Two-Heel Drive

The ocean side of Wilder Ranch State Park gets all the tourists, picnickers and naked sunbathers. Hardly anybody goes to the backcountry on the north side of Highway 1, and almost none of them travel on foot. Hikers probably read “popular with equestrians and mountain bikers” in the guidebooks and start turning the pages. Their loss.

Mainly, they’re missing the meadows. The Wilder Ranch backcountry is pretty much all meadow, which forces the perceptive hiker (and even people like yours truly) to ponder the concept of meadow hiking.

I never imagined there was any such thing till I wandered through Wilder Ranch’s backcountry over the course of two weekends. We don’t give much thought to any meadow not named Tuolumne, and even that Yosemite showplace doesn’t compare all that well to, say, Half Dome or El Capitan. You walk through a meadow on your way to a sexier attraction and forget about it. Usually.

Since I’d already invested one Sunday at Wilder Ranch, I figured a second trip would give me an excuse to write about it in my Mercury News column. I’d already done the coast trails, with a few miles on the north side of Highway 1 just to get a taste of the place.

On paper (or pixels), there’s not all that much to recommend the backcountry side — it’s mostly open country that skirts a few patches of forest. It does attract riders on wheel and hoof, and it doesn’t have many single-track trails.

What it does have is all these meadows. At risk of venturing into hype territory, I’ve gotta say they are marvelous meadows. Tall, green grass dotted with dandelions and baby blue-eyes. Forests of Douglas-fir at the fringes, even a few groves of young redwoods.

I ended up doing a 14-mile grand loop that started at the backcountry entrance, took the Engelsmans Loop trail to the Long Meadow Trail to the northern end of the park, then turned back south on the Chinquapin Trail to the Eucalyptus Loop Trail, then headed west on to the far edge of the park on the Enchanted Loop Trail, which I followed all the way to Highway 1, which I crossed under and headed to the beach for lunch, then took the Ohlone Bluff and Old Cove Landing trails back to the Cultural Preserve at the park HQ. (VirtualParks has a free map).

So let’s look at some pictures (double my usual complement because I saw lots of cool blooms).

One of the meadows on the Long Meadow Trail. These old roads up the hillside are not especially steep — the grade is downright gentle most of the way, which makes the meadow musing that much better.

Sometimes I just like to take a picture of pine cones.

First test question of the day: Identify these light-purple, fluted flowers. They grow on a bush up to about seven feet tall.

Second test question: identify these bluish blooms, which grow in tall grasses. I think they may be a kind of baby blue-eye.

Hey, it was Mother’s Day after all.

Test question three: identify this ground-hugging purple bloom.

An interesting sentiment to find carved into a crossbeam on a picnic table.

Still lots of miniature lupines along the trail.

The Enchanted Loop Trail has one of the rare wooded sections of trail, where I saw this iris.

Enchanted Loop also strays very close to this sheer drop-off. There’s a warning sign down the trail a ways.

Required bent-tree pic.

Test question 4: Why does this bush have this foam on it?

My favorite shot of the day: sun illuminating a poppy.

OK, on to the mighty Pacific:

Passable spot for a lunch break, I’d say. The wind was blowing a gale, which made me grateful to be walking with it behind me rather than pounding me in the face.

Test question 5: Identify these blooms seen at the edge of the beach.

A lizard pauses for his close-up.

The false lupines are out in force this year out here.

I love it when animals just seem to be soaking up the view.

Finally, a few shots from the Cultural Preserve:

Pretty old Victorian. Tours are available on the weekends, I believe.

Coastal dwellers have always had a weakness for convertibles.

Who knew a blacksmith needed so many hammers?

My granddad on my mom’s side had an old John Deere just like this one.

Rooster in repose.

So those are the highlights. The Enchanted Loop was my favorite trail (just don’t fall off the cliff).

Selected Wilder Ranch links:

• Yelp.com user reviews.
• Jane Huber’s Bay Area Hiker page.
• California State Parks page.
• Virtual Parks page with QuickTime VR panoramas.

