Purisima Creek Redwoods and More

At Two-Heel Drive today, an extensive post about hiking at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. And the best part? The prettiest photo of an outhouse I've ever seen. Really. Follow the link to the article to see what I mean.

Deep in the woods at Purisima. Summertime's upon us in Silicon Valley and I've finally gotten it into my had that it's not necessary to spend every weekend sweating through dusty trails on hills that have gone from green to brown. Along the Santa Cruz Mountains nearest the Pacific Ocean, everything's green as all get out -- heck, there's even mud on the trails in a few parks.

One such park is Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, a few thousand acres of second-growth redwood forest that is one of the coolest hiking locales in these parts, temperature-wise and vibe-wise. It's on Highway 35, Skyline Boulevard, west of San Mateo, a bit of a haul from San Jose at over 30 miles, but worth the drive... [Two-Heel Drive]

A Couple Noteworthy Two-Heel Drive Posts

Tom of Two-Heel Drive shared a couple of posts that caught my eye yesterday. First, he reports that...

The Walkies. Elizabeth King, keeper of the Walktopia blog, dropped me an e-mail this morning reporting she had named Two-Heel Drive the Best Hiking Blog...

Congratulations, Tom!

Then, he tips his dusty and a bit sweaty hiking hat to one of my favorite Pacific Coast (heck, American) authors, Wallace Stegner and includes some of Stegner's words about the value of wilderness...

Found this link to his "Wilderness Letter" at the WTA blog.

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. Without any remaining wilderness we are committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life, the Brave New World of a completely man-controlled environment. We need wilderness preserved--as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds--because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it. It is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our insane lives. It is important to us when we are old simply because it is there--important, that is, simply as an idea.

John Muir's Footsteps

SFGate:

... a Santa Cruz couple are hoping to restore some popularity to one of the classic early views of Yosemite, reopening a 19th century door on what Muir came to regard as a holy vista -- the "sanctum sanctorum of the Sierra."

Donna and Peter Thomas, a husband-and-wife team of artists who spend most of their time producing hand-bound fine-press books, have rewalked a long-forgotten trail from San Francisco to Yosemite that Muir took, also mostly on foot, for his first Sierra visit in 1868. The couple spent two days last week on the last -- and certainly most spectacular -- segment of the trail into the valley, the culmination of a guidebook they're writing to help others follow Muir's footsteps.

Eventually, they'd like to see directional signs and even overnight accommodations along the 300-mile route they are calling "John Muir's trans-California ramble" -- as reminders of the continuing power of Muir's legacy and his infectious love of Northern California's outdoors.

"In 20 years, hundreds of people could be doing at least parts of this trip, maybe thousands," Peter Thomas said as he and his wife walked the last portion with a Chronicle reporter and photographer.

The full article is worth a read... and the whole trail sounds like it might be worth the walk!

Putting their lives on the line to keep others safe in Yosemite

A story in SFGate about Yosemite Search and Rescue:

Once little more than a rag-tag group of climbers who volunteered to help rangers in emergencies, a separate search and rescue program was established by the park service in Yosemite in 1974. It is now a force of at least a dozen highly trained technicians, with support from 20 expert rock climbers, nearly 100 park rangers and dozens of specialists -- from scuba divers to search dogs -- who are on call when circumstances demand.

There is plenty of demand. There were 219 search and rescue operations in Yosemite National Park last year, 216 in 2005 and 207 in 2004. That's approximately 40 more missions every year than a decade ago, park officials said.

Three Trees, Calero Hills

Three Trees. Calero Hills, California. June 2, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

A photo from my National Trail Days hike.

Greenland ice melt speeds up

SFGate:

NASA scientists reading signals from a satellite in orbit, and flying aboard a low-flying plane over Greenland, are finding fresh evidence of melting snows and thinning glaciers in vast areas of the massive island.

Their observations confirm the climate's warming trend in the far northern reaches of the world, they say, where changes in the circulation of waters feeding into the Arctic Ocean are altering crucial patterns of ocean currents there with effects that are increasingly uncertain.

The pace of glaciers sliding into the sea along Greenland's southwestern coast "is speeding like gangbusters this year," said William Krabill, leader of a NASA team that has just ended a three-week airborne mission probing glacier dynamics with lasers and radar.

National Trail Day - No Excuses!

Tom Mangan posts a reminder - and a call to action:

Reminder: National Trails Day is tomorrow. ... For all you Nor-Cal folks, the Bay Area Ridge Trail organization has a bunch of stuff happening tomorrow. The Santa Clara County Open Space Authority also has a little shindig happening in south San Jose.

Here's a Goggle News search of Trails Day events.

Now you have no excuses not to be hiking tomorrow. [Two-Heel Drive]

I see that there is some sort of event in the South Bay at a park I sometimes visit - I may just pop over there via a little hilly route from Calero Park.