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shannon_aOn Saturday I went out for a hike, as I discovered that I was missing walking the hills when I was just biking two weeks ago. The plan was to go to Orinda again, as that was a super-neat hike last time, but this time go via the alternative EBMud trail that leads to Cal Shakes.
The hike up the hill was terrific, as usual. I made it from the Bancroft Steps where I had lunch with K. up to the peak of the hill in just an hour. Near the top, I found a side path that I've been searching for the last few times I'd been there. I'd seen it on two different maps, in two slightly different places, but hadn't been able to locate it in reality. This time, I finally spotted it (further back than the first map had shown and slightly shrouded by trees and bushes). The path was somewhat ill-kept, but it provided a way up to Grizzly Peak that didn't require going up an unnecessary and quite steep hill, so it was somewhat superior as well.
Cal Shakes. Once I crested the peak, the new EBMud Trail was sadly disappointing. It was a straight shot down to Cal Shakes and it was a little too steep as a result, and it had loose dirt all over. Then as I got near the bottom I discovered that there's another battle going on between private and public land use. Someone (presumably Cal Shakes) has put up amateur-looking signs near the bottom of the trail warning you that you're walking into a deadend, and sure enough when you get to the gate at the bottom of the EBMud trail, it opens up into Cal Shakes' parkland, and they have further signs discouraging you from entering.
I was quite disappointed with Cal Shakes. Trying to block off a public trail like that really speaks to someone who doesn't deserve to be part of our community. Worse, they actually lease the land from EBMud, which means that EBMud seriously dropped the ball by not listing continued access to their watershed trail as a requirement of usage. I mean, maybe we can't expect a corporate interest to protect the public lands, but that's supposed to be EBMud's job.
Before I walked down to Cal Shakes, I'd had a future vision of getting tickets to their plays, and getting there by hiking up the hill, then down this trail. I mean, it's pretty much the only place the trail goes. I imagined throngs of people streaming up the hillside in the twilight as a play let out. But now it seems likely that Cal Shakes would try to turn me back at the bottom of the trail, even with tickets in hand. And, in any case, because on their antisocial behavior, Cal Shakes can bite me. (Ironically, Cal Shakes' current Managing Director is family of a friend, someone who I've met. But I'd bet the land usage problem predates her.)
I find Cal Shakes' printed claims that their land is private property particularly interesting, by which I mean a lie, since even their website acknowledges that they're leasing EBMud land. I mean, I suppose public land can kind of become private when leased out by the gov't, but it makes Cal Shakes look even worse when they're using that semi-privatity as a bludgeon to deny the public's right of passage past a public trail that connects to that public, leased land.
It's a pity, as the Cal Shakes environ is really pleasant. Three different picnic areas, heavy woods, a nice amphitheater. But not for the public's use. Not even to walk through. Not even for the hikers who have gotten their permits through EBMud and ultimately own the land that Cal Shakes is leasing.
To which I say shame on Cal Shakes and on EBMUD, who are both proving themselves poor stewards of the public trust in this area.
I've sent a comment on the new EBMUD watershed masterplan to suggest that people should be absolutely forbidden from blocking access to EBMUD trails, if EBMUD is kind enough to lease them land. I don't really have a dog in the fight of whether Cal Shakes is allowed to continued to violate the public good, because I doubt I'll be going down that direction again (especially as they've made it obvious they don't want my business as a walker from Berkeley), but it'd be nice to see this never happen again, and that's the exact sort of thing that a new masterplan should address.
Wilder. Cal Shakes is really in the middle of nowhere. The only (other) access is Highway 24, which is one of the reasons that K. and I had previously never gone (though they run a shuttle to the Orinda BART station).
But across Highway 24 there's a a park called the Wilder Fields and beyond that a subdivision that imaginatively calls itself Wilder too. The Wilder streets there don't exactly connect to Orinda proper, but they come within a few feet of doing so, and some close inspection with Google Map's satellite view suggested to me that you could just walk from one to the other. So, I thought it was worth trying to get from Wilder to Orinda proper (and that was the whole precept of my hike).
Man, is it in the middle of nowhere though. You get past the Siesta Valley EBMud area (which is beautiful due to the creeks in the area) and you're suddenly in desolate California scrub.