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Hiker lore: stories that practically beg to be shared. What are yours?

One from my mental archives: I hiked to the top of Monument Peak at Ed Levin County Park one time with a Persian pharmacist who had lived in the United States for many years, then returned home just in time for the Iranian Revolution … he was stuck there for several years and finally had to bail with his family, whatever they could fit into a few suitcases, and a few thousand dollars to start over from scratch in the Bay Area. Totally fascinating guy who’d seen a lot. Told me Las Vegas has tons of great trails in the hills outside of town … one time he slipped and got wedged between some rocks and, as I recall it, had to wriggle his way out or starve in the attempt — because nobody knew exactly where he was and he was out there solo. He also talked about how his dad took him mountain climbing in a range near Tehran during his boyhood. Very illuminating.

Another story I’d like to hear more about: Dinesh Desai’s attempt to hike every trail at Henry Coe State Park. I bumped into Dinesh and his wife, Joy, (left) at Butano State Park last summer — we chatted a bit but it was clear he was hot to keep moving up the trail. He was glad to meet another hiker who was not satisfied with going back to the same old trails at the same old park time and again.

Got any such lore you’d care to share? Click on comments and let us have it.

(Related: “Coolest people you’ve met on hikes.”)

I’ve been meaning to do this for ages and finally got around to it: a business card I can hand out to unsuspecting hikers on the trail.

The tagline at the bottom says “news, links and lore for hikers in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.” Any suggestions for a sexier tag are welcome.

Lemme know what you think.

Yeah, I should’ve been out hiking yesterday but instead I spent the afternoon gawking at the clever creations at Make Faire, where wacky do-it-yourselfers get their ya-yas out every year at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds. While there’s a smattering of annoying Burning Man types using sculpture to make political points you already know by heart, quite a bit of it is frolicsome and zany, and much of it is downright ingenious and practical, like this no-frills fold-down camper, called the Quickup.

Here’s a peek through the back door, and the view from the front. The table folds down and a 7-foot by 4.5-foot bed folds out. It has a little sink, stove and nook for a porta-potty.

I head the guy who made it bragging that it stood up to 80-mph winds. His site’s here (more pictures of how it works are there, too).

This blog post has much more on the designer, Jay Baldwin, who is quite the pioneer on things like this.

More of my Maker Faire pictures are here.

A reader e-mails to ask where hikers from Marin might want to live if jobs oblige a move to the South Bay. Just to make it interesting, the reader asks, could it also be at least somewhat affordable? Well, that takes Palo Alto, Saratoga, Los Altos (and Los Altos Hills) out of the picture but hey, who wants to live around all those dull moneybags anyway (just because they have better jobs, sexier clothes, bigger houses, faster cars and their very own poolboys, it doesn’t make them superior to the rest of us, right?). A few thoughts, based on my travels and home-hunting experiences:

In San Jose

Berryessa: This neighborhood on the east side of San Jose is close to Alum Rock Park and seems mostly unpretentious and perhaps less pricier than other parts of town (kiss the Rose Garden goodbye, for instance). It’s near the trolley line, if that matters, and it’s close to I-680, which means easy access to the Santa Cruz Mountains on the weekends (Steve Sergeant lives there, if you need any further encouragement).

South San Jose: I’ve heard there are housing deals to be had in the south end of town. The neighborhoods around Santa Teresa and Almaden Quicksilver county parks would be worth a look, though I suspect there are fewer deals around Almaden Quicksilver.

Elsewhere

Santa Cruz Mountains: Scotts Valley, Felton and Ben Lomond along Highway 9 are remote enough that there’s not quite as much demand for housing as you might expect, which could make them affordable. Of course then there’s the gas to drive over Highway 17, and the risk from taking your life into your own hands every day in the process and hoping the daily fender-smasher always happens to somebody else.

Fremont: OK, so it has no downtown and it’s mostly sprawl central. But it’s a pretty quick jaunt down to San Jose from there, and it’s right between I-880 and I-680, and it’s not so far from Coyote Hills Regional Park, which remains one of my favorite hang-outs (more for the birdwatching than the hiking, which isn’t especially challenging). I wouldn’t rule it out.

