Wednesday, April 4, 2007

April Foolery at Almaden Quicksilver - Sun Apr 1

April Fools Day arrived and coincidentally was the re-scheduled date for the April W.A.I.S.T. Management hike at Almaden Quicksilver County Park.

We had a great turnout: me, Alberto (the leader; great job), Sarah, Michael, Jay, Anne, Maura, Barbara, Ed, and Linda (a special occasion to have her join us).  11 if you count Raleigh.

It was a modest hike.  We went up the Virl O. Norton Trail, wandered along the Randol Trail (with some detours) and then down the Buena Vista Trail to the New Almaden Trail which by which we returned to the parking lot.

The biggest detour was to climb up the Day Tunnel Trail only to find there wasn't anything of interest at the top.  So we turned around and retraced our steps on that one.  We were looking for the old mine shaft entrance where you can walk a ways into the tunnel.  That must be one of the other marked mine sites we didn't get to (San Cristobal, Santa Isabel, or April tunnels).

On the first major downhill after leaving the parking lot we found a group of bicyclists in the trail.  One women was sitting with her head kind of between her knees.  We asked if we could help but they said no.  A few minutes later, a fire truck drove up and administered first aid of some sort.  I'm not sure how that turned out.

We stopped for lunch at the Buena Vista mine site.

On the way back, Maura slipped on the wet rocks crossing Randol Creek.  She used her left arm to break her fall, and unfortunately, broke her wrist.  Ouch.  But she was amazing.  Jumped back up, refused to stop, and continued on to the end of the hike.  I was kind of worried we might have to summon that fire truck to come back, but that wasn't necessary.

We enjoyed a beer in the nice picnic area (although Maura declined in order to get to the hospital to get her arm fixed).  Thanks to Michael for that.

The hike was claimed to be around 4 miles but I added up the official length of all the trail segments and it came to over 5 miles.  I'm guessing 600' elevation gain (the top of the Day Tunnel trail is at 1200' according to the map).  Not too bad.

Next month is Bay to Breakers.  Remember we're doing the naked centipede thing again this year! (April Fools!).

But Barbara hinted at some kind of surprise extra-curricular hike the first weekend of the month.  Stay posted for that.

Hike totals: 5 miles,600' elevation gain

2007 totals: 113 miles, 25,900' elevation gain

Moon Over Mt. Eden - Sat Mar 31

On Saturday I took a break from various projects around the house to do a quick hike at the Mt. Eden trailhead at Stevens Creek County Park.

Raleigh and I went left at the start of the trail, down along the edge of the neighborhood there to the small corral (with 3 horses and 1 pig, as I noted in a previous post).  I had my altimeter and took careful measurements to see how much climbing this trip involved.

You go up maybe 25 feet from the parking lot, then descend to a little dry creekbed close to the road, then climb up another 25' or so to the washed out section of trail, then descend to the corral.  That's at 725' (according to my altimeter).  From there it is uphill the whole way to the end of the trail at the vineyard.

 

As you can see, it was getting dark.  That spot was at 1375' give or take.  So 650' climb from the bottom.  Add the little uphills along the way and it's a 700' gain for this loop.  Obviously, it is way more if you take the loop in the opposite direction :-).

Nothing much to note along the way.  It's just nice to be able to get out and away from civilization within a 15 minute drive from one's house.

Hike total: 2 miles, 700' elevation gain

2007 totals: 108 miles, 25,300' elevation gain