Two-Heel Drive

From my column in today’s Mercury News

Skyline Ridge is one of a string of preserves managed by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District along Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz Mountains crest west of the Santa Clara Valley. The main attractions are Alpine Pond and its nature center, staffed by volunteers on weekends. A wooden walkway allows close inspection of life at the pond’s edge, and there’s a drinking fountain nearby to refresh your water supply.

This one’s always a fave. Previous Skyline Ridge hikes here.

The cool thing about Wilder Ranch State Park is how you get from one side to the other: Tunnels under Highway 1 connect the coast to the backcountry. The map shows two intended for human traffic, and those who’ve been following along will already know that if there is a third, deeply inadvisable tunnel to the other side, it will be the one I find first.

This is the right tunnel, which connects the Ohlone Bluffs Trail to the Baldwin Loop Trail. I noticed it from about a half-mile away, satisfied that I’d found my way to the other side after about three hours of making my way up the coastline. Then it faded from sight after a bend in the trail.

I turned left on the first trail that seemed to be going in the proper direction, expecting to see the white-framed tunnel, above. Instead I got farther and farther down an old ranch road till I hit a little stream, with a large, concrete-lined tunnel under the highway off to the right. Naturally, I had to splash blindly all the way to the other end (good news: GoreTex works!) before I concluded beyond all doubt that it couldn’t possibly be the correct tunnel. Then I had to splash blindly all the way back, all the while expecting either a) snakebite from a bathing rattler; or b) attack from a rogue Vietcong tunnel rat.

I know what you’re thinking: I walked up four miles of gorgeous coastline, past two beaches known for attracting naked sunbathers, and the best I’ve got is this wrong-tunnel routine?

Sorry, God can’t always provide nudists on command (even though it would encourage timely prayer, though I suppose praying for prune-skinned, potbellied old white guys to put some damn clothes on doesn’t really count.)

But anyway, the story on Wilder Ranch, for those who’ve never been: The coastline is pretty, though perhaps only an 8 on a 10-point spectacular-vista scale. The Marin Headlands and Point Lobos are nicer. The backcountry is mostly open in an area where you’d expect a redwood forest. If you don’t mind walking in the blazing sun and stepping aside for mountain bikers (I don’t, actually, but I know some people are finicky), stringing together a beach/backcountry hike is most likely the best way to experience Wilder Ranch.

So, let’s see some pictures from Sunday:

The main thing is to avoid the urge to get right up to the edge of a cliff for a peek at what it looks like down there. It looks like a beach, OK? And now I’ve saved you from an untimely demise. Hey, it’s what I do.

There are many seabirds.

And Canada geese with their goslings.

There’s much agriculture nearby, though most of the tractors are in better condition.

I think if I were an artist I’d title this “Canadians at America’s Edge.” Or something.

A bit of continent makes a determined stand against the ocean. Let’s be nice and think for a second that it stands a chance.

Coastside daisies (note to all you keepers of wildflower pages, could you please add this one? It took me a half-hour to figure out what it is).

Lots of false lupines blooming.

This is Four-Mile Beach — which must be much farther than four miles by trail from the park HQ because it took me three hours to get there. OK, I took some detours and I walk at a crawl but I’m not that slow. Depending on the breaks, Four-Mile is more like six.

So, if you go this route in a grand loop, you take the Ohlone Bluffs Trail all the way back to Highway 1 and turn left when you see a “Trail” sign with a hiker icon. It goes down a little single-track and the tunnel shows up in a couple minutes. If it doesn’t, you might be on the way to my wrong-turn tunnel.

Once you get to the other side via the proper tunnel, you pass somebody’s farm house and wander up to the Baldwin Loop Trail. I didn’t really know which way I wanted to go, so I just turned right at the first single-track trail that seemed to be heading in the approximate direction off the park HQ.

I ended up on a trail nearly overgrown with tall grass and flowering weeds.

This was where I figured meadow hiking isn’t so bad, if it’s a nice meadow. It helps to have cool Pacific Ocean breezes.

