Alpine Dam to Bon Tempe Dam Hike (January 5) Preview

(SHUTTLE HIKE --- NOTE EARLY START TIME - 9:15 A.M. --- TO ALLOW TIME TO CARPOOL.  CALL OR E-MAIL WENDY TO LET HER KNOW IF YOU ARE COMING)

We hike along a creek with lovely cascades and ferns. This is usually an interesting mushroom hike – in past years we've seen Toothed Jelly Fungus, Rosy Gomphidius, Cowboy's Handkerchief, and The Prince! The start is uphill with some stairs (but we’ll find lots to look at on the way), the end is level - and in between it’s up and down! We end up at the Bon Tempe Dam.  (Click here for a recap of the last time we did this hike on December 16, 2008).

Directions to trailhead:  Take the Fairfax-Bolinas Road. Turn in as you would to go to Lake Lagunitas. After the ranger station at Sky Oaks (but before Shaver Grade) there is an unpaved road to the right. Take this to Lake Bon Tempe and park.  MEET HERE AT 9:15 a.m. Porta potties are in the parking lot. (Click here for directions from the MMWD Web site).

From Bon Tempe we’ll carpool to the trailhead (near Alpine Dam). Do not pay the $8 day use fee (up $1 from 2009) at the Sky Oaks entrance kiosk if you plan to take people to the trailhead.  (The automated pay station accepts coins, $1, $5 and $10, but not $20 bills and Visa and Master Card credit cards ). We’ll need people who are not in a rush to take the driver’s back to their cars parked near Alpine Dam.

Carpool leaves St. Rita Church in Fairfax at 8:55 a.m.

Weather forecast:  As of Thursday, December 31, 2009, the National Weather Service forecast for this area on Tuesday, January 5th, was a for partly cloudy skies, a slight chance of showers, and a high near 59. (Click here for an updated forecast).

More on this hike: There is no comparable hike in the Martins' book, Hiking Marin, but we'll begin our hike just past the dam at Alpine Lake and head east on the Helen Markt Trail, eventually pick up one of the fire roads, and wind our way back to Bon Tempe Lake. (Click here to view, zoom in on, or print a map of the MWWD watershed lands).

Sign Up for Winter Meanders

The Winter session of Meandering in Marin is now listed on the College of Marin Community Education Web site.  The Meandering hikes are listed under "Marin Adventures" in the Course Listing section. (The hike schedule was not posted as of 12/22/09).

• Monday Meanders (Course # 15035 EC) run February 1 through March 22 (not class on February 15th, President's Day holiday)
• Tuesday Meanders (Course # 15036 EC) run February 2 through March 16.

Cost is $115.  Registration "officially" opens on Monday, January 4, 2010, but Dick Jordan was able to submit an on-line registration request on Tuesday, December 22, 2009.

Happy New Year from the Meandering in Marin on Tuesdays blog!

NEW! A Year of Meandering in Photos

We hiked over hill and dale in 2009, on Mount Tam, in the GGNRA, at Point Reyes, and elsewhere, as we meandered around Marin. Click here for 17 minute slide show set to Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" that recaptures our adventures during the past year.

Santa Delivers For Dick Jordan

Either Dick Jordan has been a very good boy indeed and has been rewarded by Santa, or all of his tweeting on Twitter and posting on Facebook during the last month has paid off.  Google "Dick Jordan" and his travel writing blog, Tales Told From The Road, comes up Numero Uno (at least for today) in the Google Search Results. The same thing happens if you Google titles for some of his blogs posts, such as "On Assignment in Hell" and "A Narrow Escape in London."

It's For The Birds (in April)

The Environment Action Committee of West Marin is planning a birding festival for April 23-25, 2010. Local birding experts such as Rich Stallcup, Jules Evens, and David Wimpfheimer are among those who will lead field trips and give talks. (Click here for more information. )

A Marin "Ag" Slideshow

Dick Jordan's wife, Cindy, works for the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.  He thought you'd enjoy this nifty little slideshow of scenes of Marin's farming community that was included in MALT's holiday card mailing to its members.

