Dan's Outside

Cross-Country Hiking in the Bay Area

One of the great pleasures of hiking in the Sierra, especially the higher portions that I’m attracted to, is that one can hike cross-country via routes that have no official trails. Paths range from “create your own” to “look for the ducks left by previous visitors” to “find the faint use path.”

Generally, this kind of hiking isn’t realistic in the hills of the Bay Area. But right now it is possible in a few places. In late December, especially in a dry year like this one, conditions arrive that make cross-country hiking a possibility in some places, especially in some of the open oak/grassland areas. The old grasses have died down and the new vegetation is barely coming up; poison oak has died back; game trails become visible; and one doesn’t end up with pants, socks, and shoes covered with sticky seeds and worse.

December 28, 2007 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary