After visiting Maple falls and playing with some pictures, learned a new trick on the iPhone to get long exposure shots! Usually this needs my Canon 5D mark ii and the heavy tripod and a lot of post processing..
Now it is just a lot of post processing.
We went on a hike to Cataract Falls yesterday. I got exhausted from the climbing. It was the toughest trail we went on to date during COVID times.. but .. but.. it was a great experience. Will recover from that and post a blog..
In the meantime, here are some milky waterfall shots!
I tried to do a toe stand on that log and it was not a good idea. . .
This thing is going to come in handy on future waterfall trails as well as ripping ponds and lakes!
Last weekend I was given a surprisingly low estimate for an afternoon hike to a place called Dry creek.. the name was not a best seller. Was also told it was past Fremont and an hours ride away. No shade and mostly dry hills but with a nice view of the bay.
Was even given an option to bail out of this at first.. San then did what she usually does.. bat her eyelids and make a face about me being sore company and I thought, what the hell! We are going on a Sunday evening so it is not going to be hot by the time we start and we will come down watching the sunset!
It ended up being one of the best hikes in recent memory, thanks to a surprising bloom of yellow and orange flowers everywhere on the first hillside. Then we ended up crossing the place where all the local Afghanis fly kites and run a flea market of sorts from their suitcases... (we had read about it in Khalid Hosseni's book Kite Runner, but got to see it first hand!)
It didn't end there. We managed to go up all the way to the rim, catch a view of the rolling green hills, see all the way to SFO and Oakland and crossed a creek to get to a little lake that was beautiful.
The photo below is my attempt at some artistry, trying to catch a shadow of the four of us walking on the rim of a hill that was cast all the way on the other hill..
Then we walk down watching the sunset, while taking pictures!
Only downside was that the sun was on our face the entire time and my face became a bright orange the next day.. and as luck would have it, made it into the hot room the next day and flushed myself inside out with sweat. The Aloe Vera lotion was no longer required!
a shot of our friends as they came up the hill..
Green never looked this good..the sunset made everything so vibrant!
This was taken at a place called Gossip rock..
kept clicking every 5 minutes as we raced down.. we wanted to get at least close to the parking lot before it got dark. Sunset was 7:30! We had to make it down by 8. Used iPhone flashlights to practically run down the last mile and a half.
and my favorite shot for the evening..
Even for March this was not easy in the heat. We hiked form 5-8 in the evening and were way more tired than any of the previous hikes. So definitely wouldn't go again during the day unless it is in winter and on a cloudy day. The area is pretty barren. So no chance for shade anywhere! We didn't see any kids on the trail either. It was a pretty steep climb that reminded us of the climb to Mission peak.
Breathtaking views of the bay at sunset. On a cloudy day, it would be even more spectacular.
We keep finding these interesting places within an hour from our place, after living here for more than 2 decades! It took a pandemic for us to explore home!
This is a continuation of yesterday's post on the San Francisco day trip to Presidio Park and the hike on Lover's lane.
After our lunch at Gracias Madre, we went to visit the Painted steps on 16th avenue also refered to as the Painted Mosaic or Tiled steps.
This is our second visit the steps and I remembered visiting the steps within a few months after they had just been created and opened to the public. We had visited this with San's cousins family and had a lot of fun taking pictures. Kept searching the blog and found nothing! Then saw a few photos from FB. Then spent an hour trying to figure out why I never posted anything, or if it was one of those things where the submit button was never pressed!
Turns out our first visit was on Labor day of 2014. That 4th of July was my fateful trip to India (the plane with engine failure trip as I call it), followed by a last minute trip to Jaipur, flying to Taiwan with 3 hour window after landing in Mumbai, coming back to bay area only to realize MIL had a cancer scare, presenting at a conference while all this was going on.. it was a rollercoaster of a month and somehow, there was a "post backlog"! This photo stood out!
Looking back we visited the hidden garden stairs which was done in 2013. There are three such tiled steps in SFO. Two around 16th street and one 4 miles away in Lincoln park. We visited the two steps in 16th street yesterday.
The first one goes up from Moraga and 16th up a block. It is beautiful and has no bends. you can see all the way to the top. Once you go to the top, you go right a hundred feet and there is another step that leads up to the next street and a staircase that takes you to the top of that hill.
The views from this point are amazing! you see the ocean, downtown, the layers of buildings on the hill and it takes your breath away!
This is from the top after climbing the 16th avenue steps.
Once you go to vista point two roads up you see this..
Once we spent some time at the top, we came back down to 16th Avenue and after walking two blocks, we walked down the hidden garden steps. This one bends around and is also very beautiful.
Took some pictures on the stairs.. (San did take some pictures of me for a change and that moment was captured!)
We had some homemade tea and snacks, courtesy of our friends and drove back. San Francisco is beautiful and we suburbanites have not explored this big city at all. Having lived here for more than 2 decades, we have come to the realization that there is plenty of sight seeing left to do in SFO!
Another weekend and another local hike. This is the first time I am going through this trail in Sanborn in Saratoga (San has visited it many times before).
It was a good day to hike. We did the 8.4 mile hike in 2 1/2 hours and still had enough stops for pictures and selfies!
Good thing was the vistas every 30 minutes or so!
There must have been some dust on the iPhone camera.. got these weird rays in most pictures that made them interesting!
as long as I keep walking, San keeps smiling! Should really make sure my knees, ankles and hips are in shape for as long as possible!
Loved the morning hike! We have slowly but steadily covered a lot of the trails in the Saratoga-Los Gatos area. More to come..
It has been an interesting two days.. First a day of meetings that kept me low on sleep, followed by a visit from friends to watch the India-England Cricket match.
Was watching the game past midnight and was reminded by San that we are going to be driving at 6-ish to go on our trip to Maple falls in the Forest of Nisene Marks State park.
It was a great day, given it rained heavily last night. We drove for an hour and ended up starting our hike earlier than planned.
Given this is our second time in this park, we made it past the familiar part very fast and ended up crossing the last tricky part of the trail (if you can call it that) to see the falls..
The last hour was challenging given we are just going across rocks along the stream. Think it is time to buy those sticks everyone is carrying.. in the absence of sticks, your option is to literally sit on rocks and get your pants and gloves dirty!
Finally when we got to the falls, all that was forgotten!
The falls was beautiful! I also got to walk on a log far from the falls, to be able to take pictures of the girls.. (it will be one of my best shots which will never make it to the blog). It is dangerous to be photographing from a log.. in an attempt to move a bit to get a better shot, I almost fell down.. good thing I was only 5 feet from the ground, but it was a wake up moment for the morning!
Here are some pictures from the day!
Was very disappointed to have gone 0.5 miles to the falls and turn back because of the slush and fallen trees in Jan, but made up for it today!
This park is amazing, but for now will go to other places of interest before hititng it again!
Right now is the perfect time to go see this falls. there is enough water and the weather is great! Parking on the other hand is a different story altogether. If you get there early, you get parking!
Monday, April 5, 2021 at 1:20PM ;)
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