Eventually this little spur reconnects with the Baldwin Loop Trail, which makes its way up the hillside, where I found a junction that led to the Twin Oaks Trail, which worked its way back down the hillside and connected with the Wilder Ridge Trail, which went back to the HQ. Saw lots of wildflowers on this side, among them:

Lots of miniature lupines.

And these interesting weeds, which I couldn’t identify.

Forget-me-nots blooming in a rare shady area.

A blue-blossom bush along the Wilder Ridge Trail.

More of those false lupines.

One last look at the backcountry terrain, before taking the other correct tunnel back to the HQ.

So that’s Day One. I’ll have to go back next weekend to explore more of the backcountry for Day Two.

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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I spent Sunday at Wilder Ranch State Park, a couple miles north of the Santa Cruz city limits.

The rest of the pictures are here.

I’ll chat up this hike later, but I figured I’d throw some pictures up for y’all to gaze upon.

There’s a rarely traveled corner of Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve where the trail goes deeper and deeper in to the woods, the grass gets taller and taller, and then, ultimately, the trail fades to nothing.

I hiked this trail last spring (see Deep in the woods of Purisima) and it still sticks in my mind as one of those wonderful trails known to almost nobody, that gets you to a place distinctly unlike everywhere else.

Here’s a map of the trail:

Click here for a larger version.

Here’s a nest of caterpillars I saw way back in there:

The hike starts out at the Tunitas Creek Road trail head, a few miles west of Skyline Boulevard.

You work your way over to the Bald Knob Trail to the Irish Ridge Trail — passing through some excellent stands of redwood along the way — then take the Lobitos Creek Trail till it fades into the forest, then retrace your steps. About eight miles and change, from the looks of the map. Download the PDF of the whole park here.

Our group didn’t see any other hikers out this way, even though it’s one of the best hikes in one of the best hiking locales in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Jane Huber’s Bay Area Hiker page tells how to get to the trail head. (If you’re too lazy to click: it’s about two miles west of Kings Mountain Road-Skyline Boulevard intersection).

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This’ll be a fine place to check out as the weather warms, though you may want to get out there sooner to see the expansive views to the ocean; it tends to get fogged in later in the summer.

Please add your favorite trail-to-nowhere suggestions in the comments.

Santa Teresa, wildflower and mountain biker hub of south San Jose, gets the treatment.

The park at San Jose’s southern edge is a magnet for mountain bikers who delight in molar-rattling rides along the rockier trails. Riders were out in force on a recent Sunday, perhaps hoping to get in some trail miles before throngs of flower-gawking hikers began stalking Santa Teresa’s sunny, open terrain.

Read the whole thing.

Since I don’t have a dog I don’t bring a lot of first-hand expertise to the question of where to take one. Some insist the best place for a pooch is at home. I’m not going there.

Let’s just say for the sake of argument that it’s OK to take your dog hiking. If so, where do you prefer? Also, on-leash or off-leash? Which places to avoid?

Let ‘er rip in the comments, folks.

Updates (I got unlazy and did some googling).

Jane his this covered in some detail at bahiker.com)

Here’s a dog trainer’s page of off-leash parks in Silicon Valley.

Many great dog-related links at this page, peppered with info on a few local parks.

More general Bay Area dog-related info, centered more on San Francisco.

Maria Goodavage has penned The Dog Lover’s Companion to the Bay Area. Pick up a copy from Hicklebees in San Jose. Another book: Thom Gabrukiewicz’s Best Hikes with Dogs Bay Area. Check it out at powells.com

The Hiking group at flickr.com weighed the question, which I haven’t revisited in a while so I figured what the heck, why not post a link.

I used to have all the standard reasons — solitude, exercise, communing with nature, etc. — though lately it’s mainly an excuse to blog and drum up ideas for the hiking-column gig at the paper. That gets me out on the trail, but something interesting always happens when I get there.

It’s almost like nature can detect when I need to find something previously undiscovered, and it provides. I go places I’ve been before like Grant Ranch or Mount Madonna and find they have amazing little nooks and crannies I missed on previous hikes, or attractions I find only mainly because I’m taking a trail for the first time.

