Fall and winter hiking in the Bay area often means having an entire park or open space preserve to yourself. I don’t recommend hiking alone, but frankly I do it myself quite often. This fall I visited several preserves and parks. The mild temperatures and the peacefulness make for a great hiking experience.
Book Recommendation
This fall I also discovered a great book that I highly recommend for anyone interested in bay area open space: Peninsula Tales & Trails by David Weintraub. Many of my hikes this season were inspired by this book. The book describes the 25 preserves that are managed by Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. There are the usual descriptions of the best trails and hikes (and very good ones at that), but what I really liked was that David gives us a glimpse the history of each of the preserves and how each became part of the MROSD. He also discusses the MROSD philosophy, volunteer programs, and the challenges of preserving open space in the bay area. You can find out more information about this book on the MROSD website. It is available from Amazon.com or a local books stores such as Barnes & Noble.
Photosharing
A couple months ago I started using Smugmug for posting my photos online. I previously used Flickr, and while I think that Flickr is still a great site, for me Smugmug seemed a better fit. Smugmug emphasizes the presentation of photographs, and accordingly offers many different well designed themes and color schemes. Smugmug is very unique in the degree to which you can customize your pages. If you have a standard or pro account you can edit the style sheets, edit the javascript, change the headers and banners, and pretty much tweak the pages to appear the way you want. So, from now no the photos embedded in my blog will be hosted on my smugmug site. You can visit my Smugmug homepage at ddebold.smugmug.com.
Point Lobos
OK, point Lobos is not exactly a bay area park or preserve, but it’s definitely worth the drive to visit. I read in someone else’s website that they thought Point Lobos had the most beautiful views of any natural area in or near the bay area. I must say I can’t argue with that viewpoint. If you like ocean views, it’s hard to beat Point Lobos. Point Lobos is located on the coast just south of the Carmel Highlands. I visited Point Lobos twice this year. On the second visit my wife and I hiked the North Shore trail from Whalers Cove to Sea Lion Point Trail and Sea Lion Cove. Here are some of the photos I took on these trips.
The Ridge Preserves
I visited Skyline Ridge and Russian Ridge on separate occasions. These two preserves are located along Skyline Blvd (Highway 35) west of Palo Alto. These preserves feature great views and a couple man made lakes – Alpine Lake in Russian Ridge and Horseshoe Lake in Skyline Ridge. There was snow along the roadside as I drove to Skyline Ridge last week. These are great places to hike. I’m looking forward to returning in the Spring when the wild flowers are blooming.
Joseph D. Grant and Santa Teresa County Parks
I’ve written about both these parks in previous blogs, and here I go again. Of all the Santa Clara County Parks, the two I visit most often are Joseph D. Grant and Santa Teresa. Santa Teresa County Park is almost in my backyard, and it’s very easy for me to make a spur of the moment decision and then be in the park within 15 minutes. Much of my photography in this park focuses on the most easily spotted wildlife there – deer. Here are some of my images of deer in Santa Teresa County Park.
Getting to Joseph D. Grant requires a bit more effort – driving up the windy and steep Quimby Rd. to Mt. Hamilton Rd. My recent purchase of a Mazda MX-5 convertible has made this route a lot more fun so I don’t really mind the trip anymore. Here are some recent photos from my trips to Grant. One of these days I hope to capture some pictures of the wild boars that roam this park. So far no luck.