Zen And The Art of Meandering

What a difference a year makes.

Rain, fog, and wind.  That’s what we had last year when we hiked up to Coyote Ridge above the Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm.  This time around it was sunshine all the way from sea to sky and back again.
 
Last year the steep climb from the farm toward the ridge was through gooey, clay mud.  This year the trail was bone-dry.

Last year it was winter at Green Gulch Farm.  This year it was definitely spring.

But the major change from last year’s hike was the restoration work being done on Redwood Creek.  After we crossed over the bridge spanning the creek and headed toward Green Gulch Farm we saw changes to the Coastal Trail where it meets the creek.  Vegetation on the southern edge of the area had been removed and replanted, and the trail itself had been realigned.

When we hiked here last year we looped around the horse pasture, then entered the farm on its northern side.  This time we skirted the farm’s southern edge, then walked back across the farm to pick up the road on the north side, passing one of the farm’s truck’s and and old American Airlines aircraft cargo container.

Then looped back to the south to pick up the Middle Green Gulch Trail for the long, slow climb from sea level to Coyote Ridge, 900 feet above us.  When we reached the ridge about an hour and half and 2.5 miles after starting out, we could look back toward Muir Beach and Mt. Tam, and south to San Francisco.




The fire road runs westward and is nearly level from the junction of the Middle Green Gulch Trail and the Coyote Ridge Trail until the latter meets with Coastal Trail.  Then its down, down, down all the way to where the Pirates Cove Trail branches off to the south.
 
Last year we ate a wind-blown lunch in the saddle where these two trails meet.  This year we continued uphill beyond that trail junction and a had a choice of three grand views during lunch:  South down the coast beyond Pirates Cove, out to sea, or north to Muir Beach.

Poppies, iris, vetch, and columbine were among the flowers blooming along the trail.  The large patch of columbine that we saw on the last, downward leg of the hike was here again this year.  Debris spiders, a click beetle, a fairy moth, and black ticks were insects we spotted.

A lone killdeer greeted us at when we returned to the parking lot at hike’s end, 4.3 miles after setting out.