Another Fish Story

Today (Saturday, 12/19), the San Francisco Chronicle ran a front page story about the Coho salmon returning to spawn in Marin. Dick's friend, Megan, who helps run fish walks for SPAWN, gets quoted and her photo (well, her hands anyway) appear in the story. Click here to read all about it.

Still Shopping Til You're Dropping?

Inverness artist Kathleen Goodwin and photographer Richard Blair are offering discounts on their books.  Here's info from an e-mail Dick Jordan just received from them (with the above photo Richard shot after our recent snowfall):

"Happy holidays to you all.

"Here is an easy way to send a gift - call us and we can send our books to your recipients easily via UPS in time for Christmas. And we have great deals as well.

"We are offering Visions of Marin, our latest coffee table book on the wonders of Marin County for $25. In bookstores they are $39.95.

"We have about 50 returns left of California Trip from Borders with covers which are slightly scuffed (the inside is perfect) so we are making them available for $20. They are mostly surfer covers. They retailed for $50 when new! If you want a brand new one it's $39.95.

"Our Marin Landscape and Classic California calendars which retail for $12.99 we are selling now for half price ($ 6.50) plus shipping (Minimum order for shipping is four). That is the wholesale price! You can see what they look like at our web site.

"We are nearly out of Point Reyes Visions so no deal with those, but we are selling them for list price, $45(cloth) or $29.95(paperback).

"We can send purchases via UPS, which is safe and reliable or via the Post Office, cheaper but quite slow, or (for the fastest service) via Fed Ex. Your choice, as shipping is additional.

"We sign all books and will personalize them if you wish.

"Just call us at 415 663-1616."

Finding Fish At Last!

Our planned "Winterim 2008" fish-walk along Lagunitas Creek with Dick's friend and SPAWN volunteer, Megan Isadore, got "washed out."  No rain, no fish, last December.  But here's an excerpt from an e-mail Megan just wrote about find fish this year:

"The viewing is excellent these days, with lots of drama going on in the creek.  A new, fresher female has kicked out the "Coho Queen," the first female we all saw near the parking area at Leo Cronin, and is busily building her redd, accompanied today by a lovely fresh hooknose and a couple of jacks.  When new females build redds right on top of other females' redds, it's called "superimposition," (as well as unfortunate for female #1).  Further upstream, the redd begun last week is in fine shape, the female is still spry and enjoying the attentions of a couple of hooknoses and a couple of jacks, AND there is a new redd in the site of last week's digging, just upstream of the boulders with the I-bolts.  

"Our group stood under the only-slightly dripping canopy, observing a male/female pair on a redd, when what to our wondering eyes did appear, but three sleek river otters, cruising their way upstream, we thought in search of their favorite December meal!  The otters swam right by the pair, apparently not seeing them!  The two coho moved out of the way for less than a minute, and were back on the redd post-haste.  To say we were gobsmacked might be a slight exaggeration, but only slight.  A possible reason for their lack of interest in the fine fat coho was that they'd seen our group of 10 up on the bank, and may have been a little spooked. 

 

Otters are very shy of humans.  Or, perhaps they were the same otters that Julie, Camp Host at Samuel P. Taylor, had reported playing tug-of-war with a huge dead salmon that very morning in the park, and were not hungry.  We know the Lagunitas river otters are a fine, healthy and exciting medium-sized carnivore to have in our watershed.  Hurray for the otters!"

 

SPAWN is running tours on the weekends.  Click here for more information.  (San Francisco Chronicle Outdoor writer, Tom Stienstra, also wrote about the salmon walks in the Thursday, December 17 edition of the paper).

Happy Holidays From The Meandering on Tuesdays Blog!

Wishing You An Out of This World Holiday Season

And A Safe Return to Planet Earth 

For Our Next Hike on January 5, 2010

Lagunitas Hike Pictures and Videos Now On-Line

Click here to view all of the pictures taken during our December 8th "Final Exam" hike at Lake Lagunitias by Dick Jordan and Theresa Fisher.

