Last night Mom and I watched Jeopardy and one of the answers was ‘What is an Eisenhower jacket?’ This prompted mom to tell me a story about a time during the war when her two older sisters were fighting over who got to wear an Eisenhower jacket. They only had one and both wanted to wear it. I guess sisters have fought over clothes for decades!
Today I went for a hike on Mount Tam. I was driving up the mountain as the sun was rising, there was a beautiful view of the Bay and San Francisco.
I parked at Pantoll, excited to hike on the Steep Ravine trail, which I haven’t been on for a while, it’s one of my favorite trails on Tam. Unfortunately the trail was closed for maintenance, guess I should have checked the state park website before I left! It ended up being a good thing though, as I was forced to take a different route and went on a few trails that I have not been on before. I started on the Old Mine Trail which is an accessible trail, very well groomed and a beautiful, winding meander amongst the trees. The views of the ocean and mountains were gorgeous from the bench at the end of the trail. Next I took the TCC trail (beautiful redwoods and Douglas firs) to Van Wyk Meadow (which had a Population 3 Stellars Jays sign) and joined the Bootjack trail, stopping for a bathroom break at Bootjack. During this whole time I only passed one other person on the trails! I proceeded on the Matt Davis trail, which had some huge rocks to scramble over but great views of the bay, to the Nora trail – which gave my glutes a good workout! – up to the West Point Inn.
The West Point is one of my favorite places on Mount Tam, I’ve been lucky enough to stay there a few times and it’s such a treat. Today I sat in one of the rocking chairs on the porch, for the first half hour I was the only person sitting there. There were some bikers and a few hikers who stopped at the tables outside, but nobody else came up to the porch. I had an incredible view of the busiest hummingbird feeder I have ever seen. There were times where they were seven or eight hummingbirds flying around it. It was mesmerizing to watch them flit around, especially as the background was the Bay and San Francisco with the sun shining on the water. After a while a large hiking group showed up and took over a couple of the tables so I moved down to a bench in the sunshine to eat my lunch and read. It was heavenly.
When I was finished I struck out on the Rock Springs Trail to the Mountain Theater, many memories here from going to see Mountain Plays over the years. I’ve probably seen two dozen at least. My favorite was one of the years that they put on The Sound of Music and as the play started, the actors came in from the side of the theater singing ‘Climb Every Mountain’ as fog floated around them. It was just like in the movie, it was amazing! From the Mountain Theater I took the Easy Grade Trail down to Old Stage Road and back to Pantoll. It was about a 9 mile trek with a decent amount of elevation fall and gain. What a great way to spend the day!
