A lost world - Foothills Park Palo Alto

Given we are on a hiking spree, I happened to read an article on my google feed about a hiker who went to Foothills park and his first response was anger.. anger that such a beautiful park right in our backyard was not publicised and was restricted to Palo Alto residents only. An ACLU lawsuit had to be won to make this park accessible to the general public, temporarily starting October 2020.. 

Given the access could close, we went to wrap up 2020 with one more hike!

We tried to go a day earlier but the parking was full and the cops turned us back at the entrance. So we tried again the next morning at 7AM before the park opened, found parking and did the entire ~8 mile hike on the one way Los Trancos trail.

We got there before the sun rose behind the hills. This is a beautiful time to get photos because the sun is bounce flashing the light through the clouds and there is a diffuse golden light everywhere.. you don't have to worry about shiloutte effects or underexposed pictures! 

There was a beautiful lake with a pier! My first response after taking a few photos and looking at my camera was the same.. anger.. should have been here before! 

We went on to park near the interpretive center and walked across a slushy field to start the trail.. It was a pretty steep trail through and through and also narrow. It was good that they made it a one way loop. 

It has rained the previous night and there was still a slight drizzle. The colors were vibrant everywhere on the trail and we were treated to water dripping off the moss on the trees everywhere!

except for two small stretches, you are mostly in the shade in this trail! 

The ferns give the park a Jurassic park look and feel. Something unique in all the parks we recently visited!

The moss is also a brighter green in this park!

The bright red wet leaves ground into the path made for good contrast in parts of the trail! 

Then you come to a level clearing where you get views all the way to San Mateo bridges and beyond! 

We walked back down through a dazzling light display through the trees..

An amazing park through and through! Definitely go visit this park before they close the public acecss! 

Loved it..

my technical difficulties still continue.. but Jr. was nice enough to let me borrow her laptop for blog posting! 

Last hike of 2020 Plus 1

It has been an interesting week for me with a lot of emotional twists and turns that would make a Saroja Devi movie bland.. 

Wanted to end 2020 on a postive note.. so did one more hike today.. 

to Jurassic Park!

This was a hard but spectacular hike. Will post about this later.

The next week promises to be interesting as well.

For now, just happy to wish you all a wonderful 2021 !!

Sincerely hope it is better than 2020!

The last hike for 2020 - Mount Tamalpais

Rounding up the 2020 hiking with Mount Tamalpais.

Was not sure of going because my toe was still bruised. Then a USPS truck showed up at 6AM on the day of the hike, to deliver my New balance extra wide hiking shoes! So wore it and went on the hike. 

It took us 90 minutes to get to the parking lot on Panorama way just before Stinson beach with the last 30 minutes being a windy road. Given we had left early, we found parking!  Then we walked up to Matt Davis trail view point through two other trails.  From this view point, you can see Stinson beach on the right and if you squint and zoom.. the San Francisco skyline on the left!

We hiked for almost 4 hours, ate a packed lunch in the parking lot and drove back. Stopped by a few view points along the coastal ridge to take pictures. 

It was a beautiful sunny day out there.. by contrast we came home to a gloomy Cupertino and a light rain. 

An entire day spent driving and hiking but the pictures and the fresh air was worth it. My toe although not damaged further is still in recovery mode. 

Mount Diablo has to wait for a few weeks. . . we wanted to hike the bay area gland slam (Umunhum, Hamilton, Tamalpais and Diablo which are the four tallest mountains) and got 3/4 for 2020 which is pretty good! 

Here are the pictures.. 

First the smiling faces that show up on FB preview!

We are really really nothing compared to these giant trees, but we have the destructive power to bring them down.. 

My favorite shots from the view point.. because I didnt have high hopes of gettting the skyline resolved (the photos were taken with an iPhone with a 10x zoom and holding my breath) but after putting the images through noise reduction on photoshop.. they came out better than I expected!

The trails had a lot of steps which made for pretty pictures, not that they were easy to climb.. 

we saw layers and layers of mountains with the fog and clouds before the sun peaked out.

and got treated to simmering ocean views..

Not to mention all the trail fun in between the ocean view vistas..

cute little waterfalls every now and then..

not to mention views of Stinson beach every now and then..

We stopped on the turnouts a few times to take pictures of the coastline.. you can see Twin peaks area in SFO in the background on this shot!

and my other favorite shot when the sun went behind the clouds...

As long as we walk in a steady pace and I get to take pictures and there is no discomfort, I get to enjoy the day. All three conditions were met on this hike.. new right shoes (with something called "toe protect"), nice tree cover for most of the hike, and amazing scenery to make the photographer happy!

a short video clip of snippets through the hike..

Next time if we hike this, we would probably leave an hour earlier so we can enjoy the beach for a short time after the hike. It was a 5 minute drive from where we parked in the other direction and the beach was empty. We did enjoy driving through the golden gate bridge early in the morning and on our way back home! Think this was my only time driving past the GGB this year! 

A very enjoyable hike to round off 2020!