Burn Season

It's that time of year when San Francisco empties out. Burners have been building human-sized cat trees or gigantic flaming metal sculptures for months and are ready to transport them to Black Rock Dessert for the annual burning of the man. This year is no different. There are Burning Man virgins in my circle making the trek, pulling their costumes together and buying their goggles.

But, what is different about this year is that there is a real serious burn happening, too. The Rim Fire, as its been touted, is ravaging the Sierra Nevadas and wreaking havoc on my family and thousands of other residents of the area. While I remember many summers when fires affected the area - it is a dry climate after all - the fires never got so close. Scary.

Reasons I Love the Park: Dahlias

It had been awhile since I'd seen the Dahlias in bloom. The last few times I walked through the garden tucked next to the Conservatory of Flowers it was foggy and there were just green stems sticking up from the plot of land. So, drearsville. Not this time! On a walk home from a doctor's appointment in Laurel Village, I decided to take the Arguello Gate into Golden Gate Park and cut through the dell. What a marvelous surprise!!!

Bay Area Ridge Trail Challenge: And So It Begins....

My best friend and I have been doing hikes around the Bay Area for years. This year we concluded a challenge that she had set for herself, namely traversing every trail in Redwood Regional Park. While I did not hike every route she did for that challenge, I did the majority of them. This time, we have vowed to do the entire Bay Area Ridge Trail together. With 550+ miles, this could take us years...

We have already bumped up against the trails on some of our other hikes on the Peninsula and in the East Bay. Now, we will consciously follow the maps in our recently purchased book on the series of trails around the Bay. For our first foray, and in preparation for my friend's impending Mt. Shasta climb, we went to Tilden Park to do a hike starting at Inspiration Point, winding down toward Don Castro Reservoir, and back to our starting point. Unfortunately, it turned out that the Bay Area Ridge Trail requires hikers to have a permit to trek through the portion of our hike that would have taken us to Don Castro...

So, we didn't really get a chance to cover much mileage for our challenge... As in, 550+ miles still to go... But, we were able to walk along the ridge, curl down through Wildcat Canyon for a bit, and loop back. The ridge afforded amazing views of the Richmond area as well as San Francisco. And, at times we were walking in perfect summer heat and at others, we were bundled as the wind and fog whipped past. In other words, it was exciting! Plus there were cows. How cute is that?

More to come....