The cool thing about Wilder Ranch State Park is how you get from one side to the other: Tunnels under Highway 1 connect the coast to the backcountry. The map shows two intended for human traffic, and those who’ve been…
Day hikes I’ve done
Wilder Ranch State Park, a first look
by tom • April 28, 2008 • 4 Comments
I spent Sunday at Wilder Ranch State Park, a couple miles north of the Santa Cruz city limits. The rest of the pictures are here. I’ll chat up this hike later, but I figured I’d throw some pictures up for…
A great hike to nowhere at Purisima Creek
by tom • April 26, 2008 • 2 Comments
There’s a rarely traveled corner of Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve where the trail goes deeper and deeper in to the woods, the grass gets taller and taller, and then, ultimately, the trail fades to nothing. I hiked this…
Sunday at the Marin Headlands
by tom • April 21, 2008 • 6 Comments
I never tire of the Marin Headlands. I drag all my visitors to see them — I even took my Mom up there in the middle of a blinding rainstorm (“there’s a spectacular coastline over there,” I promised, pointing to…
Latest Hikes column: Santa Teresa County Park
by tom • April 17, 2008 • 0 Comments
Santa Teresa, wildflower and mountain biker hub of south San Jose, gets the treatment. The park at San Jose’s southern edge is a magnet for mountain bikers who delight in molar-rattling rides along the rockier trails. Riders were out in…
Monday at Henry Coe: another Mount Sizer epic
by tom • April 15, 2008 • 11 Comments
My pal Vindu Goel is jetting off to Brooklyn this weekend to launch his new life as an tech guru for the New York Times, but he had to get one last Henry Coe hike out of his system. Not…
Sunday at Skyline Ridge, Russian Ridge
by tom • April 15, 2008 • 11 Comments
I’m scouting Skyline Ridge for a future column, and because you really can’t go wrong hiking there. It has ponds, easy trails, varied terrain, and a fair amount of wildflowers. Russian Ridge is far less sexy for the hiker purist…
Feedback on Grant Ranch article
by tom • April 4, 2008 • 0 Comments
This one arrived in today’s e-mail at work in regards to my profile of Joseph D. Grant County Park: Tom – Just a quick note to say that you did a good job on the Grant Ranch piece — I…
More Carrizo Plain pics
by tom • April 4, 2008 • 0 Comments
Carol took some most excellent pictures the weekend before last during our camp-out at Carrizo Plain National Monument. Check ’em out. (They leave mine in the dust).