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!

Dry Creek Regional park - a hike to remember

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! 

SFO-day trip- Painted steps

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!

We can do it, one vista point at a time!