- Russian Ridge
- Windy Hills
- Matt Davis
- Indian Joe Creek (Sunol)
- Montara Mountains
- Black Mountain
- Point Reyes Lighthouse
Russian Ridge
We went to Russian Ridge with Shrish and Pallavi. This is a gorgeous trail within 10 miles from our place in Mountain View. Wildflowers bloom in Spring.
The trail starts on Skyline Boulevard and meanders through hills with intermittent views of the Pacific on one side and of the Bay Area on the other side.
The trail is one of the easiest we have done. That did not stop Pallavi from praying to Hanumanji for getting her through the tough times.
Pallavi had made parathas stuffed with Paneer for us. Parathas are her specialty. Shrish was especially happy with the food !!
Windy Hills
This is another gorgeous trail that we first started off from the skyline boulevard. Later we revisited this trail from the foothills on Arastradero Road. This time we were hiking with Ramesh. This is a moderately strenuous trail with over 1500 feet in elevation and takes you from the foothills to skyline. The trail gives breathtaking views of the entire Bay Area. This is one of my favorite trails so far and we need to go on this trail again.
Matt Davis
This trail starts out at the Stinson beach north of San Francisco. We followed the suggested route from bahiker.com. The trail is one of the prettiest in the Bay Area. You start out at a gorgeous beach and go face-up on a mountain criss-crossing a trail multiple times. Suddenly you end up in grasslands which leads to a parking lot.
The trail continues across the parking lot and you climb down to the beach along another creek and through thick vegetation.
This trail must be even better in the spring when all the creeks have a lot more water.
Indian Joe Creek and Eagle View
Sunol Wilderness was referred to me by one of my colleagues. bahiker.com told us that this place can be extremely difficult to hike in the summer. We did not think much of the advice until we got there. The temperature was in the 70s and 80s. And as always, our hike did not start until 11 AM.
Ten minutes through the trail and we knew what bahiker meant in its warning. We were tired pretty quickly and the easy 4 mile hike did not seem as easy. Soon enough we reached the end of the Indian Joe Creek trail ... minus the creek since there was no water at this time of the year (mid-July).
We had two choices: follow bahiker's selected path or the alternate path that was hinted at being more of a climb. We chose the latter, being the brave souls that we are. This path involved hiking up the Cave Rocks trail until it met the Eagle View trail and taking left to meet the Grand Vista Road.
Half-way through the Eagle view trail, we came across a sign warning: "Dangerous!! Use Extreme caution". Again, we did not think much of the warning. Five minutes later, we were on this two-feet wide (or less) ledge with steep valley on one side and hugging the mountain on the other. Freaky !!. We had not anticipated. And I am scared of heights !! Anyway, watching my step we quickly crossed the fifteen minute distance and ended up on the wide Grand Vista Road. This road eventually brought us back to Cave Rocks trail on the other side of the Indian Joe Creek and we hiked back the Indian Joe Creek to the parking lot. Good hike. We should have carried more water.
Montara Mountains
This was a hike begging to be done in Spring. Wildflowers abound as you hike along the ocean. The hike started 8 miles north off Half Moon Bay. A thousand feet higher and the late 60's of the oceanside gave way to chilling winds.... well 40's and 50's. Pretty cold if you are not dressed for it. Ritu was ready to give up ten minutes from the summit. I had been telling her for the past half hour that we are ten minutes away. We turned around, but then her resolve changed and we did hike for another ten minutes to reach the summit. Pretty awesome.
And the bonus was that on our way back we got to see (sort of) whales swimming along the beaches in their annual migration.
Black Mountain
This hike starts out in our backyard, right by the Foothill college at the Rhus Ridge trailhead. As always, we got really late heading out for the hike, reaching the trailhead by 12:15. The day was nice -- 70's. We had a 2300 ft elevation change awaiting us. The first mile seemed quite steep. Enough to make us stop for a bit. I wasn't exactly tired, felt kinda sleepy and hungry. Ate my lunch and continued further. The next hour and a half was pretty nice constant gradient of maybe 10 degrees. I could probably jog this, who knows. Finally, we reached the high tension power lines that we had seen while I was eating my lunch. It had seemed pretty far away.
We prepared for the upcoming steep elevation, as the bahiker had warned us. The elevation was steep and tiresome. Most of all, a mile seemed to just last for ever. After what seemed like a couple of miles, we had no sight of the summit and Ritu was stopping after every hundred yards. I noticed a bunch of cellphone towers in the distance. They seemed way up there. Must be a thousand feet, I thought. But that couldn't be where we have to go because the last mile was supposed to be a thousand feet and it started at the first power lines. Oh well, let us walk for another fifteen minutes and turn back if we don't see the summit. Ritu agreed but seemed ready to go however long it takes. Ten minutes later, the cellphone towers seemed closer, but not near, and Ritu disinclined to go any further. I ran up the next slope to see if the summit was near. It was. Ritu, unconvincingly, came by and ten minutes later we were at the summit. The views were pretty nice but the accomplishment seemed nicer. Certainly, when I discovered that black mountain has the most elevation change in all of bahiker's posts, I was even happier. Bring on the next hike !!
Point Reyes Lighthouse
We went to the lighthouse in Fall 2007 with Lalit and his wife. The lighthouse was a bit of a hike to get to, with three hundred steps to climb down to. At the time, we were so not in shape and had to stop for breath after every hundred steps. I am curious whether we would be as tired if we go now.
The lighthouse itself was really nice. Built in the 1800's and functional until recently, it even had a little museum. Very nice.
