow capped crests of the Sierra Nevadas in the distance.

The person who took this picture did a pretty horrible job, since I appear to be fat.

I’m a big fan of my GorillaPod, and looks for any chance to use it during a hike.

That little figure in the distance is a little chipmunk/squirrel thing. He was keeping an eye out for intruders

I really wanted to make this is a loop instead of an out-and-back, so I elected to take a different trail back to the trailhead. This path seemed steeper as well as less distinct.

A couple things of note about this picture. This is the first time I used a technique that is not very original, but seemed like a Eureka moment for me. I jammed my hiking pole into the ground to make a monopod, then used the GorillaPod to mount my camera on top, giving me a much better viewpoint than if I just put it on the ground. Secondly. this bench is freaking huge. This a bench made by Andre the Giant. My feet are not touching the ground at all, and I had to like hop onto it. This is probably about the safe limit of my 10 second timer.

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.

Walking around the parking lot of the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, I tried to follow some meandering paths to find some Old Growth redwoods. These paths were ummarked and quite confusing. And in the end, it turns out I was nowhere near where I needed to be. But I did find this overturned, vandalized, overgrown car. Not sure what the story is here.

Again, while wandering, I came across this bamboo grove. First of all….bamboo? Seriously? I do not think that is a native Californian plant. When I’m near Santa Cruz, I’m expecting artsy hippies, not deadly ninjas. Anyways, this path was too forboding for me to dare follow it. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what’s up.

In the redwood groves near the entrance station, there were a lot of extremely large stumps like this. I think that the original loggers cut down the giant tree in the middle, but since redwoods are a lot like vampires, that didn’t really kill them. In the intervening 80 years or so, a protective grove of smaller redwoods have grown up, like bodyguards. At least, that is my interpretation of history. I’m not going to bother checking up on the verity of all that.

I spent quite a bit of time trudging through the park in search for the Old Growth Forest Trail. I knew I was on the right track when I came across this creek and this bridge. Oddly enough I managed to make this all look miniature when I took this picture.

As labeled on the maps, this is the twisted grove. Quite freaky, not only because the trees are slanted, but because they appear to be slanted in a clockwise direction.

Frankly, I’m just impressed that I took a movie that I can watch without feeling nauseous. Not sure if it’s any more illustrative than the previous picture.

Again, it’s difficult to take pictures of very large redwoods unless I get very far away, and if I do that….I can’t see the tree. This ain’t no Avenue of the Giants. So this is pretty much the best I can do. Timed shots of me near the trunk. I checked out that gap in the bole, just to make sure there wasn’t something terrifying in there. The phrasing of this was weird, because it was called "The Advocates Tree", rather than "The Advocate Tree". Now, there was another really large tree nearby (that might be it in the background), so maybe they meant "The Advocate Trees" or just "The Advocates". With a name like that, I think that these trees are like the Godfather of the forest, making lumberjacks offers they can’t refuse.

After wandering around down near the entrance station, I got back in the car and drove up about a mile and a half to the location of the second part of my hike. I’m taking the West Ridge Trail out to Hoffman’s Historic Site, more or less.

Coming across power lines in the middle of a giant state park is somewhat jarring. Way to break the illusion, guys.

I can only imagine the amount of tedious maintenance that goes on to keep these power lines free of entanglement. I mean, you can see the path from Google Maps! Maybe they do the whole cutting-via-helicopter thing. I hope it’s not just some dudes with a ladder.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure why I took this picture. But I think I can make a decent guess. As I was following the trail, I was surrounded by redwood trees. But then the trail took a sharp turn and started walking along a different ridge, and I noticed I was now surrounded by Douglas Firs. As nearest as I can tell, this is approximately the transition point. Roughly speaking, to the right is redwood land and to the left is Douglas Fir-town. I find it interesting that such little changes in the environment (the fog probably comes over differently relative to these two ridges) can make such a large difference on what kinds of trees grow.

This tree was strange in that it looked like the bark was shredded vertically, but clearly the tree was still alive. I think that perhaps there’s a giant, mutant bear running around the forest, sharpening his claws on redwoods. I mean, just based on the empirical data here.

I don’t normally see redwoods go this buckwild in limb formation, but this park is full of all sort of mutant redwoods.

This was the entire extent of the explanation. There were no buildings around, no other signs. Just this marker. I have to say, a bit of a let down.

Along the way back, there was this display memorializing Porter House, a small residential area where the loggers lived. Again, this was the only thing around.