Milpitas: Also close to I-680, a bit less pricey than the South Bay, but suffers from the tract-house mania that infects so much of the region. This page lists lots of hiking opportunities nearby.

Mountain View: Not exactly cheap, but very close to the Santa Cruz Mountains. A careful consumer might be able to luck into a good housing deal (though Fedak, who lives there, tells me the unremarkable house across the street from him is on the market for $1.3 1.6 million).

Campbell: I always pass it on the way down south on Highway 17. It has a cool/funky (by South Bay “Empire of the Geeks” standards) downtown shopping strip. Housing might be a bit more affordable, though I haven’t really shopped it myself.

Sunnyvale: Some of my favorite hikers (Winehiker Russ and Mike and Kathy of the FOMFOK hiking club) live there; it’s close to I-680 and Highway 85, which offer easy access to most of the prime hiking areas. Little ’60s tract houses in Mike’s neighborhood were going for 700k, the last I heard, but I wouldn’t rule out finding deals here and there.

So those are the first ones that spring to mind. I know some of you live in the South Bay, so how about chiming in?

(Those of you from the rest of the world are forgiven for wondering how we can afford such stupendous prices for housing; I just imagine that I’m on vacation all year, which helps reassure me when I can’t afford to take one somewhere else.)

Update: oddly enough the upgrade seems to have succeeded.

I’m sure new “features” (previously known as “bugs”) will emerge.

The one thing I never, ever hike without is a wide-brimmed floppy hat. I need the brim to keep the glare out of my eyes and the top to keep my bald spot from getting scalded.

This is approximately the model I have, from Outdoor Research. It’s light, packable, reasonably rugged and easily laundered back into a condition worthy of leaving in the house.

OR also makes a “Seattle Sombrero” that I happen to own as well. The Seattle version is a Gore-Tex-lined rain hat that does kinda/sorta keep the head dry until you work up any kind of a sweat — which is inevitable because it doesn’t breathe worth a hoot. But it is handy to have around during the rainy season as long as you don’t do anything athletic.

I see a lot of backpackers wearing those hats that drape down to your shoulders — I can see how they’d be more practical than slathering on sunscreen constantly. I admire the folks who don’t mind spending big bucks for a cowboy hat they’re going to get all sweaty and nasty on the trail, but I guess I’m too practical to go that route. But they do look dashing.

There’s not a whole lot more to say about hats, I suppose, but whatever you’ve got, be sure to share with the group.

The number 7 is unlucky if you find it stamped in the bottom of your water bottle — it means the bottle contains may contain Bisphenol A, a component in lots of plastic bottles.

Nalgene insists there’s no evidence that it’s dangerous, but it’s pulling all BSP bottles because of customer requests (such as, “I request you stop selling bottles that cause my 6-year-old daughter to grow pubic hair”). The furor over BSP is mainly over evidence that it causes strange things to happen in lab rats … the chemicals industry insists humans are in the clear (despite our many ratlike qualities), but the industry kinda/sorta has a vested interest in believing that.

I rounded up some links to help y’all make up your minds:

• This New York Times article explains the basics.
• Actual scientists may appreciate this Wikipedia entry on BSP.
• The Bisphenol Free Portal includes an ABC News report from last year that offers a quickie intro.
• This Salon.com post mentions the chemicals industry fact-blurring tactics and an intriguing parallel between the rise of BSP and the “obesity epidemic.”
• Justin of My Outdoor Adventures mentions possible metal-bottle alternatives.
• The Green Guide offers an informative overview of how BSP bottles degrade over time.
• Richard Lyon at Backpackgeartest.org likes SIGG aluminum bottles, mainly because they don’t change the flavor of his favorite drinks.
• Many users at rei.com think Klean Kanteens are better than SIGGs, though some complain of a metallic taste.

One thing I noticed about some plastic bottles I use regularly: I filled them with a Gatorade-clone sports drink, and I still taste vague hints of that drink in my water months later. Other bottles have imparted a taste that has made me wonder how much of the plastics are getting into my water.

