Through the Crowded Parts of Rancho San Antonio

The Only Section I Hiked Alone

It’s sweet to share a big hiking project with a beloved who accepts and enjoys my quirks.  (Like when I say, “Let’s start this hike by putting our feet exactly where we left off last hike,” and Geri smiles in delight.)

But I wound up hiking this section through Rancho San Antonio alone.  Geri wasn’t free on weekdays and the park was crazy crowded on Sundays.  This was still early days of COVID, long before vaccines.  We wore masks and tried to keep social distance but maskless joggers practically mowed us down, and we seemed to see clouds of green virus haze puffing from their panting mouths.  Family groups pressed in on all sides, way closer than six feet.

After a few hundred feet of dodging left and right, weaving around clusters, and leaping back as someone elbowed by, we gave up and turned around.

Geri said, “You know, I’m okay if you just come here during the week and hike this section on your own.  I think once we get up to the Mora trailhead it’ll be less crowded.”

So a few days later, I did just that.  Midweek the park was not jammed but it was still crowded enough that I kept my mask on, breathing only my own smells. At least give the smaller crowds the required six-foot distance.

Still Delighted by People

Even in a pandemic, you can still be delighted by people.  By a big log stood a man with a polo shirt, a little boy hiding behind his leg.  A round-faced woman with long hair leaned over, hands on knees, to smile at the boy.  “Hi Charles,” she said brightly.

“Aren’t you going to say hi to Ms. Kenworthy?” the dad asked, smiling.  “She’s your favorite teacher.”

But the little boy just shook his head, almost crying.  He’d probably never seen his teacher with a mask.

“It’s okay,” the teacher said.  “He doesn’t know what to make of meeting me outside of school.  And things are so crazy now anyway.”

I looked at the huge eyes on the kid.  On top of everything else, he surely thought teachers lived at school.  They weren’t supposed to be anywhere else.

I walked on, smiling, staying on a wide fire road because it was easier to keep social distance than on crowded foot trails.  In a clearing near a little bridge, stood a bearded man with a little girl on his shoulders.  Neither were masked but nobody was within six feet of them. The child waved to a crow which must have been half as big as she was.

“Hello!  Hello!” she called.  The father smiled and bounced her.

So sweet.

And Animals

A bit later, I saw a lovely deer doing… never mind.

I Used to Love to Backpack

Memories: I used to love to backpack.  Before CMT, I carried a sixty-pound pack (yes, I weighed it).  I sweated and toiled and hated the weight but I didn’t want to be one of those compulsive backpackers who file down their toothbrushes and weigh their underwear.

Then the Shark Tooth bit and I couldn’t backpack anymore.  I eventually forced myself to let go of my old gear rather than lug it from apartment to apartment.  Even when I met Geri and we started car camping together, I thought backpacking was forever off the table.

But I found a website by a guy who called himself Adventure Alan and said he backpacked with nine-pound loads.  Hell, my day pack weighed more than that!  His load list was missing too many things I’d want to have but I thought I could get the load down to, say, 25 lbs.  Into the doable range.

And so Geri and I started dreaming.  We made trips to REI together to scope out gear, Geri nervous but excited because she’d never been backpacking before.  We both got sticker shock at the cost of even the preliminary round of purchases but I bought the gear Alan recommended.  I even took the plunge and got a down sleeping bag.  I used to be allergic to feathers but 3 years of shots at Kaiser had made my allergies enough better.

Trusting the Salesman

The salesman steered me away from the insulating air mattress that Alan recommended.

“It crinkles when you move a muscle.  You’ll feel like you’re sleeping on a bag of potato chips.  The Big Agnes brand is much better.”  I took his advice, not knowing that the one Alan recommended had an official warmth rating while the Big Agnes ones just had the company’s informal promise that it would “keep you toasty warm.”

I made a shakedown car camping trip to try out the new gear.  I was too cold but I thought it was the lighter weight sleeping bag I’d bought at first.  After I got the down bag, I tested my gear again on the porch outside my home and everything seemed fine.

I felt confident enough to plan my first real test: an easy solo two-night trip to Sky Camp, a backpacker’s camp at Point Reyes National Seashore.

A short 1.5 mile walk in with gear I’d already tested.  What could go wrong?

If you guessed “plenty,” you’d be right.  But more about that next post.

Soaring Out of the Crowds

Today I came to a complicated intersection where two roads and 4 trails all came together.  The trail I wanted, the Mora Trail, was the 2^nd road on the right and it went backwards, paralleling the way I’d come, separated by a fence for more than a hundred feet before it peeled off and started climbing.

The crowds melted away with the first steep hill and I could take off my mask and breath fresh air at last.  There were just hawks in the hard blue sky and the wheaten gold of the bare hillside.  I squinted: no, those weren’t hawks, they were vultures.  A ranger had told me once how you can tell a hawk from a vulture: the wings of vultures make a V for Vulture.

The trail was paved, but steep.  Easier footing and less chance someone with CMT would slip or trip but my feet in their leg braces got pounded with each step.  Up and up and up.  A little house: a park residence.  The road climbed higher.

At last, I crested the hill and sat panting in the sun near a smooth green water tank.  A bug crawled onto my jeans: green with a shimmering iridescent metal back. I picked him off gently and flicked him into the dry yellow grass. He climbed a stalk and faced me, antennae wiggling.  He had, I’d swear, a smile, like a cute alien.

I hadn’t hiked far but the limitations of CMT are such that I didn’t have time or energy to do that one little tenth of a mile downhill and then back up to take myself to the Mora gate.

That’s ok.  I have a beloved who delights in my quirks.  When I told her that next time we’d have to first hike a tenth of a mile to the water tank and back, she smiled.

Here’s the usual map of our route so far.