Next scouting mission for my Mercury News “Hikes” column: Portola Redwoods State Park. Portola’s another of those “second-growth” redwood forests that sprang up after the previous redwood forest got clear-cut. The park map shows the Old Tree Trail about a…
Author Archive for tmangan
Fedak’s favorite hiking links
by tmangan • July 6, 2007 • 2 Comments
Fedak sent me a bunch o’ hiking-related links for my “essentials” series the other day. All commentary is his: These are more peak bagging sites, but since most peaks have an approach hike these often double as hiking guides. Snow…
Backpacking the Santa Cruz Mountains
by tmangan • July 6, 2007 • 2 Comments
My recent hikes at Sanborn Skyline County Park, which has a nice walk-in campground about three miles from Skyline Boulevard, made me wonder if there might be a lot more overnighting possibilities that people might’ve overlooked. Tom Taber’s “Santa Cruz…
Latest Hikes column posted
by tmangan • July 5, 2007 • 2 Comments
It’s a pretty quick take on a very big park. The intro: There’s a tree-hugger born every minute at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The seductive charms of the park’s towering ancient redwoods become evident the minute you step on…
Least likable Bay Area trails
by tmangan • July 4, 2007 • 5 Comments
It struck me the other day that I sometimes feel compelled to ooze nothing but niceness about the local trails. Most are good to great, it’s true, but they can’t all be, and besides, a little bellyaching is good for…
A nod to Gambolin’ Man
by tmangan • July 4, 2007 • 0 Comments
I managed to omit Gambolin’ Man’s blog from the collection of essential sites I posted the other day. Its owner, who also has the good sense to be named Tom, is a honcho of sorts at the University of California…
Off topic: An Alaska adventure
by tmangan • July 3, 2007 • 2 Comments
Yeah, so, my vow of chastity to write only about Nor-Cal stuff has lasted about 47 minutes at last count. It’s all because an Oregon-based writer/climber/podcaster named Fitz Cahall sent me a link to his latest ‘cast, which describes one…
Steepest Bay Area trails
by tmangan • July 3, 2007 • 11 Comments
One of my favorite threads at the BAHiker.com bulletin board asks folks to share the steepest local hikes. There’s wide consensus that a section of old gravel road at Henry Coe State Park known as the Hobbs Road Short Cut…
Site revised
by tmangan • July 2, 2007 • 3 Comments
I tweaked the pages a bit and diddled with the color scheme, so now with that out of the way I can get working on more actual fresh content — it’ll have to wait till tomorrow, though, because I have…