Over The Hill (And Back Again)

Why does it always seem to rain at just this one spot on the Yolanda Trail?  (Click here if you can see the YouTube video in this post).

After managing to dodge the car-eating potholes where Porteous Avenue enters the former Deer Park School property, we gathered up our gear, and set off under gray skies across the grounds of the old school and west by southwest on the Deer Park Fire Road.  Some of us got a quick peek at an elusive, Double-Shot-of-Espresso Ruby Crowned Kinglet, a bird who never wants to sit still long enough to let you find it in your binoculars.

Milk Maids, Shooting Stars, and Houndstongue bloomed along this section of our route.  Dock beetles chomped on leaves, and a banana slug (who must have slept in) breakfasted as we walked by.  Within about a half hour we had turned south onto the Six Points Trail, making our way, snail-like, up the narrow path that leads to the Six Points Junction.  A Scarlet Waxy Cap and Orange Mock Oyster mushrooms told us that we were still hiking in winter.  But the stream that parallels the trail was just gurgling downhill, not rushing past us in the other direction as it would have if it had rained heavily the day before.

At Six Points we stopped to doff some layers of clothing, take a brief rest break, and quaff some water before heading down the Yolanda Trail towards Phoenix Lake.  Not long after we resumed the hike we found a field with Red Stemmed Storksbills.

For some reason—perhaps because the clouds cool as they are lifted up over Bald Hill—rain showers always seem to fall when we hike the Yolanda Trail.  So we quickly donned our jackets to ward off the five-minute bout of precipitation.  The top of Mt. Tam remained shrouded in mist.

Red Scarlett Larkspur and Lupine (some with beetles crawling about on their flowers) lined the trail.  Neil stopped to check out the rocky outcroppings, practicing his new-found skills as a geologist.
 
By noon we had reached the lake and had lunch just below the manager’s house of the old Porteous Ranch.  A Red-Tailed Hawk eyed our eats from atop a nearby tree, but after determining that we weren’t packing rodent-meat sandwiches, left us to enjoy our meal in peace.

It look us about 45 minutes to ascend the Shaver Grade to Five Corners; if the hairy caterpillar we saw along the way had followed us, he probably would have arrived 45 days later.  From there it was a 10 minute downhill saunter to Boy Scout Junction where a couple of us decided to go down the Deer Park Fire Road and the rest set off on the Junction Trail.

  
At just about our usual “quitting time” we were back at the parking lot.  We’d hiked 5.1 miles, twice gaining (and losing) about 400’ in elevation.