"Is there ANYPLACE else on earth you’d want to be right now?" The guy’s breathing heavy with a look of orgiastic bliss on his face. As far as I know he has not just successfully seduced Eva Longoria, but you…
Day hikes I’ve done
A creek to fall for
by tmangan • September 10, 2006 • 2 Comments
There used to be a limestone quarry here. Then somebody found a better way to extract lime from the stone and the site fell into ruin. The guy who started the quarry cut down most of the trees and laid…
Warm thoughts of Henry Coe
by tmangan • August 27, 2006 • 3 Comments
Back to the dirt paths this week. I tempted fate and revisited Henry Coe State Park almost a year to the day after an ill-advised trek up the steepest trail in the park under a blazing, north of 95-degree sun.…
19 miles and counting
by tmangan • August 6, 2006 • 0 Comments
Did those birds really just crash into each other, I wondered? I was hiking along the Ohlone Wilderness Trail, hearing the occasional raptor screeches from high above me, when I saw what appeared to be a midair collision at the…
Another Tomales Point hike
by tmangan • July 30, 2006 • 0 Comments
In the past two weeks I have discussed the following with Seagull, my hiking visitor from China: The fundamental contradictions of American culture (standing for freedom, keeping slaves, for example). The Marketplace of Ideas theory (people will buy the good…
Working on my technique
by tmangan • July 23, 2006 • 0 Comments
"Lift your feet higher," the voice behind me says. "Lean back a little, balance your weight, and relax." For the first time in two years of hiking, I have a coach. His name is Shiguo, which sounds a lot like…
A silver medal day
by tmangan • July 2, 2006 • 0 Comments
I’ve been fixin’ to get ready to hike at Almaden Quicksilver County Park for months now. The park in the hills southwest of San Jose is not spectacular — no towering redwoods or fascinating rock formations — but it does…
Sunol in the sunshine
by tmangan • June 4, 2006 • 1 Comment
I knew I wanted to hike somewhere on Sunday; I just didn’t want to hike too hard, or think too hard, or drive too far. When the lazy gene kicks in, I start thinking about places where the pictures take…
Another trip to the big trees
by tmangan • May 30, 2006 • 0 Comments
Six miles into Portola Redwoods State Park is the Valley That Loggers Forgot. The park is in a section of the Santa Cruz Mountains where enterprising, forward-looking entrepreneurs clear-cut acre after acre to answer the Bay Area’s growing demand to…