Purisima Creek Redwoods 32k lollipop loop

Trip Date: 28 Sept 2013

In a reckless, vaguely frustrated mood, last week I registered for the Skyline-To-The-Sea 50k trail run. I normally run about 10k on any given day, or about 30k-40k per week. Hmm. Better get some more trail under my legs.

I scoped out a loop in Purisima Open Space that I estimated at about 30k, including the lovely Craig Britton Trail, a twisty single track that starts up on a Manzanita covered ridge before dropping down into a canyon, and cavorts along redwood groves and creeks. The view from the ridge is lovely, the coastal range foothills and meadows spilling down to the Pacific:

The lollipop stick was a dead end piece of trail I'd never visited, out past Bald Knob and on to Irish Ridge Trail. Beyond that lies an unmaintained trail called Lobitos Creek Trail.

The trailhead elevation is about 2000', and Bald Knob elevation is 2102' by the map. Piece of cake, right? Umm, no. There is a natural law which states

"Beginning at point A, any trail connecting point A and point B in the Santa Cruz Mountains must first descend to the bottom of the nearest valley before reaching point B."

No exceptions here... Purisima Creek bottoms out around 600' in a beautiful forested canyon. From there I took Grabtown Gulch Trail up to Bald Knob Trail. Who the *__* names these trails? (Ohh, history does).

Bald Knob is a bald faced lie. The summit is completely forested. Its not all recent, either. This tree looked to be as old as Yoda:

I used 360 Panorama to make this image. Even so, its tough to tell in 2D that you are looking up a few hundred feet. From the summit I dropped down Irish Ridge. As I dropped, my legs cried out

"why are you doing this, its steep as shizz and its a fire road to boot, please don't do this."

and my spirit responded

"shush, we have to see where this trail goes, and what is at the end of it.."

The spirit won, but I wish that the legs had. At the end of Lobitos Creek Trail is a progressively narrowing series of overgrown patches, interspersed with signs warning of lack of trail maintenance. Like this one:

No pot of gold. No magical canyon or creek. Maybe I just didn't go far enough.

Coming back up Lobitos and Irish Ridge extracted a heavy price, with several sections too steep (for me) to run and other sections baking in the sun. Then it was a mostly gentle descent along Borden Hatch Mill Trail, back to the Purisima Creek bed.

On the way back to the car I followed Whittemore Gulch Trail, a lovely single track that eventually switchbacks pretty hard to help you on your way to point B. Or point A. It doesn't matter, the rule is commutative. I ran out of food and water with a few km to go (my specialty) and had to stop a few times to ease the burn in my legs. Perfect opportunity to enjoy the view:

That forested peak is Bald Knob :) and the drop down to 600' happens after the middle ridge. At the right edge you can see the cloud bank hanging over the Pacific.


Summary: basically a great loop in Purisima Creek Open Space Preserve. Lots of single track, but also a bit of jeep track. Great views of the Pacific and of the coastal Redwoods. Leg-abusing climbs.

Would I do it all again? Absolutely. I'd skip Irish Ridge and Lobitos Creek, but the trek out to the un-bald Bald Knob is superb.

Parting Shot: There is another natural law, at least in the Bay Area:

"Beginning at point A, any road connecting point A and point B in the Bay Area (on a weekend) must pass through a region of stopped traffic on the freeway before reaching point B."

Where were all you people today?? Never mind, I don't really care. Just keep it up... the trails don't need the traffic.

Job vacancies

This excellent literature review in The Economist surveys recent research into the role of bacteria in your gut (your microbiome) on your personal gravitas. The bottom line appears to be that a high sugar diet (glucose in particular) influences the character of the little organisms residing in your intestines. That character, in turn, influences your propensity to be obese, or to have other metabolic woes like diabetes.

Image credit: Nature Magazine

Dr Gordon of Washington University in St Louis coined the term "job vacancies" to refer to a dearth of helpful bacteria in a (typically obese) person's microbiome. Clearly, its real. Science magazine doesn't make a habit of publishing rubbish. But this avenue of inquiry exposes a massive rift in the collective mind of the typical American -- a rift of which anyone with a Trail Jones is aware.

What is it? The single-minded, obsessive focus on what you eat. You are what you eat. Eat only brown rice. Eat green leafy vegetables. One pill makes you larger, the other pill makes you small. I'm a vegetarian. I'm a vegan. I eat a paleolithic diet! I've given up alcohol. I never eat sugar; Mayor Bloomberg told me not to! You should try a juice fast. Detoxing is so rad.

Folks, you are kidding yourselves. Life requires balance, and the flip side of eating is exertion. Focus only on consumption and it will probably consume you. Focus on consumption AND exertion, maybe you'll find some zen. But exertion may as well be a four letter word for a lot of people. Why else is it a perennial new year's resolution? I'm gonna join the Gym this year. Statistics show you'll be done before the ides of February. That's sad... because getting out on an adventure, in addition to counting as exertion, is a damn good time.