I’ll definitely be looking into the metal alternatives. Your thoughts are welcome.

UPDATE: This thread has lots of good info on SIGG and Klean Kanteen bottles.

UPDATE II: Gear Junkie Stephen Regenold notes metal bottles are very slippery compared to plastics.

I never tire of the Marin Headlands. I drag all my visitors to see them — I even took my Mom up there in the middle of a blinding rainstorm (”there’s a spectacular coastline over there,” I promised, pointing to a fog bank). Melissa and I took her Mom to Fort Cronkite to watch the surfers on Christmas Day one year.

About the only thing I hadn’t done at the Headlands was hike, an omission somewhat corrected on Sunday. Last Thursday I’d gotten a “guess what I’m in town” e-mail from Rick McCharles of “Best Hike” fame (Rick has a hiker in every port), so I decided to take Rick to the Headlands as well. Last time we did an excellent 10-miler at Mount Tamalpais; this time we threw ambition to the wind and mostly wandered around, soaking up the view, doing only as much hiking as circumstances required. Which was not much, with so much scenery to distract from one’s trekking duties.

May as well let the pictures do the talking:

The classic “Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer” shot. This is just beyond the first parking area you see as you head up the hill into the Headlands. From that lot, you can also walk down to the ocean along the Kirby Cove Road, a fact I overlooked while we were stopped here, so that classic hike got left off the itinerary.

Next up, we parked near Hawk Hill, which has an impressive 360-degree panorama. This shot looks north toward Fort Cronkite.

Rick engages in the quirky behavior that endears him to trekkers the world over.

That’s Point Bonita — we checked out the lighthouse there awhile later.

I’m pretty sure Calla lilies are non-native, but they are nice to look at.

I like images where bridge cables parallel the slope of the nearby hills.

Another north-looking shot, this time from Battery Mendell, which is where you run out of continent when you drive through the Headlands.

OK, on to Point Bonita, which has this very impressive jagged rock face nearby (wish I had an equally impressive picture).

The tunnel to the Point Bonita lighthouse is locked behind a steel door most of the time, but Park Service volunteers open it on Saturday, Sunday and Monday afternoons from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. — note to visitors: if you go right at the opening, you’ll encounter a line of people waiting to get across to the lighthouse, which is very small and doesn’t have room for many people. Better to get there a little later in the afternoon.

Only two people are allowed on the old bridge to the lighthouse, which creates a traffic jam initially because you have to wait for people coming and going. Also, once you get over there it’s a lot windier, and hence chillier; dress appropriately.

A poster shows all the ships whose crews encountered a certain sinking feeling after having run into the continent .

Inside the lighthouse.

With the lighthouse tour finished, we wandered over to Fort Cronkite to hike a bit of the Coastal Trail.

The stunning, jagged coastline never quits.

We walked along some ragged old chain-link fence that used to warn people they were wandering too close to essential military operations. Which, it turned out, were essential only to the profit margins of the defense contractors who built all the now-decaying installations in the Headlands.

Those are the highlights. Bottom line: The Headlands are far better for gawking than hiking. Riding a bike might be as much fun or more. Checking out the Point Bonita lighthouse is a must, as is, I’m sure, the Kirby Cove hike we skipped. It’s probably a bit too crowded and tourist-infested for the Global Hiker Elite of which we all members, but there’s no denying it’s got the most spectacular scenery per square foot of any Bay Area locale.

Marin Headlands links:

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I’m overcoming my almost genetic aversion to typing the word “panties” because, well, some jobs, though grim, must be done. A hiker at tribe.net’s Bay Area Hiking Group laments her undies aren’t getting it done when she hits the trail.

I am looking for a good pair a panties to wear when hiking… (After trekking several miles in pairs that just are not living up to my expectations, I am desperate… One’s undergarments should not be able to climb better than the person wearing them…)

The rest of the post treads a bit to close to the TMI zone, but anyway: all feedback is welcome.

(Some folks at REI like this model.)