javacat | Weekend hiking notes

I intended to retrace our steps from the weekend before when Katie M. was here, to check out the loop we didn't finish. This American Life came on as I headed up the mountain. I was enjoying it so much, I hung out in the car at Laurel Dell (in the shade, next to the big oaks) to listen to the last half, and changed my mind. I decided to check out trails I hadn't been on before, except for the return route up Cataract/Laurel Dell.

Rock Spring to Mt. Amphitheater (2,068 ft.)
Mt. Top trail to West Peak (2,580 feet)
Arturo to Rifle Camp
Lagoon to Azalea Flat
Azalea Flat to Azalea Meadow
High Marsh (1,520 feet)
Cross Country Boys up and back
High Marsh traverse
Laurel Dell to Cataract
Rock Spring (1,972 feet)

12 + .5 + 1.4 + (.4 x2) + 1.8 + 1.4 = 7.1 miles
time: 1:00 PM to 6:45 PM

* Rock Spring to Mt. Amphitheater (2,068 ft.)
This year's musicalis My Fair Lady http://www.mountainplay.org/index.php They're bulding the sets. A band of boys were rehearsing. The view south is unbelievably clear. I can see whitecaps at Muir Beach.

* cross street, Mt. Top trail to West Peak (2,580 feet)
I don't take the parallel trail/fire road in favor of this trail, which is more removed. It looks like it was once a fire road, but the manzanita and other trees have grown towards the middle. It climbs the West Peak. I emerge onto an amazing green swath of serpentine below some sort of military building. I've never seen such a fabulous lode of serpentine before. I'll bet this is what the Serpentine Swale near the parking lot used to look like, only people carried away the loose rocks. You can only get here by hiking in from this trail or having the keys to the gate, so it's somewhat protected. I climb up to the building. It must still be in use as a relay tower. The north side looks like it was a helicoptor landing. It's still clear, though the concrete and asphalt is pocked. (Mt. Tamalpais has been a military outpost over the Pacific since the Civil War.)

Up the ridge to the west are what look like temple steps up to flat-topped Aztec ruins. It's the foundations of razed WW II military buildings. Holy cow, what a view! It's an astonishingly clear day, windy at the top, with some cold air whipping in from the north west. Looking south, the bowl of Muir Woods canyon, the Marin headlands, whitecaps near Tennessee Valley; individual houses in San Francisco, all of Ocean Beach, and down the coast towards Pacifica. To the East, the Bay Bridge and the layers of Oakland hills. To the north, I can actually see mountains in Napa and Sonoma, and the valleys below.

It's fabulous to see the park and watershed lands of Marin, 1,000s of acres, laid out below me. Tomales Bay is glittering in the sun, the coast and Bolinas Ridges are clear. Below me, Phoenix, Lagunitas, Bon Tempe and Alpine Lakes. Can I see Kent Lake? I don't remember. Pine Mountain might have wrinkled in front of it from my perch. I know the land below me, have hiked almost all its trails. I love adding this overview to the map in my head.

I'm just below the gov't radar/sonar center on West Peak (a giant golfball-looking dome). I walk over to the gate to see if it's possible to walk up to the golfball. The gate is locked. I look around for the Arturo trail to Rifle Camp, find it, take a detour to check out some other abandoned building. It's the old pool house. The pool's been filled in with concrete. The building has been open for a while, not too backly vandalized, and the structure is beautiful, good solid workmanship. It's so much nicer than a quonset hut.

Arturo trail - I'll bet this is where drills were run when the military was using it. Fire 10-15 years ago. Nice trail; steady downhill but graded well. There are two places off it that look like they were graded by a machine to hold tent camps. Tall trees. Gorgeous. Quiet. Pass 1 family. Pass a large fresh scat that looks like blackberry jelly. I wonder what it is.

Rifle Camp - it's a stepped picnic area beside a stream, with Rock Spring fire road running through it. A running couple stop and consult my map. They're cold. They're headed uphill, so they'll be fine. There's an outhouse, a real outhouse (hole cut in wood plank), tucked away in the woods. The meadow nearby is nice. There's a loop I could do here, but I change my mind and continue down.

The Lagoon trail runs along the stream down to Azalea Flat It's gorgeous. A tributary flattens out and crosses the trail to joins the stream; I spot a red-skinned salamander slowly walking upstream. I stop and watch him/her until he/she is safely near a rocky overhang. The trail keeps going down. My knees are getting a good workout. There are pools in the stream all the way down. I'll bet this stream has water year-round; will check later in the year. I pass a large den-looking opening in tree roots. It's too big for any in the rodent family. It could be a fox.

I'll bet Azalea Flat is where the bears used to hang out. It's bear heaven. It's beautiful. It's amazing how much water has pooled. Someone has done an awesome job of putting up trail markers down here. I'm not used to such well marked trails. I pass by the first The Cross Country Boys marker, continuing down.

I have a hard time picking up the High Marsh trail from the marsh area. I run into the 2 women who parked the Porsche convertible next to me at Rock Springs. We talk about the trail intersection. They head up the hill, telling me they're sure it's the High Marsh trail. I follow, dropping back to enjoy the quiet. When I hit a 2nd trail marker for The Cross Country Boys, I see that we were actually on a spur of the Kent Trail. (Also, what's the story with The Cross Country Boys trail?) I don't want this trail, so I go back down and hunt for my left turn onto the High Marsh trail. There's a handkerchief fluttering; I follow the faint trail left. It turns out to be a spur made by people like me, hunting around for the main trail, and it dumps onto the main trail. (Next time, continue around the small pond).

The High Marsh trail crosses the mountain east to west. It changes terrain from chapparral to forest. It's very, very secluded. I run across a second large scat that looks like blackberry jelly. I need to find someone who knows what kind of scat this is. Also, there's a kill, nothing left but a puddle of soft black fur. I can't think what has black fur that would be hunted out here. Everything I consider has brown fur. There are 2 scat in the 2 miles that look like small dog crossed with cat scat. Coyote? They are out here. It could be bobcats; they're out here too.

There are a couple of connectors from High Marsh to Laurel Dell. I wanted a particular one, and it turned out to be marked, "Laurel Dell 75 yards - arrow." Voila, there I am, picnic tables, latrines, meadow, forest. I remember the old post-Harmonic Convergence days, the time Bird Brother, Sedonia & I organized a drum circle up here. We must've had 30 drummers out here, 50 people. A couple with 2 cute beagles stop and we look at my map.

I scrub off in the stream (I think one hand touched some poison oak) and head back up the Cataract trail. There are alot of wild iris blooming.

This was an awesome hike. It's west facing, so will be miserable-hot in the summer. I'll do this more before it gets too hot.

Oh, and I did an 8 mile urban walk on Sunday from my house to Fairfax and back.