Hiking at Russian Ridge
This past Sunday we broke our spell of being stay-home slugs over the weekend and got out hiking. We'd been saying for a few weeks, "Let's go hiking this weekend." Yesterday was the day we finally did it.
Ironically yesterday was also the first day of Daylight Wasting Time, i.e. the first day after ending Daylight Saving Time. That's ironic because usually once the clocks change we get depressed with how it gets dark early and that becomes a disincentive to being active outdoors. But yesterday we were both up early so we started pulling things together to go hiking at 9am.
We headed up into the Santa Cruz Mountains to one of our favorite hiking haunts, Russian Ridge Open Space. It's one of actually several dozen open spaces and county parks up in these mountains. Yes, we've been to almost all of them if not actually all of them! (You know we're avid hikers, right?) But we visit Russian Ridge more than any other because of its great network of ridge-top or near-ridge top trails offering views of the SF Bay to one side and the Pacific Ocean to the other. On clear days, downtown San Francisco, Mount Diablo, and other landmarks come into view.
This time we mixed it up a bit by going to a different trailhead within the park than we usually start at. It's actually the main trailhead, with an actual parking lot, instead of us parking on the roadside next to the Stanford Point overlook that is still stupidly closed "for the pandemic". (My bet is Caltrans just keeps choosing not to budget $10,000 to remove the barricades and reopen it.) Anyway, the trail from this spot starts with an uphill hump, but then you reach the ridgeline and the views really open up, as in the photo above.
A large, noisy group was nipping at our heels on the ascent, so we decided we'd wait at the first fork and go whichever way they didn't. 😅 That fork was at the base of the knob seen above. The fork is on the right edge of the frame, halfway up. The group loudly announced they were going left, so we went right. 🤣 Then as we got halfway up toward the next hill we saw they changed their minds and were loudly ascending to the right, behind us. What to do? Emergency bail-out trail FTW! 😆
Many foot trails such this worn into the hillsides from years of use are marked "Stay out" to allow the natural grasses and other plants to recover. Not this one. The sign marked it closed to horses and bicycles, but not foot travel. We gladly escaped up to the top of the knob to avoid the noisy other hikers. Up atop the knob we actually avoided all other hikers. It't was great enjoying some solitude on a nice day.
The trek over the knob was serendipitous, too. It's rarely we walk little used side trails such as this. And it was the first of two meaningful changes of direction we took.
The side trek over the knob was a fun little diversion of about 0.5 km. Then we were back to one the main trails in the park, winding around just below the ridge to its west side. In the photo above you'd see the Pacific Ocean over at the far left, except it was completely socked in with heavy fog on Sunday.
This long stretch of trail looks pretty empty because it's on the backside of the ridge and further away from the main trailheads. As relatively easy as it is to get back here, few people bother to do it. We hiked for over a mile in near solitude, only sharing this stretch of trail with a few cyclists rolling through.
Update: Continued in part 2!
Ironically yesterday was also the first day of Daylight Wasting Time, i.e. the first day after ending Daylight Saving Time. That's ironic because usually once the clocks change we get depressed with how it gets dark early and that becomes a disincentive to being active outdoors. But yesterday we were both up early so we started pulling things together to go hiking at 9am.
We headed up into the Santa Cruz Mountains to one of our favorite hiking haunts, Russian Ridge Open Space. It's one of actually several dozen open spaces and county parks up in these mountains. Yes, we've been to almost all of them if not actually all of them! (You know we're avid hikers, right?) But we visit Russian Ridge more than any other because of its great network of ridge-top or near-ridge top trails offering views of the SF Bay to one side and the Pacific Ocean to the other. On clear days, downtown San Francisco, Mount Diablo, and other landmarks come into view.
This time we mixed it up a bit by going to a different trailhead within the park than we usually start at. It's actually the main trailhead, with an actual parking lot, instead of us parking on the roadside next to the Stanford Point overlook that is still stupidly closed "for the pandemic". (My bet is Caltrans just keeps choosing not to budget $10,000 to remove the barricades and reopen it.) Anyway, the trail from this spot starts with an uphill hump, but then you reach the ridgeline and the views really open up, as in the photo above.
A large, noisy group was nipping at our heels on the ascent, so we decided we'd wait at the first fork and go whichever way they didn't. 😅 That fork was at the base of the knob seen above. The fork is on the right edge of the frame, halfway up. The group loudly announced they were going left, so we went right. 🤣 Then as we got halfway up toward the next hill we saw they changed their minds and were loudly ascending to the right, behind us. What to do? Emergency bail-out trail FTW! 😆
Many foot trails such this worn into the hillsides from years of use are marked "Stay out" to allow the natural grasses and other plants to recover. Not this one. The sign marked it closed to horses and bicycles, but not foot travel. We gladly escaped up to the top of the knob to avoid the noisy other hikers. Up atop the knob we actually avoided all other hikers. It't was great enjoying some solitude on a nice day.
The trek over the knob was serendipitous, too. It's rarely we walk little used side trails such as this. And it was the first of two meaningful changes of direction we took.
The side trek over the knob was a fun little diversion of about 0.5 km. Then we were back to one the main trails in the park, winding around just below the ridge to its west side. In the photo above you'd see the Pacific Ocean over at the far left, except it was completely socked in with heavy fog on Sunday.
This long stretch of trail looks pretty empty because it's on the backside of the ridge and further away from the main trailheads. As relatively easy as it is to get back here, few people bother to do it. We hiked for over a mile in near solitude, only sharing this stretch of trail with a few cyclists rolling through.
Update: Continued in part 2!