The Wilder Fields were nice enough. I mean, they were mostly soccer fields, but there was nice landscaping around them and picnic tables and a clubhouse. I would have stayed here and written some, but I'd already gotten some work done on the trails higher up, and now I was slightly anxious about whether I was trapped in Wilder or not. I'd also killed my iPhone by not charging it properly the night before, and so I no longer had maps of where I was(!).
So I hiked through the desolate lands of Wilder. There were signs up for "custom homes" and some of the houses that had been built looked like grotesque McMansions. Probably a pretty good place for dot-commers to live, right there on 24. As long as you don't want amenities like a commercial district. Or neighbors. Or grass. There were far more empty lots and some houses under constructions and lots of barren brown hills that looked sort of depressing in their starkness. Not where I'd want my multi-million-dollar McMansion to go. Unless I was a coyote or a rattlesnake.
(And a rattlesnake needs a McMansion about as much as a fish needs a McBicycle.)
Anywhow, I'd drilled the streets I needed to walk into my head, since I'd seen my iPhone was just at 10% charge when I started up the hill, and I was able to successfully hike those. And in the end, all that divided Wilder from Orinda proper was a gate across the road. I assume it's intended to keep plebeian drivers away from the McMansion subdivisions.
Orinda really shouldn't allow it any more than EBMUD should allow the barrier against public access in the Siesta Valley lands.
A bit past the gate, I took a left on Moraga Road and walked the bike lane back to Orinda BART. It was not a particularly pleasant walk because the street was busy, there was no sidewalk, and drivers liked to straddle the bike lane divider.
I was back home before 5pm, which was impressive because I left K. at the bottom of Panoramic Hill around noon, stopped to write for a while on EBMUD lands, then walked back home from Rockridge BART, with an emergency gummi stop at Safeway.
I don't regret the walk. I like to explore new areas, and I'd been wanting to check out this particular route. I was thrilled to succeed. But, the EBMUD trail was too dry, crumbly, and steep; the Cal Shakes area was too selfish and fascist; the Wilder area was too rich and desolate; and the Moraga Road walk was too loud and unpleasant.
So, I don't needed to repeat it. Which is why I said that I don't have a dog in the fight for Cal Shakes' annoying blockage of public access.
Berkeley Walks. Then, because that wasn't enough walking on Saturday, K. and I finished up our first walk from Berkeley Walks on Sunday. This was the other half of the Elmwood walk. It took us across College, up Etna, back on Piedmont, and up and down Russell. This half of the walk was shorter, but there was more nice architecture to see, including several Julia Morgan houses. We even read the history of Julia Morgan in the book while sitting in the courtyard of the Julia Morgan Theatre (where we regularly see musicals ... inside the theatre, not in the courtyard).
We had a most odd experience at the north end of Etna. We're standing in front of a pair of houses, looking at them and quietly reading from our Berkeley Walks book and an old lady on one of the porches says something. Both of our days of Berkeley Walking we've had people talk to us on the street with interest, so K. assumes it was her saying something friendly and asks, "What did you say?"
The old lady refuses to reply, so we go back to reading, and when we're no longer paying any attention to her, she pipes up again and says something like, "You move along or I'm going to call the police."
I usually don't do well with people telling me what to do, but this is so ridiculous that I don't lose my cool. I just tell her that we're on a public sidewalk and can do whatever we want. Then I tell her she should call the police if she wants to. Then I say, "Go ahead!" A day later, I imagine I then said, "That's what I thought."
But I don't think I actually did.
So we go back to our reading and "move along" only when we bloody well feel like it.
For the rest of the walk we marvel at the craziness. In fact, I think it might be literal craziness for a while, because she sounded strangely paranoid and had no concept (or care) for what was normal in society. I figure she's one of the people that could use the sort of long-term mental health care that we no longer offer as a society post-Reagan.
But later on I decide she might just be one of the overprivileged older people who dwell in the nicer parts of Berkeley. They're certainly not the majority, but they're a loud minority that damages the city through their refusal to let things change ... and perhaps through insane demands to not stand on their sidewalk.
The theme of the weekend: peoples' disrespect for the public commons — whether it be Cal Shakes blocking public trails; the Wilder builders gating public roads; or a crazy old lady annoyed that people should stand on the public sidewalk in front of her house.
