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January 28, 2012
Best Hikes in California? My Opinions, and a Request for Nominations
My kids are getting old enough to pursue more ambitious hikes, so I've started to think about some of the must-do hikes in California that we should consider. I've done a lot of hiking in California, and some hikes that stand out as especially memorable for me, roughly arranged north to south (where I've done more extensive reviews, I've linked to them):
* Lava Beds National Monument. It's not exactly hiking, but exploring the lava tubes is loads of fun. Bring a helmet, sweatshirt and flashlight.
* Fern Canyon, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. There are numerous fern canyons in California, but this gets my vote for the ferniest. It has the bonanza of being surrounded by a first-rate redwood forest. Gold Bluffs Beach is beautiful, and you're likely to see an elk herd along the way. Gold Bluffs Beach is a fantastic camping destination--it's where Lisa and I got engaged, August 9, 1995!
* Angel Island to Mt. Livermore. From the top, you get a 360 degree view of the San Francisco Bay, including downtown San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the East Bay mountains, Mt. Tam and Marin County. Often fog blocks some of the view, but the fog also adds to the visual interest. The military ghost towns on the island are worth a visit too. I enthusiastically recommend camping on the island as a bucket list item.
* San Bruno Mountain. On a clear day, the views of the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean are mesmerizing. When it's foggy (most of the time), at least you'll be able to enjoy the flowers blooming year-round.
* Mist Trail, Yosemite. Yosemite has many great trails, but this one stands out as a wonderful hike to a beautiful waterfalls--plus you're going to get wet, and you're almost certain to see rainbows. The big downside: people. Lots of them.
* Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park. These are the sand dunes you've seen in the Hollywood movies, and I think it is the prettiest sand dune system in California. Go at sunrise or sunset for the best scenery (or better yet, both).
* Telescope Peak, Death Valley National Park. On the east side, Death Valley. On the west side, Panamint Valley--which I think is even prettier. Beyond, views for up to 100 miles in every direction. As a bonus, Mahogany Flats campground is a fantastic desert campground.
* Anacapa Island to Inspiration Point. The view overlooking the other two Anacapa Islands and Santa Cruz Island is incredibly romantic.
* Hikes to the Desert Divide (part of the Pacific Crest Trail). To the west, Garner Valley, which I think is the prettiest valley in Southern California. To the east, the mountains of Joshua Tree Monument and the Coachella Valley stretching out to the Salton Sea. To the north, 10k+ feet San Jacinto and San Gorgonio mountains. To the south, 8k feet Santa Rosa Mountain. All around you, not a soul to be seen. All of the Desert Divide peaks are equally good in my opinion. Or, go straight for San Jacinto Peak for the best views (although you will see people there).
* Hiking in palm oases. Examples include Indian Canyons in Palm Springs and Borrego Palm Canyon in Anza-Borrego Park. My choice overall for convenience, cost and oasis quality is Coachella Valley Preserve in Thousand Palms.
You'll note that I didn't put any redwood-specific hikes on the list. For me, all redwood hikes are always worth doing, even when it's a second-growth forest--although old-growth forests are best. However, there's a certain sameness to redwood hikes, so it's hard to distinguish among them. Some of my favorite redwood destinations include Redwood National Park, Hendy Woods and Montgomery Woods. This site looked pretty helpful. Muir Woods and Big Basin, two of the most popular old-growth redwoods destinations, don't make my list because of the omnipresent crowds.
Still on my long-term to-do list: hike the Lost Coast, hike the Headwaters Forest Reserve, visit Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands, climb Mt. Whitney and climb Half Dome.
Other perspectives: Everytrail offers a fine list of contenders. Mt. Tallac is a strong contender for its Lake Tahoe panorama. The Berry Falls loop in Big Basin is a great Bay Area hike but it wouldn't make my cut overall. McWay Falls in Julia Pfieffer State Park is iconic, but it's a very short stroll and the trail doesn't really lead you close to the falls (the view is is fairly distant). The South Grove in Calaveras Big Trees State Park is worth doing, but it's "just" another redwood hike.
Another list from BestCaliforniaHikes. Golden Canyon in Death Valley is a wonderful hike; go in the early morning to get the best colors. Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley is pleasant but wouldn't make my top list.
Want more? Try Tripleblaze's top 100 list. However, I think this list is more about popularity than quality. For example, Jughandle State Reserve (#83) is entirely skippable. The Trails.com lists (North, South) are better but are still popularity-driven and not totally useful, e.g., it lists jeep trails, and #10 on the south list are "trails in Joshua Tree" (well, that narrows things down).
So, what are your favorite California hikes? I don't care where they are located in California, although I do prefer day hikes (including car camping if applicable) over backpacking destinations. Email me and let me know.
UPDATE: some of the suggestions I've gotten: Panorama Trail in Yosemite, Dipsea Trail (Muir Woods to Stinson Beach), Salmon Creek Trail in Big Sur.
UPDATE 2: I'll add Lobo Canyon on Santa Rosa Island to the list. Spectacular!