The Tuesday Meanderers are now on YouTube!  Click here for a clip of us "Coot Watching" on the shore of Lake Lagunitas.  Silvia sings a song about soup, and then leads us in a "Twelve Days of Meandering" sing-along.

Baby, It Was Cold Outside (Lake Lagunitas, Dec. 8)

The sun was shining brightly when we left home for the trailhead, but it had disappeared behind a thick veil of clouds by the time we reached Lake Lagunitas, dashing any hope that temperatures during the hike and our post-hike "Final Exam" luncheon might top 50 degrees. It fact it was so cold that we skipped our usual pre-hike recap of our activities during the last week, just shouted out our names, and then hit the trail to get blood pumping into our limbs before frost-bite set in.

When we reached the dam, only a couple of Double-Crested Cormorants were hanging out on the logs floating on the lake, instead of the usual crowed of these birds air-drying their wide-spread wings. Presumably the rest of the flock had found a warm fire to gather about. No newts were bad news, too; apparently these slithering little guys decided to stay snug under logs rather than freeze their tails off in the cold morning air. A lone fisherman stood hunched over his pole along the lake, but any fish lurking under the water could well have been turned into frozen fish sticks by the chilly weather.

Mud puddles formed in depressions in the Lakeview Fire Road by the recent rain had frozen over. A smattering of snow still hung under the summit on the north side of Mount Tam, and coming down the Eldridge Grade we got a clear view across San Francisco Bay to snow-clad Mount Diablo. But the wind remained calm and the rain held off, so as long as we kept moving, it was a decent enough almost-to-Wintertime hike even though "Baby, It (Was) Cold Outside" as the song goes.

As usual for this time of year, mushrooms in many varieties were abundant along the trail and we found some especially large ones under the trees on the south side of the Lake View Fire Road. Too bad we couldn't have taken them back to the picnic area and made ourselves a giant mushroom omelet for lunch.  Birds weren't too abundant, although we saw Acorn Woodpeckers and Coots along the south side of the lake.

There were nearly twenty of us to participate in the "Final Exam", but we still couldn't manage to finish all of the food and drink we'd brought to share. Silvia sang a solo number as a tribute to Dick (who brought "Secret Santa Soup"), and then led us in our traditional "Twelve Days of Meandering" holiday sing-along.
(Click here to view photos that Dick Jordan and Theresa Fisher shot during the hike and post-hike luncheon).

Sky Trail to Bear Valley Hike (December 15) Update

As of Sunday evening, December 13th, the National Weather Service forecast for Tuesday's 7 mile hike along Inverness Ridge was not looking promising:  Rain. High near 55. Southeast wind between 14 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%.  Pray for weather karma.  (Click here for an updated forecast).

Beautiful Bahia (December 1st)

We couldn't have asked for better weather for our late Fall hike in the marshlands in the Bahia area of Novato.  No fog in the morning, and lots of warm sunshine in the afternoon.

As we did last year when we did this hike in mid-November, we parked at the end of the paved road and walked across the street to the home of Lee Skutch's friend, Marguerite, who keeps three dozen or so hummingbird feeders full of sugar water to attract the little guys (and gals).  Unfortunately, only a couple of these diminutive birds were on hand for us to see; the rest were probably out foraging elsewhere that morning.

Although it was slim pickings with the hummingbirds, it was a veritable feast for the eyes watching waterfowl swimming along between the edge of the Bahia shoreline and the Petaluma river to the east.  We saw Shovelers, Pintails, Ruddy Ducks, Mute Swans, and a host of other birds.   (Click here for Wendy's list of all of the creatures and plants we saw on this hike).
We spent about two hours working our way north, and then west, and then south along the edge of the marshlands until we reached our usual lunch spot near a large oak tree just off the fire road.  The ducks and shorebirds were fewer here, but the temperature had risen into the mid-60's and it was all we could do to make ourselves get up after our repast and hike back to the cars, instead of napping in the sun.

