Sunday LL and I went hiking in Mt. Tamalpais Park with our friends Jim and Kim. The park is north of SF (just across the GG Bridge) between Hwy 1 and the coast, and it's really pretty, as you'll see in just a sec. We of course had a wonderful time and saw a lot of cool things and got plenty of exercise, etc., but we also learned a couple things. First, LL and I found out that, when it comes to hiking in mountains, we are approximately elderly. Second, we learned that, no matter how elderly you feel, sometimes boys want to climb to the absolute top of the mountain (even at their own pathetic geriatric peril, as the case may be).
We met Jim and Kim at the Safeway at 9:15 (LL and I walked to the Safeway because we weren't satisfied knowing that we were only going to hike 7-8 miles in the mountains). We bought sandwiches, some trail mix and a bag of cheddar popcorn (guess which item LL picked out...actually I can't make fun because the cheddar popcorn was awesome...and we didn't even open the trail mix). Jim drove, following the instructions of his Magellan GPS gizmo. I'm really jealous of it.
OK, so...the hike. Like I said, it's about 7-8 miles. You start out at about 1500 ft elevation near some ranger station and follow "steep ravine" trail down to the beach (that being about 0 ft. elevation...approximately). That's the half-way point where you eat your sandwiches and cheddar popcorn. Then you walk back to where you started on a different trail. Anyone see a problem here? No? Let's recap:
Trip Start: 1500 ft.
Lunch: 0 ft.
Car: Still at 1500 ft.
That's right, my fellow sluggards, we were a quarter mile below the car with no escalator in sight. Bummer. But the surprising thing isn't that we (it turns out) could have made that hike, no sweat. The shocker is that we decided to take a side trip along the way (spurred by a depleting ratio of oxygen to testosterone) that included a really steep climb up to 2100 ft. (the top of the mountain). It was a bit embarrassing for me, actually. Jim and Kim jaunted up to the top like a couple of pixies (no offense, guys) while I had to take breaks every 20 ft in order to keep my calves from staging a sit-in. Absolutely humiliating. But, on the bright side, we did actually make it to the top, and consequently, we didn't feel at all bad about eating pasta for the next 4 days.
So here are a few pics from the hike...
This first one is a (once) living branch that Jim snapped like Hulkamania (eh...making up for the pixie reference). He was trying to set the camera on a nearby rock in order to take a group photo, and this branch was just a little bit in the way. LL was about to say that the branch might do a nice job framing the photo...alas.
There's Jim, Kim and LL. The trails on this trip were really well-maintained. I guess you sort of expect that on trails that get a lot of traffic (and this one has 2.1 million granola munchers within a 20 miles radius), but still it was nice.
These are just some trees in a little grove close to the beach. I liked them.
This is the last mile or so heading down to the beach from the mountains. You can see the trail disappear over the last remaining hills on its way to the ocean. Notice the waves crashing on Stinson Beach.
And here is our best dog-sighting of the day. It's a Bassett (obviously) and I happened to catch her tail in mid wag, which makes LL happy (sometimes it's the little things). By the way, we also watched a retriever repeatedly fetch a tennis ball (and have an absolute blast doing it). But while I was eating my lunch, I got a single sand grit on my sandwich and it really ruined what would have been a great bite, and that made me think that it must really suck to not have hands and to have to pick up a sandy tennis ball in your mouth. It's kind of been driving me nuts ever since.
Here are the four of us right after we ate (the car, not pictured, is far, far away).
In this photo, I am standing on a trail that leads off to the right (where the car is...just a couple miles away, but otherwise at about the same elevation). But straight ahead is the infamous El Muerto** peak, which we decided to tackle because we thought the view would be incredible. Jim and Kim are about flutter up to the top. I would not be able to overtake LL, who didn't exactly sprint. Love us.
So, here is the view. What do you think? Do you think that maybe the camera isn't working properly or something like that? No. The fog was thick. But instead of climbing back down, we noticed that you could go a little higher. Unlike many poor decisions we've made, that one turned out pretty good...
Isn't it cool? We are basically looking south toward SF (so to the right is the ocean and to the left is Ohio...you know, way to the left). We actually must have climbed up through the clouds, and the view is just awesome. To the right (couldn't really take a good picture of it because it was too bright) was a sea of cloud...like looking out over a calm, white ocean. (the white ocean being what we were down in the middle of in the previous picture).
And here's the payoff shot. Again, this is looking south with SF behind us. You can see the bay and even some sailboats out there. We spent a while up here looking around. I really enjoyed it all in the end, even though getting out of bed monday morning was a little brutal, honestly. But we did have a great time and I'm sure it'll make us skinny.** OK, OK...so the peak is not called "El Muerto." It's actually called "Hang Glider Site #1." Big deal.
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