I saw a number of these faded scratchings along the trail. I figure that there must have been some sort of cross-country race going on, with these markings letting the runners know which way to go. I have to wonder, though, how fast these runners are going, because it shouldn’t have been that confusing. I mean, there are a bunch of trees to the left, and a bunch of trees to the right, and and a relatively open space in the middle. This isn’t rocket science. There aren’t a bunch of intersecting trails. There’s like, one. All this arrow did was make me feel vaguely wrong for going in the opposite direction. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s feeling vaguely wrong.

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.

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.

For this hike, I started near the park entrance. I embarked on the Jackson Flats Trail and continued on to the Canyon Trail and Indian Trail until I hit the Olmo Fire Road. From the Olmo Fire Road I transitioned to the Doe Ridge Trail and Goat Hill Trail to get to the Ben Ries Campground. After wandering through the campsite, I got onto the Six Bridges Trail and took it back to the parking lot.

In physics terms, I think this tree has a left hand thread to it.

This huge redwood stump has certainly seen it’s share of forest fires. Just in case I didn’t understand the yearly danger that these trees face, haze from the nearby "Lockheed" forest fire surrounded me, and the smell of smoke was in the air.

I’m not sure what was up with this tree, but it had all sorts of strange growths on it. Can redwoods get leprosy?

Basically, this large leprous tree was about 5 Ranjeet’s wide.

Whenever I see a bench out in the woods, I become a little bit suspicious. I wonder if maybe, just maybe this time this is all some sort of prank, like they do in Japan. If I sit down, will it rocket me into the air, down the cliffside? Will a cage of hungry bears spring open 10 feet away? Will a vat of green slime come tumbling through the air? Even odder, this chair was unmemorialized and unsponsored.

I think this tree is doing the Robot on some sort of centurial time scale.

I saw a bunch of feathers scattered on the ground along the trail, a sign that some violence probably took place here recently. Could a killer be lurking in the woods nearby?

There wasn’t so much smoke in the air that it was hard to breathe or hard to see, but there were enough particles in the air that it made from some nice pictures of sunlight streaming between the trees. Ah, the magic of diffraction.

I’ve seen plenty of redwoods with holes in the trunks. They often look like they could be nice little shelters in a rainstorm (of course, it’s probably more likely that they are filled with black widows, rabid racoons, and rattlesnakes), but I don’t think I’ve seen too many with holes on either side of the tree. Maybe someday, this tree will be big enough that they could just build a road through it.

It’s pretty typical to see trees sawn in half along the trail, trees too big to move completely so a trail is made just for hikers. It isn’t typical to see such a cornucopia of mushrooms lining the way ahead.

The smoke from the Lockheed fire wasn’t making it hard to breathe or anything, but it was definitely hindering the view.

This madrone tree had quite a bit of peeling bark. The madrone is actually known for it’s peeling bark, but this tree seemed to have a bit of a problem.

About a quarter of the way through the hike, I emerged from the forest onto this ridge. Not only was the soil really gravelly, but I suddenly was out in the sun. Not my favorite part of the hike.

I think this is Spanish Moss. To be honest, I’m not all that great with mosses. I know that some places have greater expertise. But I’ve heard of Spanish Moss before, and the wikipedia page is encouraging, so I’m gonna assume I’m right.

It’s sort of disorienting to emerge from a narrow hiking trail onto a fire road. After following the Canyon and Indian Trails for probably about 5-6 miles, I emerged onto the Olmo Fire Road, which was oddly steep and gravelly. I hope that the fire trucks get enough purchase when they’re bouncing around these hills.

Aside from insects, the most common "wildlife" I’ve seen has been lizards. Most of the time, they’re pretty shy, and lightning fast, so I can’t take pictures of them. This small (baby?) lizard, though, thought he/she was pretty slick by blending in to the grass. Can you pick it out? (Maybe I shouldn’t have centered the picture on it…)

This is part million of my ongoing series : Trees Being Tall. I enjoy how the upper level of branches are intermingling up there, over a hundred feet up there.

Really, taking pictures of tall trees is getting old. Taking videos of tall trees is the future. The Future!!!1! I like not only the height and the straightness, but also the spacing. A nice aesthetic.

Every time I see an open stump like this, I feel compelled to look inside and check it out. You never know what might be in there. A pot of gold, a portal to a magical fantasy world, some gummi bears…really, it would be stupid not to check.

