hiking report, wildcat canyon
Jun. 12th, 2005 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaeclecticI think I may have overdone it a bit. Do I say that every other week or so?
I headed straight from brunch to Tilden, and hiked into Wildcat Canyon. I had a particular loop in mind, which I had estimated (although not actually taken the time to calculate in detail) to be about 10 miles. However, things kept leading to variations. At one point, I decided to take a detour to the Alvarado parking area in order to refill my water bottles -- but it turned out the map key lied, and there is no drinking water there, although there is drinking water at a trail junction a couple of miles back that is not marked on the map -- and which of course I had walked right by. Grrrr.
Then I got confused at another junction and turned off too soon, ending up on a very small trail instead of the fire road that I was aiming for. And then when that trail finally intersected a main trail, there was no trail marker, so I ended up heading back down into the valley when I intended to stay up on the ridge longer. After which I decided that just heading back to my car wasn't going to be quite enough, so I took another trail back up, adding both distance and difficulty to the hike.
[Aside: I am developing strong opinions about the information design of trail markers.]
Babble, babble. The point of all that being: I ended up hiking something over 11 miles, maybe close to 12 (hard to say exactly, since I wasn't on the map the whole time), and the last couple of miles were pretty painful. Throbbing feet, sore ankle, twinging knees, sore hips, twinging lower back... I am still feeling pretty sore even now that I'm sitting down, I think perhaps a soak in the tub is called for.
No doubt this will sound inanely obvious: I really must make a point of stopping to rest. I mean, actually stopping and sitting down for a few minutes, not just pausing on the trail to catch my breath and/or enjoy the view. When I'm only hiking 2 or 3 hours, I don't so much need to stop, but when I'm going for 4-1/2 hours, really I should give my feet a break now and then, whether I feel like I need to or not.
Ah well, never mind the aches and pains. More positively:
I saw a butterfly bush with dozens of small orange butterflies fluttering around it.
I saw a bunch of black cows almost perfectly camoflaged under a tree's low-hanging branches. Only the occasional swish of a tail would lead you to notice the faint outlines of cow butts.
The views from up on the ridge in Wildcat Canyon are really fabulous. You can see downtown SF, and the Golden Gate bridge, and the bay looping around to the north...
The sky today was an amazing shade of blue.
I headed straight from brunch to Tilden, and hiked into Wildcat Canyon. I had a particular loop in mind, which I had estimated (although not actually taken the time to calculate in detail) to be about 10 miles. However, things kept leading to variations. At one point, I decided to take a detour to the Alvarado parking area in order to refill my water bottles -- but it turned out the map key lied, and there is no drinking water there, although there is drinking water at a trail junction a couple of miles back that is not marked on the map -- and which of course I had walked right by. Grrrr.
Then I got confused at another junction and turned off too soon, ending up on a very small trail instead of the fire road that I was aiming for. And then when that trail finally intersected a main trail, there was no trail marker, so I ended up heading back down into the valley when I intended to stay up on the ridge longer. After which I decided that just heading back to my car wasn't going to be quite enough, so I took another trail back up, adding both distance and difficulty to the hike.
[Aside: I am developing strong opinions about the information design of trail markers.]
Babble, babble. The point of all that being: I ended up hiking something over 11 miles, maybe close to 12 (hard to say exactly, since I wasn't on the map the whole time), and the last couple of miles were pretty painful. Throbbing feet, sore ankle, twinging knees, sore hips, twinging lower back... I am still feeling pretty sore even now that I'm sitting down, I think perhaps a soak in the tub is called for.
No doubt this will sound inanely obvious: I really must make a point of stopping to rest. I mean, actually stopping and sitting down for a few minutes, not just pausing on the trail to catch my breath and/or enjoy the view. When I'm only hiking 2 or 3 hours, I don't so much need to stop, but when I'm going for 4-1/2 hours, really I should give my feet a break now and then, whether I feel like I need to or not.
Ah well, never mind the aches and pains. More positively:
I saw a butterfly bush with dozens of small orange butterflies fluttering around it.
I saw a bunch of black cows almost perfectly camoflaged under a tree's low-hanging branches. Only the occasional swish of a tail would lead you to notice the faint outlines of cow butts.
The views from up on the ridge in Wildcat Canyon are really fabulous. You can see downtown SF, and the Golden Gate bridge, and the bay looping around to the north...
The sky today was an amazing shade of blue.