And in two of those three cases, we get the secondary theme of our public government not protecting the commons like it should.
The hike up the hill was terrific, as usual. I made it from the Bancroft Steps where I had lunch with K. up to the peak of the hill in just an hour. Near the top, I found a side path that I've been searching for the last few times I'd been there. I'd seen it on two different maps, in two slightly different places, but hadn't been able to locate it in reality. This time, I finally spotted it (further back than the first map had shown and slightly shrouded by trees and bushes). The path was somewhat ill-kept, but it provided a way up to Grizzly Peak that didn't require going up an unnecessary and quite steep hill, so it was somewhat superior as well.
Cal Shakes. Once I crested the peak, the new EBMud Trail was sadly disappointing. It was a straight shot down to Cal Shakes and it was a little too steep as a result, and it had loose dirt all over. Then as I got near the bottom I discovered that there's another battle going on between private and public land use. Someone (presumably Cal Shakes) has put up amateur-looking signs near the bottom of the trail warning you that you're walking into a deadend, and sure enough when you get to the gate at the bottom of the EBMud trail, it opens up into Cal Shakes' parkland, and they have further signs discouraging you from entering.
I was quite disappointed with Cal Shakes. Trying to block off a public trail like that really speaks to someone who doesn't deserve to be part of our community. Worse, they actually lease the land from EBMud, which means that EBMud seriously dropped the ball by not listing continued access to their watershed trail as a requirement of usage. I mean, maybe we can't expect a corporate interest to protect the public lands, but that's supposed to be EBMud's job.
Before I walked down to Cal Shakes, I'd had a future vision of getting tickets to their plays, and getting there by hiking up the hill, then down this trail. I mean, it's pretty much the only place the trail goes. I imagined throngs of people streaming up the hillside in the twilight as a play let out. But now it seems likely that Cal Shakes would try to turn me back at the bottom of the trail, even with tickets in hand. And, in any case, because on their antisocial behavior, Cal Shakes can bite me. (Ironically, Cal Shakes' current Managing Director is family of a friend, someone who I've met. But I'd bet the land usage problem predates her.)
I find Cal Shakes' printed claims that their land is private property particularly interesting, by which I mean a lie, since even their website acknowledges that they're leasing EBMud land. I mean, I suppose public land can kind of become private when leased out by the gov't, but it makes Cal Shakes look even worse when they're using that semi-privatity as a bludgeon to deny the public's right of passage past a public trail that connects to that public, leased land.
It's a pity, as the Cal Shakes environ is really pleasant. Three different picnic areas, heavy woods, a nice amphitheater. But not for the public's use. Not even to walk through. Not even for the hikers who have gotten their permits through EBMud and ultimately own the land that Cal Shakes is leasing.
To which I say shame on Cal Shakes and on EBMUD, who are both proving themselves poor stewards of the public trust in this area.
I've sent a comment on the new EBMUD watershed masterplan to suggest that people should be absolutely forbidden from blocking access to EBMUD trails, if EBMUD is kind enough to lease them land. I don't really have a dog in the fight of whether Cal Shakes is allowed to continued to violate the public good, because I doubt I'll be going down that direction again (especially as they've made it obvious they don't want my business as a walker from Berkeley), but it'd be nice to see this never happen again, and that's the exact sort of thing that a new masterplan should address.
Wilder. Cal Shakes is really in the middle of nowhere. The only (other) access is Highway 24, which is one of the reasons that K. and I had previously never gone (though they run a shuttle to the Orinda BART station).
But across Highway 24 there's a a park called the Wilder Fields and beyond that a subdivision that imaginatively calls itself Wilder too. The Wilder streets there don't exactly connect to Orinda proper, but they come within a few feet of doing so, and some close inspection with Google Map's satellite view suggested to me that you could just walk from one to the other. So, I thought it was worth trying to get from Wilder to Orinda proper (and that was the whole precept of my hike).
Man, is it in the middle of nowhere though. You get past the Siesta Valley EBMud area (which is beautiful due to the creeks in the area) and you're suddenly in desolate California scrub.
