A Big Hike
Mar. 20th, 2016 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSo I'm not biking.
And this is definitely impacting my exercise, and therefore my weight loss.
This Saturday was my first free and rain-free Saturday in a few weeks, so I decided to take my personal exercise in hand and do a big hike. I'd had some fun hiking during my initial span of bikelessness, but through many of those hikes I had concern over the Cipro in my system, so I didn't really push myself.
On Saturday I pushed myself, and it was great hike.
In the morning, I walked up to north Berkeley with K., who meets a friend there most Saturdays. Then after grabbing a sandwich-and-chips to go at Andronico's, I started hiking straight up the hill.
This initial hill climbing was definitely not the most scenic part of the day, though I did take Berkeley's many hillside walkways whenever I could. That included the long, steep set of stairs in Cordonices Park and my favorite pathway in Berkeley, the Covert Path, which really is. You're stepping up between houses, and suddenly you're in a shaded little grotto shrouded by trees, where you have to walk across a stream.
All told I believe I walked: Vine Lane; Cordonices Stairway; Covert Path; Whitaker Path; Betty Olds Path; and Anne Brower Path (which is unlabeled and in disrepair, mostly of the foliage sort). Then it was the Wildcat Path into Tilden Park.
At Tilden I had lunch at a quiet little campsite, which became a little less quiet when a Chinese family and their caucasian son-in-law showed up. Their grill also unfortunately blew smoke right over my table. (Fair enough; the grill was there before me!) I moved but ended up shivering in the shade as I finished up the two histories that I was working on.
Then I began the long hike home, which was really the point of the day. I wanted to cross through Tilden and then walk onto EBMud lands and UC Berkeley fire trails until I debarked near my house, proving the connectivity of the many trails in the hills above us. And that's exactly what I did.
Many of the trails, particularly in Tilden, were quite muddy here and there. It had been dry for about a week, but clearly some of those trails had become riverbeds during the storms. Over on EBMud lands, I walked a trail that had long lines of stones crossing it, obviously intended to keep the water flowing down the hills, not onto the paths ... and it was of limited success. I had spattered mud up to my knees by the time I got home.
The Tilden path (the Vollmer Peak Trail) was beautiful because it was wooded and empty. The EBMud path (the Bay Area Ridge Trail in the Siesta Valley Recreation Area) was beautiful because it had awesome views of Contra Costa County, and hills that had all grown green during the recent storms. The UC Berkeley Fire Trail (I think it was labeled with a #20) had a beautiful view of the Bay, but it was an awful trail that was too steep and too scree-filled. I skidded to the ground on it once, and heard people both ascending and descending talking about how tricky it was. At one point I saw a girl behind me go running 20 feet or so off the trail into the foliage, presumably because she'd lost control. Afterward, the Upper Fire Trail, above the Labs, was beautiful because it was solid and well-maintained.
Both of the previous times that I walked the Fire Trails in Strawberry Canyon I'd sought out a short cut marked on my Google Maps between the Upper and Lower Trails and I missed it both times. I missed it again on Saturday, but this time went back and sought it out. The trail pretty much dropped off the side of the Upper Fire Trail (but not too steeply), so I saw why I missed it. The path cut through a redwood forest and was lonely but absolutely gorgeous. Then the exit was well hidden right next to a stream. It was a bit muddy and I had my second slide and fall of the day. (More mud on my pants!)
I eventually made it home a bit after 5pm. The total hike was somewhere around 12 miles, and by days' end several hours later I had a record-setting 30,000 steps on my Fitbit (plus 288 active minute, 222 flights of stairs, and by that time about 13.5 miles total).
Next Saturday I'm thinking about walking to Orinda straight up the fire trails, and then down the EBMud watershed on the other side. (I've had an EBmud permit for a bit, and never really made use of it, so now seems like a good time, with the bikelessness and all.) I just need to figure out how to get a tasty lunch involved with that.
And this is definitely impacting my exercise, and therefore my weight loss.
This Saturday was my first free and rain-free Saturday in a few weeks, so I decided to take my personal exercise in hand and do a big hike. I'd had some fun hiking during my initial span of bikelessness, but through many of those hikes I had concern over the Cipro in my system, so I didn't really push myself.
On Saturday I pushed myself, and it was great hike.
In the morning, I walked up to north Berkeley with K., who meets a friend there most Saturdays. Then after grabbing a sandwich-and-chips to go at Andronico's, I started hiking straight up the hill.
This initial hill climbing was definitely not the most scenic part of the day, though I did take Berkeley's many hillside walkways whenever I could. That included the long, steep set of stairs in Cordonices Park and my favorite pathway in Berkeley, the Covert Path, which really is. You're stepping up between houses, and suddenly you're in a shaded little grotto shrouded by trees, where you have to walk across a stream.
All told I believe I walked: Vine Lane; Cordonices Stairway; Covert Path; Whitaker Path; Betty Olds Path; and Anne Brower Path (which is unlabeled and in disrepair, mostly of the foliage sort). Then it was the Wildcat Path into Tilden Park.
At Tilden I had lunch at a quiet little campsite, which became a little less quiet when a Chinese family and their caucasian son-in-law showed up. Their grill also unfortunately blew smoke right over my table. (Fair enough; the grill was there before me!) I moved but ended up shivering in the shade as I finished up the two histories that I was working on.
Then I began the long hike home, which was really the point of the day. I wanted to cross through Tilden and then walk onto EBMud lands and UC Berkeley fire trails until I debarked near my house, proving the connectivity of the many trails in the hills above us. And that's exactly what I did.
Many of the trails, particularly in Tilden, were quite muddy here and there. It had been dry for about a week, but clearly some of those trails had become riverbeds during the storms. Over on EBMud lands, I walked a trail that had long lines of stones crossing it, obviously intended to keep the water flowing down the hills, not onto the paths ... and it was of limited success. I had spattered mud up to my knees by the time I got home.
The Tilden path (the Vollmer Peak Trail) was beautiful because it was wooded and empty. The EBMud path (the Bay Area Ridge Trail in the Siesta Valley Recreation Area) was beautiful because it had awesome views of Contra Costa County, and hills that had all grown green during the recent storms. The UC Berkeley Fire Trail (I think it was labeled with a #20) had a beautiful view of the Bay, but it was an awful trail that was too steep and too scree-filled. I skidded to the ground on it once, and heard people both ascending and descending talking about how tricky it was. At one point I saw a girl behind me go running 20 feet or so off the trail into the foliage, presumably because she'd lost control. Afterward, the Upper Fire Trail, above the Labs, was beautiful because it was solid and well-maintained.
Both of the previous times that I walked the Fire Trails in Strawberry Canyon I'd sought out a short cut marked on my Google Maps between the Upper and Lower Trails and I missed it both times. I missed it again on Saturday, but this time went back and sought it out. The trail pretty much dropped off the side of the Upper Fire Trail (but not too steeply), so I saw why I missed it. The path cut through a redwood forest and was lonely but absolutely gorgeous. Then the exit was well hidden right next to a stream. It was a bit muddy and I had my second slide and fall of the day. (More mud on my pants!)
I eventually made it home a bit after 5pm. The total hike was somewhere around 12 miles, and by days' end several hours later I had a record-setting 30,000 steps on my Fitbit (plus 288 active minute, 222 flights of stairs, and by that time about 13.5 miles total).
Next Saturday I'm thinking about walking to Orinda straight up the fire trails, and then down the EBMud watershed on the other side. (I've had an EBmud permit for a bit, and never really made use of it, so now seems like a good time, with the bikelessness and all.) I just need to figure out how to get a tasty lunch involved with that.