Summary: "Job vacancies" of the microbiome are undoubtedly a correlated and central problem amongst obese people. But its not just "food, bacteria and genetics" as the Economist summarizes. Dig a little deeper and you'll see an even larger number of "job vacancies" in counting the number of people who are prepared to sweat a few drops in their leisure time.

Parting Shot: 18 years old, 5 weeks into a hike on the Appalachian Trail, I rolled into a small river resort in North Carolina. Starving, as usual, down to my last Jackson, I splurged on an over-priced pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia. Did I mention I'm allergic to dairy? The usual result of overexposure for me is a headache, stomach bloating and crankiness. Screw it, right?. As it turned out, it was a phenomenal experience. I didn't know cherries could taste so good. I never loved the dead, but Jerry and I had a moment there, over that pint. I had to lie down for 20 minutes to let it digest. Then I floated on down the trail.

postscript, Dr G, consider putting your caged mice on the treadmill - if not for the mice, for the Nature paper you'll likely get out of it :)

Sonora Pass to Leavitt Lake (+bushwack)

Trip date: 8 Sept 2013

The rim fire is burning. A half dozen other fires too. Its an especially smokey summer in the Sierra, thanks (evidently) to a careless, law-breaking hunter. Its a bummer, but it doesn't have to spoil the fun: most of the smoke and flame lately is south of Tioga Pass (route 120), so I'll just head up the Sonora Pass (route 108).

I got a late start on saturday, and didn't get to camp until around 9pm, a few 10s of miles west of the Sonora Pass. Smokey as shit, so much for the reports. It was so hazy I grazed my car on a boulder as I pulled into camp, cracking the side trim panel. I haven't caused damage to my own car in over a decade, which I think is an indicator of the absurd atmosphere up there. That or the darkness. Bottle of pale ale, deep breath (cough cough), sleep (ahhh).

I fried some eggs the next morning, made coffee, and took off down the Pacific Crest Trail packing my fly rod (and $14 fishing permit, having missed the "free fishing day" by less than 12 hours). The Sonora Pass area feels like a bit of an anomaly in the High Sierra, though a geologist might well correct me for saying that. Instead of the big, smooth granite one finds everywhere else, this is a volcanic landscape that alternately looks like the moon or Mexico.

Despite starting at 9610', the trail does nothing but climb for a few miles. Then it comes through what I thought was a pretty dramatic pass (no name or mention on my map), at which point I had my first view of Latopie Lake (about 10,400'):

Here, fishie. I picked my own trail down to the lake, on loose dirt and slabs of sharp rock that slid when I touched them. I surveyed the lake. Not a trout in sight. I'm not much of an angler, so if I can't see the fish, I don't try to catch them. Left Latopie heading SW towards Koenig Lake. Found myself high on a cliff with a grand view of the almost emerald blue waters of Koenig (plus its little offspring pond):

Excited, I scrambled down a steep ravine. Abruptly, a decent sized rock I placed my foot on gave way. I hit the ground pretty hard, blood on my wrist and leg, but what shocked me was the intense speed with which the rock bounced down the remaining few hundred feet of the ravine. What the fuck was I thinking? How had I not noticed the pitch of the slope? And I already knew these rocks were unstable from my initial approach. Jeezus. I checked out my cute little gashes, concluded they were fine, and started to carefully climb back up the way I had come down. Success, but not without a few shots of adrenaline. Looking back down, its almost impossible to gauge the pitch. Trust me, it was dammed steep:

I found a kinder, gentler route down to Koenig by following a dried up creek bed (no doubt a torrent in the spring). On the way, I passed the remains of a less fortunate traveler:

A horse? Mule? Whatever, its not me. I circled Koenig. No fish! A bunch of ducks, though, whom I scared the poo out of. They burst forth with an adrupt, unholy war cry of alarm and terror, and glided to the center of Koenig's offspring pond. I checked my shorts: still clean and dry :)

I sat to eat, drink and study the map. Two busts, and one option remaining: Leavitt Lake. I figured it was somewhere over the ridge, and started out. Soon I found a use trail, and followed that over the ridge: voila Leavitt Lake, complete with a few pickup trucks at the shore. This was the reason I had hoped to avoid it, but oh well. As I came over the final rise I found myself a mere 15' from a man with a large paunch who was taking a leak on the tire of his truck. Or maybe it was his buddie's truck; who the hell pisses on their own truck?

"Howdy!" I called out.
"Urrhoop," the guy grunted, and swung himself 90 degrees so his back was to me.
"Hey, I don't care man," I said. "Bears do it, its cool."
"Oh, s'long's'as'yer'not'a'lady," he replied, and reverted to watering the tire.

I polled for information on the jeep track that brought them there. It was rough, they said. No way a yuppie Subaru could make it. Heck, even a Jeep prolly couldn't make it. But a truck, well, of course that could make it. I decided to skip off to the far side of the lake.

