There’s an easy way and a hard way to get to Black Mountain, a 2,800-foot summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains west of San Jose. I’ve done the easy route a couple times with Mike and Kathy’s hiking group for…
Day hikes I’ve done
Why Castle Rock, uh, rocks
by tmangan • November 19, 2006 • 0 Comments
Castle Rock State Park is not my favorite place to hike. Not even in my Top 3 (Henry Coe, Big Basin, Sunol Wilderness) … too many people, too few butt-buster trails. I’ve gone there twice in the past three weeks…
Out looking for some wreckage
by tmangan • November 18, 2006 • 0 Comments
I’ve hiked up the Monument Peak Trail at Ed Levin County Park dozens of times but only recently did I learn I had been walking right past remnants of a plane crash on the hill back in the 1950s. I…
Forest of Nisene Parks State Park: A good day to be in the woods
by tmangan • November 12, 2006 • 1 Comment
So I arrive at a municipal parking lot in Los Gatos where I’m supposed to meet my fellow hikers and I see some folks milling about. They look gray-haired and respectable, so I park the Hiker Hauler and wander over.…
Another hike with Seagull
by tmangan • November 5, 2006 • 0 Comments
When last we encountered Seagull, my Chinese hiking friend, the two of us traveled to Point Reyes to gaze upon elk and the Pacific Ocean. Since then Seagull came upon a Chinese-American outdoors club based in San Francisco that took…
A pleasant hike
by tmangan • October 29, 2006 • 0 Comments
This is the driest, sunniest autumn of the three I’ve spent trudging through the Bay Area hills. For three weeks running I’ve had perfect picture-taking weather and pleasant, breezy miles on the trails. I can’t imagine how much mud I’ll…
Winehiker revisited
by tmangan • October 22, 2006 • 1 Comment
This week we revisit Russ Beebe of CaliforniaWineHikes.com, whom I accompanied last month for a swell hike at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, followed by a wine tasting at a vineyard near the park. Russ was a co-conspirator in my…
More hills, more trees, more skies
by tmangan • October 16, 2006 • 0 Comments
Last weekend’s festivities in the wilds near Lake Shasta left me a bit glum at the prospect of finding new and interesting stuff to write about back in the in the comparatively mundane hills of the Bay Area. But then…
Back in the hills nearby
by tmangan • October 2, 2006 • 1 Comment
Summer flew the coop while we were wandering around in southern Utah. The weather was cool all week; it was overcast all day Saturday and Sunday dawned much the same. The breeze felt like October, which was convenient, given that…