Jasper Ridge

Today I had the privilege of hiking a couple miles around Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Ever since I saw Searsville Lake on a map in high school I wanted to explore the area. Unfortunately for me it is not open to the general public, which is a good thing for the preserve.

Once, in about 1995, when I worked a construction job nearby, I noticed the gate was open as I was driving home from work. I made a quick decision to pull in and park next to several other cars and proceeded to start hiking on a marked trail. I passed a couple Stanford field trips but just smiled and said hi, acting as if I knew what I was doing. I really didn't have much of a clue as to where I was going but I did want to find the dam and I knew that I was downriver of it in a steep narrow little valley. I rounded a turn in the valley and was awestruck to see the steep faced 100' concrete dam in front of me. It seemed so out of place in comparison to any other shallow dirt and rock dams in the area that I had seen. I would have liked to explore more but didn't want to push my luck.

In talking to my mom after this adventure she told me that she brought me to Searsville Lake as a baby when it was open as a local recreation area. Apparently sand was trucked in from Santa Cruz to make a little beach area and there was a concession stand too. I have no recollection of this at all so I'm guessing I was younger than three.

Fortunately for me my new friend Jaimie, who recently joined us at The North Face, did her undergraduate work at Stanford and is a lifetime docent for Jasper Ridge. Which leads to my privileged hike today. After growing up in this area and exploring every bit of local open space I could get to it was quite exciting to hike several miles over a 100' dam, past natural bat caves, along an untouched creek, through redwood groves, up a ridge, across a meadow and through a small delta. All of which I had never even seen before today!

I love the outdoors and I love exporing new places, so thank you Jamie!

Hiking at Monte Bello

Woke up warm and toasty atop Black Mountain inside my Mountain Hardwear down sleeping bag and Kelty tent. Alice, Jared, Amy, Bryan and I fired up some hot water on the camp stove for our power breakfast of maple and brown sugar oatmeal and hot chocolate. Then we packed up and headed back to the parking lot to meet up with a group of eight or so friends who wanted to hike on the beautiful Saturday morning.

Alice, Jared and Amy headed off while Bryan and I dumped our packs and headed out with the anxious group. We did a nice five mile loop down to Stevens Creek, climbed to the very top of Black Mountain and then made our way back to the parking lot.

Camping on Black Mountain

I was hoping to watch the evening's rather beautiful sunset as we hiked the two miles up to the campsite but we ended up watching it as we drove up Page Mill Road. The last bit of light faded as Amy and I hoisted our packs and started on the trail. Thankfully my brand new, unwrapped from the package in the parking lot, Tikka Plus headlamp (batteries included!) was up to the task.

As I scanned ahead for the trail and the reflection of any eyes peering back at us, I informed Amy what to do if we happened to run into a mountain lion (make lots of noise and fight back if attacked). Around the next bend I stopped Amy to point out a set of eyes a short distance off the trail ahead. Then a second set of eyes turned towards us as I barely made out the shape of their heads. Oh deer.

Further on we rounded another bend to see about 20 sets of deer eyes looking back at us from the hillside across a dark ravine. I figured the odds were against us for seeing any mountain lions with this many deer casually snoozing in the open. Oh well.

The campsite was hard to miss with the payphone beside the trail. Dropping our packs in the dark and with no rush to set up camp we quickly tore into our fresh deli sandwiches from JJ&F Market. Oh yeah.

Now that that was taken care of I figured we should maybe be concerned about Alice, Jared and Bryan finding us. None of them had ever been here and there were several junctions on the trail to the camp. We didn't have to go very far back before spotting their bobbing headlamps.

No campfires are allowed in the preserve so we fired up our stoves for some nice warm cups of hot chocolate to go with our E.L. Fudge cookies. Yummy treats, lights of the bay below us, the stars above, good company and good laughs. Amazing what a 20 minute drive and a two mile hike can give you.

Foothills Park

A casual day hike at Foothills Park with my co-worker from The North Face, Lee, and his friends James and Amanda.

Yosemite

So the plan Saturday was for Katie, Kim, Erika, Christina, Johannes, Glen and I to go to Yosemite and go cross-country skiing. If there was not enough snow for that we would go snow-shoeing. But seeing as there was not enough snow for that either we went for a hike to Mirror Lake for lunch. Before that we took a short detour to check out Bridal Veil falls. Johannes and Katie both got their feet wet here. I managed to join the club by breaking through two inches of ice at Mirror Lake.

We stayed Saturday night at The Yosemite View Lodge in El Portal a short drive outside the park and enjoyed amenities such as the hot tub. Early Sunday morning Kim, Katie, Erika and Johannes drove home leaving Christina, Glen and I to sleep in a bit longer. The three of us enjoyed a delightful church meeting at the Mariposa branch of the LDS church on the way home.