By 2 pm, high hazy clouds had formed in the sky above us, portending possible rain over the next few days.  But we could have cared less; our hike was done and we were dry and smiling.

(Click here for the rest of Dick Jordan's photos shot during this hike, some of which are in both color and black and white; they also play in the mini-slideshow window in the Meandering blog.  To see Theresa Fisher's photos in her separate on-line Flick album, click here).

Sky Trail to Bear Valley Hike (December 15) Preview

We return to Point Reyes National Seashore for the last year of 2009.  (We hiked this trail on January 20, 2009 when President Obama was being sworn into office, and again on May 24th.).  The trail is about 7.3 miles long (this is a shuttle hike, so please call or e-mail Wendy in advance if you plan to go, and note the earlier than usual meeting time at the trailhead).

Directions to trailhead:  We’ll meet at Bear Valley at 9:20 a.m. and carpool to Sky Trail.  When we get to Mt. Wittenberg we’ll go down Old Pine to the Bear Valley Trail. We’ll need some people who are not in a rush to drive people back to Sky Trail. Restrooms at Bear Valley, none at Sky Trail trailhead but some as we pass Coast Camp.  Carpool leaves St. Rita Church in Fairfax at 8:45 a.m.


Weather forecast: As of Thursday, December 20, the National Weather Service forecast for the hike was mostly cloudy and a chance of rain with a high near 52.  (Click here for an updated forecast).


More on this hike:  "G3 Sky Trailhead to Bear Valley" in the Martins' book, Hiking Marin, is a version of this hike although we usually go straight at Juntion #1 shown on their map and continue on to Sky Camp rather than take the detour up to Mt. Wittenberg (which we do on a separate loop hike from the Sky Trailhead) and then back down to the Sky Trail before continuing on to the Old Pine Trail, Divide Meadow (where we had lunch on November 24th), and on to Bear Valley.  (Click here for the Seashore's South District Hiking Map which shows these trails).  

The following Google Earth image gives a bird's eye view of where we'll be hiking:

Winterim 2009 Hike Descriptions Now On-Line

In case you've mislaid Wendy's e-mail with the 2009 "Winterim" (five pay $17-as-you-go-or-not-each week) hikes that run from December 15th (no hikes on 12/22 or 12/29) through January 26th, click here to view and print a complete list.  (There is also a link to the list on the Meandering blog)

KQED Web Site Features Stories and Videos on Angel Island

 San Francisco PBS station KQED has two interesting stories (with video) about Angel Island on its Web site:  1) A Quest piece on exploring the island (you'll see Silvia Lange, our Tuesday Meandering songstress and Angel Island docent in the first video clip on meeting the park's guides), and 2) a Pacific Link story about the Immigration Station.

State Park Closure Status in Marin

Back in October, the California State Parks Department announced major weekday closures of parks throughout the state, including at all of the parks in Marin.  As a result, Wendy changed the schedule for the second half of the Fall College of Marin hiking season.

Last week, Jean Mullen told Dick Jordan that the Bootjack parking lot on Mt. Tam seemed to be closed, but that Pantoll and the road up the mountain to Rock Spring and East Peak were open when she was on the mountain recently.  On November 22, San Francisco Chronicle Outdoor writer Tom Stienstra reported that the road up to East Peak indeed would not be closed on weekdays this winter.  And in another piece published on December 3 about what parks were really closed on weekdays, he wrote this about the parks in Marin:

"Angel Island State Park: State Parks originally announced there would be major restroom closures on weekdays. Instead, four restrooms are open daily, two at Ayala Cove and two at the U.S. Immigration Station. (415) 435-5390.

China Camp State Park: The gorgeous walk-in campground is open Friday and Saturday nights only, first-come, first-served, through March 25. Campsites are then available by reservation starting March 26 through ReserveAmerica.com. The China Camp Museum is open only on weekends. (415) 456-0766.

