Hike #2 : Phoenix Lake

Hike #2! We've gone hiking twice this year and it's only January 3!

This was hike #8 in the book, another easy one: Phoenix Lake, Tucker and Bill Williams Trails. It was supposed to be only 3.5 miles but we did a compete loop around the lake which put us at at least 4 miles. We're planning to get in shape for longer hikes this Spring.


Winter hiking is so different from any other season. The much shorter days, the nip in the air, the trails muddy from recent rains. Still, I'm glad to live in a place where we can do this year round. I had never heard of Phoenix Lake before seeing it in this book, and indeed, it seems like a place that mostly Ross locals go. No entrance fee, but a teeny tiny parking lot with barely any street parking allowed. There were a lot of people there - I'm not sure if people are fired up from resolutions, or if that's always the case. And they're so nice! Two men stopped and asked us if we needed help as we consulted the book for directions at trail junctions - one of them a runner who came to a total stop. I coined a new phrase for Dave: Marin Nice!

The trail was wide and open for most of the part around the reservoir, but the Tucker/Williams part of the trail was very woodsy, taking us around super steep ravines and winding creeks. It was great to be out and about outdoors. I'm so out of shape right now but I felt really energized. Yay, 2010 hiking!

Hello, Twenty-Ten!

I love a new year - I love to make resolutions! Like this one:

So, back in 2001 I bought a book called 101 Hikes in the Bay Area. I had just started hiking with OAC, and I thought it would be cool to do all 101 hikes in the book. I knocked off more than a few, both with OAC and on my own with friends. When Sweetie and I met - thank god he likes to hike! - we had a goal of completing the book together. We've done just under twenty hikes from the book - the wedding and all the planning it involved really sidetracked things. We intended to pick up where we left off, but I don't know, 101 suddenly seems like such a daunting number. And since the book was published in 2001, I wondered how much of the information was out of date. So, we picked a new book to get through: Falcon Guide's Best Hikes Near San Francisco. Forty hikes in one year? I think we can totally do it. Yay, a project! It's like my own version of Julie & Julia, only with less butter.


Yesterday we started with hike #18: The Presidio - Lovers' Lane and the Ecology Trail. I have a hard time calling this a hike because of the short distance and also because this is pretty much what I do for exercise (a.k.a. my hour-long hilly walks around my neighborhood), but whatever, it's in the book, so it counts.

Though I'm very familiar with this part of the Presidio due to said walks, Dave hadn't really ventured out here, despite the fact that the Presidio Gates are a ten-minute walk from our apartment. I had been wanting to bring him out there ever since we moved here - over ten months ago now! I didn't want us to move away from here some day and be like "Oh, we never went to the Presidio..." You have to take advantage of these things when they're right in your backyard.

Anyway, it was a lovely little hike on a gray overcast day, complete with - of course! - a kiss on Lovers Lane. A nice way to start the year.

Half Dome

I was skimming the headlines on SFGate tonight, and my jaw dropped when I got to this one: "Hiker falls to his death from Yosemite's Half Dome." It was short on details, but it seems that weather conditions may have been a factor, since it was cold and cloudy and there had been some hail, which made the slippery granite rock even slicker. The story mentioned that "The last death at Half Dome was Japanese hiker Hirofumi Nohara, 37, who slipped off of cables on June 16, 2007 as other hikers watched in horror."

I was there that day, June 16, two years ago, and I was one of those people who watched in horror.

I remember that after a long, hot, wait -- it gets so, so crowded up there at the cables -- it was finally my turn to head up the steep granite part of the trail leading to the top of the Dome (it's not scary once you get to the top - they could put a football field up there). Just as I put on my gloves and was reaching down to pick up the cables, I heard a clatter coming from the sheer drop just up and to the left of me. In the space of one second, my mind processed what my eyes were seeing: "Oh no, some hiker near the top lost his Nalgene bottle and it's tumbling down the hill. Oh no, there's a backpack tumbling after it. Oh shit, that's not just a backpack, that's a man tumbling down the side!''

It was AWFUL, truly one of the most AWFUL things I have ever seen. Other hikers started yelling at him to grab on to something, but there was nothing to stop his fall - just smooth, steep granite. He was much too far out of reach - a good 20 feet away from the nearest person on the cables, and getting further away the further he fell. There was nothing anyone could do. Most people stared, but I had to turn away - I couldn't look. But not before taking a step further to the right, so that if he abruptly changed trajectory and headed our way he wouldn't take us down with him. Amazing, how that instinct for self-preservation kicks in.

Afterwards, people were shell-shocked - some were crying, some were just quietly stunned. I was in the latter category. Since my group was splintered - some were already at the top, the rest of us were still down below - I sat and waited there for the others to come down. I remember thinking "What am I doing out here? This is so dangerous, always traipsing off into the wilderness like this where anything can happen." I was ready to hang up my hiking boots for good.

I got over that feeling. But another feeling remains: anger. Anger that such a dangerous, difficult hike has grown so popular that on a summer weekend you'll see hundreds (thousands?) of unprepared people swarming the trails so they can "do" Half Dome. Anger at all the people who don't take it seriously enough - they arrive with inappropriate footwear (tennis shoes do not cut it), inadequate water, clothing that's not right for conditions that can turn on a dime. Anger at all those frat boys who drag their skimpily clad, terrified girlfriends along - because they're often the ones who are crying halfway up the cables, frozen in fear, so that no one behind them can move and it turns into a dangerous situation for all. Anger at all the parents who do that to their kids; my first time up Half Dome, I was behind a petrified 12 year-old who held up the line. Her mother didn't take her fear seriously, even though she whined all the way up, and then when they were stuck she had to be helped down by a stranger. Anger that all these things happen every weekend and yet nothing is done to regulate it. I say do a lottery - limit the number of people who can go up the cables every day, and make sure the ones who do are prepared. It might alleviate a lot of this.

I don't think I'll hike Half Dome again, even on a day when it's less crowded. I did it once, and I have too many bad memories of my second attempt. No loss - there are tons more trails I have yet to do.

I did go back to Yosemite two months later. I hiked to Cloud's Rest from Tuolomne. It's a long hike - 14 miles, with a section at Cloud's Rest that, while not as frightful as the final part of the Half Dome climb, nonetheless scares me a little (you're walking on big boulders with long drops on either side). I was hoping it would be cathartic, and it was. At Cloud's Rest you're actually a little higher than Half Dome, and it feels like you're looking down on it. I borrowed binoculars and watched the line of people making their way up the cables, slow as ants. I was glad I wasn't there with them.

Anyway, I suppose the surprising thing is that stuff like this doesn't happen more often at Half Dome. You'd think it would. I'm glad it doesn't. But I was dismayed to read that it happened again. My thoughts go out to that guy, his family, and especially to any friends who might have been there that day to witness it. It's something that I wish no one would have to see.