For the second straight week we had a fine weather day for our end of Winter "Final Exam" hike. Another Tuesday hiking group we met in the parking lot made us feel slothful: They were headed up, up up to the East Peak of Mount Tam, and then down, down, downhill to the parking lot at Lagunitas Lake.
We, on the other hand, were planning to just mosey along the north shore of Bon Tempe Lake, and then mosey on back to our cars and stuff our faces over our usual Enough-To-Feed-An-Army post-hike lunch.
When we've done this hike in the past we've started off in a northwesterly direction from the parking lot and then bushwhacked our way across meadows and through the trees to reach the access road. This time the CCC had done trail clearing and put a new sign marking the "Alex Forman Trail" (which Dick does not find on any of the maps or trail guidebooks he has) that route. Wendy found a flat millipede hiding under a log along this trail.
By 10:45 a.m. we were meandering along the aptly named Sunnyside Trail close to the lakeshore. Along the way we encountered a couple of Smarter-Than-Us guys sitting by the lake fishing and enjoying the fine weather. Ground Iris and Pinchusion Sanicle were among the flowers we spotted and Bee Flies and am Acmon Blue butterfly flew by us. Oaks dotted the hillsides to the north. Forty-five minutes later we had reached Bon Tempe dam and found a raft of cormorants in their usual wing-drying spot on a log boom in front of the dam.
As we began our loop back to the parking lot we continued to hear the the rat-a-tat-tat of a Pileated Woodpecker hanging out unseen in the forest about the Shadyside Trail. Turret spiders had built their burrows along this section of the trail. About halfway back we got a good view of Common Mergansers swimming along just off-shore. By 2:00 p.m. we were lounging in the shade under the trees next to the creek scarfing up our "Final Exam" meal.
In order to earn our calories we hiked a little over four miles. (The Google Earth Image below shows our route).
But the elevation loss and gain on this hike was pretty modest as shown by the profile below.
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