Leavitt Lake is a pretty decent size and it took me a good 20 minutes to get there. I sat down on a large boulder that jutted out into the lake a little bit, and studied the water. Fish! Lovely, dark, trout. Swimming around and occasionally popping up to eat a fly, or whatever the hell they were eating. The world has enough crappy fishing stories already so I'll be super brief and spare the drama. Suffice it to say I got my ass kicked by these mountain trout. They patently ignored the first two flys I tried, ate the second two clean off the line (I felt the nibble), and then the wind picked up to the point that a rookie like me couldn't make a cast.

It was 3pm anyway, time to split. I saw a trail heading south from Leavitt Lake to the PCT, from which I could loop back around to Sonora Pass. It looked about 10 miles or so. It was a 1000' straight up to rejoin the PCT. Great view looking south through the Hoover Wilderness and into Yosemite. You can see some smoke hanging in the air. I suspect those peaks are Kennedy and Molo.

Some genius in the parks service got his acronym jumbled in making this sign post. Pretty funny. You can see someone took the time to start carving out a fix. Now we're on the Pacific Trail Crest Trail. Nice one.

Jogging back through the endless moonscape proved a bit challenging, if only due to my fatigue. I made it before sunset though, in time to relax, have a beer and brew some coffee before tackling the long drive back to reality.

Summary: Great loop, lots of rocks, lots of views, altitude, beautiful lakes (two with no fish). Many sections of the PCT in this region look like the moon. Climbing peaks here seems dangerous. If streams and meadows are your thing, avoid this place. About 16 miles, a lollipop loop, 8ish hours including off-trail and fishing

Would I do it all again? Sure. I love the Sierra, even the moonscape sections. It would be a trip to see this in spring, though I'd be a little bit nervous - loose rock plus raging water are a bad mix.

Parting shot: only 20 minutes from home, I noticed that Dublin, CA was on fire:

Its probably tough to make anything out in this, snapped at 70 mph as it was, but that orange blob is flame. Lots of flame, because it was about 10 miles (a guess) away from me. I looked for news when I got home but there was none. The whole damn world is burning and no one knows it, I thought. The next morning I learned that of course, people knew. And they were working like hell to contain it. Here is a much better picture taken by an actual photographer.

Sunol valley floor to Rose Peak

Inaugural post. For years now I've been meaning to jot down notes from trips and trails. Have to start sometime. For years now I've also been meaning to run from the Sunol Regional Wilderness (Sunol valley floor) to the Del Valle Regional Park. But that trip involves planning, like, shuttling cars. Ugh.

So as a surrogate I decided to go out and back to Rose Peak (3817 ft), second highest peak (I think) in the East Bay, along the Ohlone Wilderness Trail. OK, so this wasn't really a trail run. You start at ~400' and its 10 miles to the summit. I probably ran 20% of the way up. There is a mile long stretch just after entering the Ohlone WIlderness that felt like a staircase. But eventually you get up to around 2000' and the views are stellar: rocky, golden meadows, steep canyons filled with oaks. I startled a fox around a blind corner, but couldn't get to my camera quick enough (he bolted).

There is a decent bit of single track, but a majority of the trail is jeep track. Not quite what I expected for a wilderness trail.

Views from the top are great. Mt Tam to the west,

Mt Hamilton and Lick Observatory to the south..

In late summer, don't count on water; the streams are all dried up and the cow ponds are a bit rank (there is a cow in that picture.. can you see it?).

Coming down, I decided to take a short cut via The Bluff, at signpost 23. The plan was to lop off a few miles, as I was running out of water. If the way up was a staircase, the shortcut down was a freight elevator. I swear I dropped 1500' in half a mile (>50% grade). Would have been a blast on a bike. Got a great view of Goat Rock, too:

The plan didn't really work, I chopped off maybe 1/2 a mile.. and evidently one isn't allowed to take this short cut. I didn't see any signs to that effect from where I dropped in, but when I got back down to the Camp Ohlone Road I crossed another gate, and saw a bunch of signs:

The last few miles out were a battle of will. Out of fuel and water, basically bonked, the fact that the road is mostly downhill didn't seem to matter. At one point I almost stepped on a tarantula the size of my hand. That woke me up..

Summary: great views, wildlife, mostly unspoiled high meadows and canyons, straight up straight down, and too much of the trail is jeep tracks. About 19 miles round trip, 3.5 hrs moving time. More info on SummitPost.

Would I do it all again? Probably not, though I am curious to (a) see it in the rainy season when the creeks are flowing, and (b) run the section from Del Valle to Rose Peak. Hey, maybe that section is more single track.

Parting shot: 2.5 liters of water and 3 energy bars are *not* enough water/fuel for this trip, at least not in late summer. Also, keep your camera handy so you don't miss the fox shot.