Mount Tamalpais State Park: In October, State Parks announced that the road to East Peak and the Bootjack parking area would be closed on weekdays. That was canceled and both areas are now open daily. Pantoll's great walk-in campsites are still open, first-come, first-served. (415) 388-2070.

Olompali State Park: One of the casualties. Open only on weekends, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a new $8 entrance fee. (415) 892-3383.

Samuel P. Taylor State Park: Camping was hiked to $35 per night, approaching low-cost hotel rates in rural areas and now the state park standard. But at least the campground is still open, first-come, first-served through March 25; for dates after that, reservations are available now at ReserveAmerica.com. (415) 488-9897.

Tomales Bay State Park: You may remember that in October, State Parks said Tomales Bay State Park would be open only on weekends and holidays. Nope. This park is open daily, 8 a.m. to sunset. (415) 669-1140."

In its December 3rd edition, the weekly West Marin Citizen reported that Tomales Bay and Samuel P. Taylor State Parks would remain open seven days a week with the National Park Service providing additional staffing.  The paper made this cryptic comment:  "No change is expected to the status of Mount Tamalpais State Park."

An October 26, 2009 news release on the California State Parks Web site detailed the planned closures, but there does not seem to be a subsequent news release announcing the changes listed in the December 3rd stories by Stienstra and the West Marin Citizen, and Dick found no specific information about the changes on the state park Web site for Mount Tam.

Dick hopes to learn more about the state of the State Parks when Roy Stearns, Deputy Director of Communications for the state parks department, addresses the January meeting of the Bay Area Travel Writers.

(Click here to learn what steps the California State Parks Foundation is taking to try to insure long-term funding for the parks).

"Final Exam" Hike at Lake Lagunitas (Dec. 8) Preview

We return to the MMWD watershed for our final hike of the Fall 2009 "2" session.  Here's what we'll be doing:  "We make a partial circle around the lake, looking for ring-neck ducks, mergansers, grebes and other birds, and then make a loop past Pilot Knob, returning on Southern Marin Line. We usually see newts and some interesting mushrooms on this hike. Bring your contribution to our gourmet feast, plus a plate, utensils, and a cup."  (Click here for a recap of our December 2008 "Final Exam" hike at this location).

Directions to trailhead: Take Sir Francis Drake Boulevard into Fairfax. Jog left and make an immediate right in front of the movie theater. The first left puts you on Bolinas Avenue. Follow this until you see the sign on your left for Lake Bon Tempe and Lake Lagunitas. Follow the road to the toll booth by Sky Oaks Ranger Station. (Click here for the MMWD map and directions). The continue past to toll booth until you reach the end of the room.

The day use fee is $7.  You can use $1, $5, or $10 bills and coins at the automated pay station, or a Visa or Mastercard. Annual entrance passes are normally $50 ($25 for those 62 and older), but after September 1st you can buy one for half of those prices and the pass will be valid through January 31, 2010.  (As Dick recalls, you pay the annual pass fee at the automated pay station, then have to either stop at the Sky Oaks Ranger Station on the way out and ask them to send your receipt to the main office in Corte Madera which will issue the pass and mail it to you, or you have to send or take the receipt to that office yourself).

Time: 30 minutes from College of Marin. Restrooms in parking lot.

Weather forecast: Although most of next week looks to be pretty wet, weather wise, we may be a little break on Tuesday.  As of Friday morning, the National Weather Service forecast for the hike was mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and a high near 55 . (Click here for an updated National Weather service forecast).

More on this hike:  Hike C16 (Lakeview FR to Pilot Knob) in the Martin's book, Hiking Marin, sets out a shorter hike than we'll be doing; instead of following the Pilot Knob trail back to the parking lot, we'll take a longer route back by continuing eastward and then looping back the west, picking up the Southern Marin Line Road (called the Filter Plant Road on the Martin's map). (Click here to view, zoom in on, and print a map of the MMWD watershed lands).