It seemed obvious when I took this picture, but of course, the picture isn’t quite as good as live. In this little grove, there was a jumble of fallen trees. In fact, it looked like a stack of fallen dominoes. I guess you just had to be there.

About 3/4 through my hike, I found myself near the Butano campgrounds. I was somewhat surprised to see it quite full. While I was quite willing to hike around for a few hours in the smoky part, I wouldn’t think you would want to sleep in it. According to the trail map, this was the Campfire Center. Although thinking about it, there really doesn’t seem to be a good place for the fire itself. It does seem like a really good place to do a little wildlife show, though. I can totally see someone up there, holding a hawk on their arm, and doing that thing where you show a bird flying against the wind from from a industrial fan.

When you name your trail the "Six Bridges" trail, you are setting yourself up for certain expectations. Namely, I expect to see six bridges. If they had consulted me, however, I would have cautioned them against naming this trail in this way, because it really gives them no flexibility in the future. What if they need to add another bridge, or the earthquake changes the creek so they need one less? Then they have to either change their maps or open themselves up to all sorts of truth-in-advertising lawsuits.

Well, I was somewhat prepared for "Six Bridges" to be a poetic or metaphorical title, but my fears were assuaged within a tenth of a mile, when I saw the first bridge.

Bridge #2

Bridge #3

Bridge #4

When I saw this sign, I couldn’t tell if it was a warning or an invitation. For the record, I hadn’t seen any bats at all so far. But I was cheered to see this sign, because now if I decide to become a superhero, I know exactly where to look for a cave for my hideout.

In case you’re wondering why the heck there are so many bridges on this trail, the path keeps on crossing the same creek. It’s not like I’m crossing the Sacramento River Delta or something.

I saw these leaves or whatever hanging from a tree near the "bat habitat" sign. Could it be that some near-sighted bat-lovers wandered by, saw these bat-looking leaves, and decided to put up a sign?

I saw this apparent bridge starting point, although the bridge appears to be missing. Obviously, they starting building this bridge, but then realized this was the Six Bridges trail and that they would be one bridge over the limit. See, they should have listened to me.

The final Bridge of the hike, it’s somewhat underwhelming. It does not exactly harken images of the Golden Gate, that’s for sure.

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.

Yet another picture of redwoods being tall. The thing I liked about this picture is seeing the two redwoods (which are actually probably clones of each other) so close to each other, and seeing their branches extend out only on one side of their trunks. This probably developed over hundreds of years, but still, I enjoy anthropomorphizing them as having special awareness of their surroundings.

Burls often form at the bottom of trees; these knobby growths can eventually become trees of their own if needed. Every once in a while you’ll see burls a few feet up the trunk on a tree. This usually implies that the ground level was once way up there, but soil erosion has removed soil around the trunk. This might be a redwood, but it seems a little bit…mossy…to be a redwood. But after I took this picture, I noticed something a little strange….

One common game that older peoples played with trees is to see what animals and humans they could see within the burls. Their knobbiness and jaggedness allows one to use their imagination to see almost whatever they want. Kids are often very good in this game. I mean, I know it’s just anthropomorphizing some more, but I swear I can see a smiley face within this burl.

This is another example of a picture that is a mystery, in retrospect. Someday, I’m sure it will come to me.

Scouting ahead to the opposite side of the gully that this trail encircles, I see some obstacles in my future. As it turns out, there was enough room to comfortably sneak under this fallen tree. Its also at times like this that I realize that I could use a better camera…but I also realize that if I had a heavier camera, I probably wouldn’t take it.

By the time the trail poked out of the trees, the fog that had been prevalent in the morning had just about retreated to the ocean in the distance. The interesting thing about this hike was that I could feel the coolness of the coast and the warmth of the inner valley battle it out as I hiked along the ridge, with the temperature cycling up and down 10 or more degrees at a time as the wind shifted.

This is the next installment of Proof That I Was There. I’m suffering a bit from hat-head, but there’s not much I can do about that. That one tree probably looks more gigantic than it is, being surrounded by brush, but it’s still pretty huge – almost the size of my head.

Somewhere over those hills is Half Moon Bay. It looks like it must still be partly cloudy over there.

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.

Depending on how lazy I am and how many pockets I’m willing to fill, sometimes I will just take a picture of the trail map so I just need to look at my camera whenever I want to consult the map, rather than rifle through my pack.