At first, the trails taught me how all the stuff in the science books and Discovery Channel shows really worked. Seeing something so totally unlikely that it shouldn’t even exist — a banana slug, say, or a wacked-out mushroom — is like witnessing evolution in slow motion. Makes the theoretical seem real.

Lately the trail teaches me how much the woods are like life itself: there’s always something cool happening around the next bend. The trick is to be able to appreciate it.

The Uncooped blog, which shows more promise with each new post, points to the time-honored human habit of going in circles, which results from one leg being slightly stronger than the other. The post links to an English-language summary of a study pointing out that most people are are stronger on their right side and instinctively turn to their left, which we see everywhere from the walking paths at your city park to the “go fast and turn left” ethos of the Indy 500. I liked this elemental theory for why this may be:

The basic driver behind this phenomenon seems to be the fact that all cells in nature are composed of amino acids which have a left spin. Chemists can manufacture amino acids with a right spin, yet we can’t use them. Apparently both types of amino acids existed in the primordial soup at the beginning of life hundreds of million years ago. Yet life developed only from those with a left spin. The favorite theory is that at that time - when the earth did not yet have the protective ozone shield - radioactive rays from the cosmos did more harm to the amino acids with a right spin. Yet why those with a left spin would be more protected - if at all - is still a mystery.

And yet all of us left-handed types are clearly so more highly evolved….

Beyond staying indoors, that is…

I’m pretty much convinced there is no such thing as a “breathable waterproof” outer shell, though perhaps there are miracle products out there I haven’t been apprised of. For my money there’s no substitute for an impermeable layer — which, of course, locks in body heat and perspiration and ends up making you as wet on the inside as you’d have been with no protection at all.

I’m leaning closer to getting a cheap waterproof poncho. It lets air in from the sides and keeps water off the places where it concentrates — the head and shoulders. It can also double as a shelter in a pinch. I realize this is not exactly a bolt of insight to those of you who’ve already gone this route, but I like to toss out something for the beginners now and again.

I’d like to hear how the rest of you stay dry when the rains come.

Grant Ranch wasn’t much to look at when I got there Sunday morning. All the better because it gave me an excuse to listen.

The bird calls are remarkable when there’s no other distractions beyond the sound of the breeze passing your ears. Peeps, squeaks, caws, quacks and the sky-piercing screams of hawks and their raptor cousins. Lord knows what they were talking about.

Grant can seem huge, empty and unremarkable at first glance. Sure, there nice views of the hills rising around you, but the Diablo Range is flush with such splendor. It’s still too early for spring wildflower season and the hills haven’t quite achieved that green sheen of mid- to late spring.

So it was a good time to just wander some trails I hadn’t done before and see what turned up. After forgetting my camera completely last week, I did bring one this time — the wrong one (well, the older one), alas, but hey, the scenery wasn’t all that photogenic, so not much of a loss.

One kinda cool thing I noticed: for a such a big, dry expanse of open country, there’s quite a bit of water at Grant, thanks to all the stock ponds created when it was a working ranch. I ended up stringing together all the major (and a few minor) ponds for a nice loop of about 8.5-9 miles.

So, hey, let’s look at some pictures.

They call this one Bass Lake. There’s a nice single-track trail up to it from the park ranch house. Picture might’ve been much nicer if the hills were greened up more. From here I headed up the Hotel Trail — uphill for a couple miles, a nice little workout.

I love the oak trees at Grant. They have character.

An interesting snag with holes carved by acorn woodpeckers.

Eagle Lake is way out near the edge of the park. It’s blocked off by barbed wire to keep the people (and the wild pigs) away to let the area rejuvenate itself.

Nice little pond near the junction of the Foothill and Bonhoff trails. If you ever make it out this way, be ready for some supremely steep slopes. Switchbacks are non-existent.

I crossed Mount Hamilton Road at Twin Gates and headed back downhill on the Yerba Buena Trail, where I saw another swell woodpecker tree. There’s a fine single-track loop trail goes from Yerba Buena over to McCreery Lake, which I hadn’t seen on previous trips.

So, yeah, it’s a lake.

Grant Lake, the biggest of the bunch.

I’m thinking mid-March might be the best time to check back in and see how the wildflowers are doing.

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