A Peek at the Peak

Waning Crescent Moon

"When walking is outlawed, only outlaws will take walks." - Anonymous

Or something like that.

Today I sort of sneaked into Fremont Peak State Park and hiked the Cold Springs Trail all by my lonesome, sheltered-in-place, quarantined self. It was so quiet in my woodsy woods woodsy seclusion that I could hear myself metabolizing. My heart was beating thump-thump-thump and my tinnitus was ringing ting-ting-ting.That thump-and-ting thing was annoying until I walked for a bit and got used to it. Then another annoyance took its place. Is this what animal lives are like?

Soon I was hyper-alert to the stupid notion that now that people aren't around much, mountain lions were sure to be lurking up there somewhere. Looking at me. Curling their be-whiskered upper lips. Extending sharp claws on their burly fore-paws. Salivating. Flexing their hindquarters. Swishing their power tails. I was checking the trail behind me way more than usual for the first half mile, but I eventually relaxed. There is no point in spoiling a perfectly good hike with unwarranted wildcat fear, is there? Can cats smell fear? What about bears? Whatever! Shut up and walk!

The trail rolled up and down through the forest, littered with oak leaves and lined with Miner's lettuce and poison oak.The oaks and the madrones were interspersed, taking turns dominating the hillsides with the subtle changes in elevation. I had forgotten how much I like this place.

Moving along, my focus shifted to the small stuff. There were three main flower types, none of which I can correctly identify because I am stubbornly and happily ignorant that way. Besides, it is much more funner to make up your own names for flowers than it is to memorize something someone else made up. In that spirit, I would like to introduce you to Deirdre's Dimple. Isn't she lovely?

Back in the old days, when Uncle Sam put young dudes to work all over the country building trails and waterworks, this pump house served to move water from Cold Springs uphill to the campgrounds. The spring box is no longer functional, but the structure is hanging in there somehow, rickety and mossy and underpinned by fungi. Want to watch a cool documentary? Check out the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

One of the best parts of visiting Fremont Peak State Park is the view of the ocean from the peak. On a really clear day, you can see the beach shining far off in the distance. It's a great place to watch the sunset, too.

On cloudy days like today, the views are very different, but still pretty neat. Why? Because the wet marine layer settles into the valleys below the incoming clouds, creating a double layer with mountain tops poking through in the middle. Today's show was (truthfully) pretty mediocre but maybe looking at these pictures will at least give you the idea.

The beach is out there under the dividing line between the cloud layers.

The tops of the Diablo Range are visible poking out of the fog to the east.

Eventually, I climbed out of the woods into the lower parking lot below Fremont Peak. It was obvious that going up top would not be visually fruitful so I opted to return to my truck via the park road. 

This is one of the easiest peaks to bag in the whole state of California -
about thirty minutes from the parking lot to the summit.

I was not really being a scofflaw at all. It is still legal to walk or bike into the park as long as you don't block the locked entrance gate. There are multi-lingual signs with pandemic safety sayings and stick figure illustrations adorning the gates to remind you, just in case you forgot on the way up from town, that you are in a state of crisis. It could happen, I suppose. I had left Spugly the Spectacularly Ugly Palomino Transporter perched on the grassy edge of a winding narrow access road just beyond the park boundary, so I was cool with all the rules.

It's a very steep, hairpin-heavy, 11-mile bike ride up there, so only the elite riders in this area make it all the way. I only saw one rider coming up as I was going down. 

As yet, I think most of the very bored locals think you're not supposed to hike into the park. Ergo, they are all waddling around down on the De Anza Trail, making six feet look like three and chattering like they were in their kitchens. These practices, as you can imagine, greatly interfere with hearing one's heart beat. 

I had the good fortune of seeing a park ranger in town on Tuesday. I asked him for the real lowdown on the high country. He gave me the green light, so today I was in like Flint, strutting around like I owned the place in my very own quarantine park in the sky. Don't tell anybody! I want to do it again!

Peace, Love, and Social Distancing,

Jim