The Wilder Fields were nice enough. I mean, they were mostly soccer fields, but there was nice landscaping around them and picnic tables and a clubhouse. I would have stayed here and written some, but I'd already gotten some work done on the trails higher up, and now I was slightly anxious about whether I was trapped in Wilder or not. I'd also killed my iPhone by not charging it properly the night before, and so I no longer had maps of where I was(!).
So I hiked through the desolate lands of Wilder. There were signs up for "custom homes" and some of the houses that had been built looked like grotesque McMansions. Probably a pretty good place for dot-commers to live, right there on 24. As long as you don't want amenities like a commercial district. Or neighbors. Or grass. There were far more empty lots and some houses under constructions and lots of barren brown hills that looked sort of depressing in their starkness. Not where I'd want my multi-million-dollar McMansion to go. Unless I was a coyote or a rattlesnake.
(And a rattlesnake needs a McMansion about as much as a fish needs a McBicycle.)
Anywhow, I'd drilled the streets I needed to walk into my head, since I'd seen my iPhone was just at 10% charge when I started up the hill, and I was able to successfully hike those. And in the end, all that divided Wilder from Orinda proper was a gate across the road. I assume it's intended to keep plebeian drivers away from the McMansion subdivisions.
Orinda really shouldn't allow it any more than EBMUD should allow the barrier against public access in the Siesta Valley lands.
A bit past the gate, I took a left on Moraga Road and walked the bike lane back to Orinda BART. It was not a particularly pleasant walk because the street was busy, there was no sidewalk, and drivers liked to straddle the bike lane divider.
I was back home before 5pm, which was impressive because I left K. at the bottom of Panoramic Hill around noon, stopped to write for a while on EBMUD lands, then walked back home from Rockridge BART, with an emergency gummi stop at Safeway.
I don't regret the walk. I like to explore new areas, and I'd been wanting to check out this particular route. I was thrilled to succeed. But, the EBMUD trail was too dry, crumbly, and steep; the Cal Shakes area was too selfish and fascist; the Wilder area was too rich and desolate; and the Moraga Road walk was too loud and unpleasant.
So, I don't needed to repeat it. Which is why I said that I don't have a dog in the fight for Cal Shakes' annoying blockage of public access.
Berkeley Walks. Then, because that wasn't enough walking on Saturday, K. and I finished up our first walk from Berkeley Walks on Sunday. This was the other half of the Elmwood walk. It took us across College, up Etna, back on Piedmont, and up and down Russell. This half of the walk was shorter, but there was more nice architecture to see, including several Julia Morgan houses. We even read the history of Julia Morgan in the book while sitting in the courtyard of the Julia Morgan Theatre (where we regularly see musicals ... inside the theatre, not in the courtyard).
We had a most odd experience at the north end of Etna. We're standing in front of a pair of houses, looking at them and quietly reading from our Berkeley Walks book and an old lady on one of the porches says something. Both of our days of Berkeley Walking we've had people talk to us on the street with interest, so K. assumes it was her saying something friendly and asks, "What did you say?"
The old lady refuses to reply, so we go back to reading, and when we're no longer paying any attention to her, she pipes up again and says something like, "You move along or I'm going to call the police."
I usually don't do well with people telling me what to do, but this is so ridiculous that I don't lose my cool. I just tell her that we're on a public sidewalk and can do whatever we want. Then I tell her she should call the police if she wants to. Then I say, "Go ahead!" A day later, I imagine I then said, "That's what I thought."
But I don't think I actually did.
So we go back to our reading and "move along" only when we bloody well feel like it.
For the rest of the walk we marvel at the craziness. In fact, I think it might be literal craziness for a while, because she sounded strangely paranoid and had no concept (or care) for what was normal in society. I figure she's one of the people that could use the sort of long-term mental health care that we no longer offer as a society post-Reagan.
But later on I decide she might just be one of the overprivileged older people who dwell in the nicer parts of Berkeley. They're certainly not the majority, but they're a loud minority that damages the city through their refusal to let things change ... and perhaps through insane demands to not stand on their sidewalk.
The theme of the weekend: peoples' disrespect for the public commons — whether it be Cal Shakes blocking public trails; the Wilder builders gating public roads; or a crazy old lady annoyed that people should stand on the public sidewalk in front of her house.
And in two of those three cases, we get the secondary theme of our public government not protecting the commons like it should.