Cataract Falls - tough but enjoyable

Last week we made it to Cataract Falls. Had posted the waterfall pictures taken with the long exposure option on the iPhone. Never got the time to write the blog post as work just caught up and kept me busy.

Finally get around to it!

This falls is in the Mount Tamalpais park north of San Francisco. You have to go on the windy Bolinas Fairfax road a fair bit to get to this park. It took us an hour and forty minutes to get there. We parked next to the Alpine lake edge and started walking the trail. There were few other people that day on the trail and it was beautiful. The highlight is this MGR Saroja Devi moment captured on camera!

We went along the creek and were treated to at least 5 falls on the way. Once we went up the trail there is a meadow we end up in where there is a restroom. We took a short break there and decided to do the extended loop through High Marsh trail. This is a trail where only one person can walk on the edge. Single file walking is not a strong suit for our hiking group, but we did reasonably well and were treated to amazing views. 

Then we went on the Kent trail and Helen Markt trails to reach the lake. We had the entire lake to ourselves and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery.

Then the reality hit.. we had come back down to lake level and that meant, going back up to the top and coming down to the parking lot on the other side of the lake in what was the most challengiing climb this group had done to date. We huffed and puffed, called out for mommy, thirupathi Balaji, etc. etc. and at one point walked one step at a time and finally made it towards the parking lot. This was totally doable, but the fact that we had already been hiking up and down for the last 2 1/2 hours made this very challenging. 

Eventually we got the food down to the lake and ate a very late lunch there before the long drive back home.

Thachchi mammu never tasted so good! No, I am kidding. It always tastes good!

We went to the lake front on the logic of "we never know when we will visit this park next or we will ever visit it given we are seeing a new place every week! might as well...".. next time somone in the group starts using that logic.. I am going to have a prepared speech ready with all the talking points!

We did have a great time at the lake and the pictures don't do justice to how beautiful the day was! We should have started an hour early and that would have made it easier for us. 

Cataract falls and Alpine lake get two thumbs up!

A new trick on the iPhone

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! 

Well played Apple, well played!

When I am old and gray.. a day not far away..

We went on the Wunderlich trail today in the Portola hills. This place is famous for the horse stable and it is a place where they teach horse riding. The trails behind the horse ranch are beautiful! We went maybe 1400+ feet on a 7 mile hike. 

Parking was not easy. We should have started earlier. The trail was also closed at one point to skyline ridge because of slush and fallen trees.. so we went as far as we were allowed to go and turned back. 

We got a lot of pictures of me and San.. when I came home and saw them, it made me smile. There was a time when being empty nesters seemed a far fetched prospect.. we are almost there! Glad that we can still do things together and smile and share laughs. Somewhere, sometime, must have done something good to deserve this!

It was nowhere as steep as the other recent hikes and we were ambling along at a steady pace. The sunbeams through the clouds made for some amazing views!

We got to see an algae filled pond up in the flats! The photo does not do justice to how serene this place was!

This trail was great. Gentle slopes, steady climb, people on horseback going past us, some challenges with slush everywhere and the canopy and sunbeams that are a photographers delight! 

Reasonably sure we will be revisiting this one and go all the way to Skyline and back in the near future! 

Happy Valentines day

Valentines day, celebrated with another hike. We have managed to do what I call the "grand slam" of Bay area hikes.. of the 4 tallest peaks (Umunhum, Hamilton, Tamalpais and Diablo). 

We started at the State Park entrance parking lot (don't forget to take 10$ cash for the parking!)  and hiked up 2500 feet, 8 miles round trip over 3.5 hours. There was plenty of photo stops and a good 15 minutes spent at the summit tower. We got beautiful views of the area. Given the hour drive each way, the entire day has gone for this hike. 

There was a quick packed lunch in picnic tables right at the parking lot before driving back. 

Those were the Valentines photos.. She got a good hike with her hubby in tow.. I got some amazing photos.. win win situation!

This is a 300 degree Pano shot from the center of the summit tower.. 

Got a few panorama shots today that were pleasing 

One of my favorite photos from the day

Today was perfect. It was cold but not very windy. The sun was behind clouds and we were walking in a mist for the most part. It was not a strenous hike given we took 4 or 5 breaks of 5 minutes each after every steep section to take pictures. 

The rest of the pictures are in this slide show..

Could not have asked for a better way to spend the day!

Once again, wishing everyone a happy Valentines day! 

Watching a sunrise after a long long time

As a person who is so used to watching sunsets on the west coast over the ocean, it was odd for us to go chase a sunrise. Two weeks ago, we had to drop Jr. at SFO early in the morning. It had been a day since my gum surgery and the pain was starting to show.  Also I was on a mission to get off pain killers within a day so the 60 day Yoga challenge could continue. Taking painkillers and doing yoga is like drunk driving your body.. never ends well. 

I was also sad to see Jr. go. Not that I saw her when she was home during the last month. We had maybe a 30 minute overlap of our waking hours on a daily basis. 

San got us some help and info from a couple of friends who had recently shared snaps of Golden gate sunrises and Kirby cove views. 

managed a smile with my face still looking like an "idli paanai"! Both these are iPhone selfies .. so you can see the auto color changes..

We dropped Jr. at the airport and drove in the dark to Battery Spencer. A former military installation that apparently had canons mounted during World War times and never used. You get amazing views of the bridge from here. We were the first ones there after we used a flashlight and made our way. Within 20 minutes a dozen photographers showed up out of nowhere. It was like they knew exactly when to come and set up shop, click and disappear. It was hard to tell if they were wearing masks, so we moved out of the area.  We had been standing there for a good half hour already to enjoy the gradual brightening and once we saw the horizon light up, decided to go out and down to Kirby cove. 

We were the only ones on that road and it was probably a mile and a half walk down to the beach. This time only three other folks came to join us. We had enough gaps to put our tripods and take pictures. 

Have put the photos as a slideshow..

There were a few iPhone photos that I shared on Facebook but was waiting for a laptop and Photoshop to get the pictures from the Canon downloaded. The iPhone is good, but it auto adjusts the brightness, contrast and color to be able to "see" everything. When you take a photo of the bridge where everything else is dark because is the sun is not out yet, the pictures look like broad daylight and all the hues are gone!

It was frustrating. (you can see it in the video taken with the Phone and compare to the photos from the Canon). I had to adjust the iPhone photos to make it close to what we saw.

It is a just a question of tiem before I click a picture of me and San and the iPhone shows me a picture of Shah Rukh and Kajol instead of our faces.. so much for AI !

All said and done, the sunrise was breathtaking. We really enjoyed it and it provided me a good distraction from pain physical and emotional. 

We did check the tides for that morning and saw it was okay for 7AM. The tides have washed ashore so many people in last few months and we were warned by friends to be careful. 

We will definitely visit this place again! The Cove and beach are beautiful!