Posted by Eric at 04:46 PM | California Living , Travel | TrackBack
January 21, 2012
Rancho San Antonio County Park: Rhus Ridge to Black Mountain
See my photo album from this hike.
Rancho San Antonio is the nearest "hiking" park to my house, but I've never been a fan of it. I don't like the crowds or the fight for parking, but more than anything, I find the hikes there boring. It take 15+ minutes to get into the hills, and even after that investment, many of the trails are repetitive and visually uninteresting.
Recently, I tried a new trailhead in Rancho San Antonio, and it totally changed my attitude about the park. This time, I started at the Rhus Ridge parking lot and hiked to Black Mountain via the Rhus Ridge Trail and the Black Mountain Trail, a RT of about 9 miles and 2300 feet of elevation gain. In contrast to starting from the main Rancho San Antonio parking lot, the hike starts strong and keeps getting better. In fact, I think this is the nicest mid-range/half-day hike within a 20 (or even 30) minute radius of Mountain View.
Unlike many other trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains facing the Bay, where vegetation often obscures the view, the trail offers frequent panoramic vistas of the Bay from San Jose to Palo Alto, with Mt. Diablo and Mt. Tam poking up over the haze. Personally, I think the views along the way are better than the views from the top of Black Mountain. The trail goes through ecosystems ranging from moist and shaded ridgesides to fully exposed semi-arid chaparral. There was only one uninteresting spot when the trail goes along the power line easement for a bit (a number of Rancho San Antonio trails suffer from this defect), but it's brief. The first and last mile are quite steep, so it's a tough workout, but it's manageable for hikers that pace themselves, and the rest of the trail is nicely graded. Signage is excellent. I saw plenty of people but it wasn't "crowded" (the parking, discussed below, helps limit the crowds). All of Rancho San Antonio (and most parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains) gets frequent airplane noise. Refreshingly, the trail was mostly free of horse poop.
Two crucial downsides of this hike:
1) Like other Rancho San Antonio hikes, don't do this hike on warm days. I went when temperatures were in the 50s, and it was pleasant. Indeed, the perfect time to go is on a cool but sunny Winter day after a storm, when temperatures are comfortable but the storm has cleaned up the haze. In contrast, when the temperatures get into the high 60s or warmer, this hike will become miserable or even unbearable. On warm days (up into the 70s), I prefer hiking Wunderlich County Park because its trails are mostly shaded.
2) The parking lot is TINY! It holds maybe a dozen cars max. The local residents have done a good job making street parking illegal for a mile in every direction too, and I sense they take a perverse delight in towing illegally parked cars. The result is that finding a parking spot feels a little like winning the lottery. As usual, go early. The good news: if you can snag a spot, parking is free.
Posted by Eric at 04:35 PM | California Living | TrackBack
January 12, 2012
Fall Creek Unit, Henry Cowell State Park
I love redwood hikes, and we are blessed with many fine ones in the Bay Area. But finding the "perfect" redwood destination is tricky. It needs to be a nice redwood forest, and some of the more convenient redwood hikes aren't that redwoody. Plus, driving to the destination should not be a chore. The best redwood hikes, buried deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, require a time-consuming drive over twisty roads that nauseate my kids and can ruin the experience for everyone.
When I'm in the mood for a quick redwood hike, I typically go to Wunderlich County Park in Woodside, which is quite good but suffers from less-than-peak redwoodiness, plenty of crowds, and lots of horse poop. When I'm in the mood to drive a little longer for a better redwood experience, my new favorite is Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell State Park. Its selling points:
* redwoodiness: the park is in prime redwood country. It was heavily logged a century ago, but it remains a first-rate second-growth redwood forest. The lovely year-round Fall Creek enhances the scenery.
* convenience: it's just a half-mile outside of Felton. Getting there via Highway 17 is no joy, but I find 17 OK if I leave early and drive slow. The park's official website instructs visitors to drive to Santa Cruz and then back to Felton on Highway 9, but it's quicker for Valley residents to take 17 to Mt. Hermon Road, which turns into Felton Empire Road as it crosses Highway 9. The park entrance is just a half-mile further on Felton Empire on the right. Door-to-door from Mountain View is about 40 minutes with no traffic (only about 15 minutes each way more than Wunderlich for a noticeably better redwood experience).
* bonus attractions. In addition to top-quality and convenient redwood hike, Fall Creek Unit has other points of interest, including limekiln ruins (lime is used to make cement, which helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 fire) and the ruins of a cooperage which manufactured redwood barrels to ship the lime. The park also offers its own named redwood tree, "Big Ben," which I found underwhelming and not worth the extra hike (but the extra hike was worth it for other reasons). My favorite part of the park was "Lost Camp," an incredibly scenic hollow. Note: when we went, the signage from the Fall Creek Trail going to the Big Ben Trail was missing, so we blew right past it. Pay close attention at that intersection. See the entire photo album from our hike.
* free parking! The parking lot isn't that big, so go early. On the plus side, once we got past the limekilns, we pretty much had the park to ourselves.