As has been well documented from previous hikes, I like taking pictures of bridges, whether they are simple or extraordinary. This one, crossing Fall Creek, lies somewhere in between.

California State Parks are managed. Things are not allowed to proceed naturally, per se, but people work to keep up the trails, keep out invasive species, repair trails after storms, etc. Oftentimes, you see trees that have fallen across the trail, and many times these are sawn in half to allow passage. But other times, trees are left as they fall, blocking the trail like this. This "archway" was easily navigated by ducking under the tree, but I wonder if they have an actual methodology or quantitative criterion by which they decide to act or in-act.

Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place, but I always see impressive webs and never any spiders. It makes me think there’s a Johnny-Appleseed-like spider running through the forest, weaving webs and then moving on.

Wind and erosion are probably these trees greatest enemies. It’s only a matter of time before this one bites the dust. You can see how much of the root system is already extending away from the hill.

The soil that this tree is living in is quite clay-like and chalky. Poor planning on this fir’s part.

Yet another portion of Fall Creek where fallen trees litter the area above the water. I imagine that natural dams form every couple hundred years.

I forget why I took this picture. It’s either all the stuff in my way, or the waterfall, or the pleasing zig-zagging of the trail. Whatever.

This portion of Howard Cowell State Park was once part of a lime mine. To transport the lime out of there, they put them in barrels. But where could they get wood for all those barrels. Hey, what about all these redwoods lying around?! This portion of the trail commemorated the activities of the barrel makers.

The display near this machine identified it as a stave-maker, for producing barrels. To be honest, I have no idea how this machine turned redwoods into barrel staves. It actually looked like it could be a medieval torture device.

Here’s a look inside the stave making machine. I hope this sheds some light on the matter for you.

Just to prove that I didn’t get all those picture off of Google Image Search or something, here’s me showcasing all those antiquities.

I’m all for leaving things be when trees block the path, but I was impressed at this section of the trail, where three trees in quick succession made for a little bit of an obstacle court.

It’s a little bit hard to make out in this picture, but this region of the forest was littered with spider webs. It reminded me of the part in *Nerd Alert* The Hobbit where Bilbo and his cohorts are captured by a pack of spiders in Mirkwood. I moved quickly through this portion.

I’m not exactly sure what prompted this tree to go all twisty on us, but I hope it was worth the whiplash.

There was a better, more precarious log just a bit up this stream that I could have perched myself on, but there was no way I could have made it across that log in 10 seconds without greatly increasing my chances of falling and cracking my skull. While that instance would have been lovingly documented, I decided to go for the low-hanging fruit, and just sit on this log which slung low over the creek.

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 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.

One of the first things I noticed on this hike was some gigantic pine cones off to the side. Like, seriously huge, nearly the size of my noggin. I guess the trees are finding ways to fight back.

We started off on a fire road, my least favorite type of trail. We shared our path with a few people on horseback and a few crazy joggers. At this point, we still had high hopes, strong legs, and lots of water. Our path had just started to climb, and we were nearing a small group of picnic tables. You can see the mountain leading up to Eagle Peak on the right…that’s where we were headed!

At this points, we’re still working our way to the local maxima. But I think that the water that I’m seeing up Northish are the Grizzly (East) and San Pablo (West) Bays.

Instead of looking northwest, I can also turn around and see what lies in the other valley. Uh…not much. I think I’m looking at the town of Clayton.

Up to this point, we had been walking on boring old fire roads. But now, we were starting on the Eagle Peak trail, a hiking-only trail that follows the crest of Mount Diablo.
This picture courtesy of Ashley.

Ashley was nice enough to take a picture of Dan and me as we took a break on the crest.

You know, looking back, I don’t even remember which side of the Less Filling/Tastes Great debate each of us was on. All I remember is that the argument escalated quickly and violently.

Luckily, Dan began to see things my way.

I like this because I’m pretty sure I can use this shot in the future to superimpose myself on any manner of summits or environments.

Finally, we had arrived at Eagle Peak. Elevation 2369. Not even the highest portion of Mount Diablo, but the highest point of our hike.

Been looking online and I’ve found a couple of different names for this quarry. Kaiser Quarry….Clayton Quarry…whatever. There’s a whole lot of stuff missing from the side of this mountain.

I have no idea if this is really a Cobweb Thistle. I just did a google search for "Thistle" and "Diablo" and found something very similar. Anyways, this is the last picture, because I was on the verge of heat stroke and wasn’t really concerned with taking pictures.