The Hikes column in Thursday’s paper will be my last. For once it’s not an austerity measure imposed from above; it’s me being more frugal about my free time … basically all my hiking hours were going into the column, and it got to the point where I was putting in miles for pay rather than sauntering through the woods for fun.

Hopefully this will free me up to do some purely recreational hikes that aren’t necessarily bound by the limits of easy/moderate/hard hikes in within easy driving distance of San Jose.

All the columns will remain archived here, though.