Wunderlich remains my default redwood hike, but Fall Creek Unit is a great option to add to my mix. Plus, Felton or Santa Cruz offer convenient after-hiking festivities if time permits.
Posted by Eric at 04:03 PM | California Living | TrackBack
January 07, 2012
Coachella Valley Preserve: Hiking Through Oases and Moon Country
Hikes in the Palm Springs area tend to come in three varieties:
1) Local hikes from the Valley floor up to a ridge. These hikes tend to be steep thighbusters but they usually reward fit hikers with nice views.
2) Flat hikes along the Valley floor, which are often boring.
3) Mountain hikes, such as along the Desert Divide or in the Santa Rosa Wilderness or in Joshua Tree National Park, which are wonderful hikes but usually require a long and twisty drive to get there.
This is why the Coachella Valley Preserve, located beyond Thousand Palms basically near the end of Ramon Road, is such a revelation. It has everything going for it: interesting things to see; some reasonably level trails; close to the Valley's cities, especially for people staying down-Valley like in Palm Desert; and as an added bonus, free parking! Among other advantages, this is one of the few hikes on the Coachella Valley side of Joshua Tree and the Little San Bernardino Mountains; most hikes in Joshua Tree require a lengthy drive around the mountains to Twentynine Palms.
We hiked from the visitor center to McCallum Oasis, then took the loop trail through Moon Country. Total hiking distance of about 4 miles. Had we not been dragging along two very tired kids, we could have done the trail in about 90 minutes. The trail had three highlights:
1) Thousand Palms Oasis, a nice oasis. I must say that I love hiking to and in oases. A stand of palm trees may be my favorite type of trees to hike in/to (after redwoods of course). The California fan palms are lovely. In addition, I love the feel of oases. They are cool, green and lush--a stark contrast to their surroundings--and they attract all sorts of interesting fauna, especially birds.
2) McCallum Oasis. A little smaller than Thousand Palms Oasis, it had the added bonus of a small gorgeous pond and a small stream running off it. Really stunning.
3) A vista point on the hillside above McCallum Oasis. The vista point has a wonderful birds-eye view of McCallum Oasis and a 180 degree view of Joshua Tree National Park, with a through-the-gap view of San Gorgonio Peak.
This is earthquake country; the oases are clustered along the San Andreas fault where springs come through the gaps in the earth's plates. The fault isn't really "visible" but it's still a neat (and slightly unsettling) context.
I love hiking to the oases in Indian Canyon, but I recommend this hike over those. The pricetag for admission to the Indian Canyons has gotten too steep; it would cost over $30 for our family of four to go there, while this hike is free. Perhaps the Indian Canyon oases are a little nicer (the views of the Desert Divide and Palm Springs certainly are nice), but not $30 nicer, and the Coachella Valley Preserve is close enough that the drive time from Palm Springs is worth it. So it's hard to justify the high prices of Indian Canyon when this option is free.
The signage is pretty good on the trail, but all of the precautions about desert hiking apply: wear good shoes, drink lots of water, use sunscreen and remember that everything looks closer in the desert than it actually is. Hiking here during hot weather would be just miserable.
Our photo album from our visit.
Posted by Eric at 05:30 PM | California Living , Travel | TrackBack
January 05, 2012
Social Media Photos Foil Yet Another Litigant--Clement v. Johnson's Warehouse
Clement v. Johnson's Warehouse Showroom, Inc., 2012 Ark. App. 17 (Jan. 4, 2012)
In my long-running series of litigants saying one thing in court and another when talking to their friends online, consider this from a worker's comp case after a refrigerator fell on Clement:
The first issue Clement raises in his brief is whether pictures of him that appeared on Facebook and MySpace should have been admitted into evidence. He complains that the pictures “are a disgrace to the dignity of the workers' compensation proceedings and the legal system” and have nothing to do with his medical treatment....
We find no abuse of discretion in the allowance of the photographs. Clement contended that he was in excruciating pain, but these pictures show him drinking and partying. Certainly these pictures could have a bearing on Clement's credibility, albeit a negative effect that Clement might not wish to be demonstrated to the ALJ or the Commission. We hold that there was not an abuse of discretion in allowing the photographs.
Now that Facebook can do facial recognition, it should next develop a tool to automatically detect photos depicting alcoholic drinks and give users a way to automatically opt-out of those photos!
Prior blog posts in this series:
* YouTube Video Impeaches Witness' Credibility--Ensign Yacht v. Arrigoni
* Facebook Entries Negate Car Crash Victims' Physical Injury Claims
* Contrary MySpace Evidence Strikes a Litigant Again--HAC, Inc. v. Box
* MySpace Postings Foil Another Litigant--Sedie v. U.S.
* Disturbingly Humorous MySpace Posts Used as Impeaching Evidence in Spousal Abuse Case--Embry v. State
* Latest Example of Social Networking Site Evidence Contradicting In-Court Testimony--People v. Franco
Posted by Eric at 11:20 AM | Blogosphere Issues | TrackBack