To Rancho San Antonio and Real Trails at Last
A Secret Back Entrance?
Rancho San Antonio Open Space is a beautiful park with hillside trails, quiet glades and hikes of all levels of challenge.
Geri and I hardly ever dare to go there.
The place is so damn crowded. There are three huge parking lots and by midday they’re crammed full and cars cruise every row; to get a spot you either block traffic for ten minutes if you see someone walking to their car – or you have idiot luck. Even the dozen disabled spots are taken.
But there might just be a secret back entrance. Geri and I were excited as we planted our feet in yesterday’s footsteps. Google Maps showed Rancho extending a pseudopod up to Interstate 280. And if you zoomed in enough, a slender pathway appeared, passing under the freeway to join city streets to the park.
Just because it’s on the computer doesn’t make it so; we might get there and find a barb-wire fence. A sensible disabled person would have scouted ahead by car, but that felt like cheating. We started walking along Oakhurst with hope in our hearts.
Special Gardens
If everything went right, this would be the last part of our hike along city streets. We paid special attention to the gardens. In one front yard the whimsical owners had hidden dozens of animal statues: bunnies peeped from behind poppies, lions crouched in glades, dogs cavorted along fences. Comic signs warned of various animals crossing.
(We drove back another day and left a rock Geri had hand-painted to look like an Easter Egg owl as a gift in front of a bunny statue.)
Last Stretch on City Streets
We turned onto a busy street and crossed Permanente Creek, the same dry bed we had sat beside the day before in Heritage Oaks Park but somehow it had filled with water in just a few blocks. The sidewalk became a graceful wooden footbridge.
Through a small shopping district and over four-lane Foothill Expressway, the noisiest part of our walk. Two dreary blocks along a frontage road breathing rubber dust and car exhaust and listening to traffic until we angled away from the expressway and houses sprang up again (they must be noisy places to live).
Right onto tiny Montclaire and right again onto Eva, which Geri and I both pronounce “Eh-vuh” even though we know it’s pronounced “Ee-vuh.” In Geri’s other household, one of the members has a girlfriend named Eva and that’s how she pronounces it.
Onto St. Joseph, the street which would go under 280 if the map was right. A sudden deluge of joggers, cyclists and walkers like us: that was a good sign. And one block later, the clincher: a sign that said, “Residential Parking Only.” Rich people with wide driveways and spacious garages always block people from parking on their street if there’s something popular nearby.
St. Joseph narrowed to one lane, getting prettier and noisier with each step. The squat slabs of the six-lane freeway appeared between the trees. And yes indeed, our one-lane road went under, barred by a gate but with ample room for walkers and cyclers.
Geri turned to me. “Nicely done, my love.” I flushed with the praise.
First Real Trail
We walked into the shadow of the echoing roar and into a scene (except for the noise) from the high Sierras: scant pine trees, meadows, brown wooden buildings. A short time later we were on a real trail at last, getting further from the drumming background with each step.
We found a way down to a gurgling creek (our friend Permanente once more) and carefully sat on trash bags without letting any parts of our bodies contact the bare ground. It was still early days of COVID and we didn’t yet know how careful you had to be not to touch surfaces.
At last we took off our masks gratefully, breathing fresh air. The freeway noise was gone, absorbed by the banks of moist earth.
A lizard did sideways pushups on a tree trunk. A red-bellied bird snagged a worm and flew away. It came back, hopped along the bank and caught another one. Geri said, “Oh dear.” She’s a vegetarian and her tender heart won’t let her kill even a mosquito in a camping tent (“Please catch it and put it outside”).
“The bird didn’t eat the worm,” I offered. “It picked it up and flew away with it. I wonder if it has a nest of babies it’s feeding.” At that she smiled. We sat admiring the complex pattern of hanging tree roots where the stream had undercut the opposite bank.
We’d made it to our first goal! We’d hiked from our front door to Rancho San Antonio park. Next would come the physical challenge of hiking to the Ridge.