I made this piece long before I started drawing my own cover art for each post. This is based on a real spot in this park (that I didn't visit this trip). The plants really grow like this, split down the middle of the ridge. Slope Effect, bitcjes!!

Hikepost_007 - Climbing over ridgelines in Las Trampas until my brain is normal

A couple Thursdays ago I woke up with a brain full of The Horrors and did not want to go on my weekly date with Outside at all. But given that I ostensibly do this for my mental health, I knew that that meant I should do it anyway.

I decided to go to one of my nearby favorites, and one of the parks I can go to with no plan and just wing it: Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Preserve. A short trip by transit hiking standards: a few train stops and then an easy bus transfer.

This park runs north-south alongside the towns of Danville and Alamo, which are in what I call the Cowboy Zone. As you move east from the Bay, the suburbs go from quaint to new tech hub, and after a certain point, abruptly become kind of Old West themed.

shoe repair building shaped and painted like a barn, with a realistic horse statue on top and a sheriff parked in front — I took this pic on the bus home, very tired. Took my brain a sec to process the fact that the sheriff wasn't part of the decor. What the hell was going on at the shoe repair barn?

To me, an outsider, this area is a kind of surreal mix of Teslas and pristine lifted F-150s, rural small town charm and also enough hideous mcmansions to keep Kate Wagner busy for a full year. Every single trailhead in this park is a few blocks up a flag- and no trespassing sign-filled residential street. It's not the most welcoming entrance, and I think it's one of the reasons this park isn't super well-known.

ugly suburban house with an american flag with a thin blue line. sprinklers, gated entrance, beautiful scenery in the background — Be sure to water your flag daily as per flag code

ANYWAY

I picked one of the trailheads at random and decided to just hike up and over ridgelines until I was the correct amount of worn out: worn out enough to fix my brain but not so worn out I couldn't make it to the Jeff Mills show Atomly and I had tickets to that night!

I was immediately cheered up by the squawks and chattering of a million acorn woodpeckers. My favorite commune-forming, infrastructure-building little guys that behave more like a flock of wild parrots than the more solitary woodpeckers that you might think of when you hear the word "woodpecker."

I saw a full granary tree, where a colony spends months storing acorns for the winter. Apparently acorn woodpeckers only kind of enjoy eating their namesake, and prefer other food sources like sap and insects when they're available. I wondered if it was almost Preferred Food Source Time; I imagine they're sick to death of acorns by the time spring rolls around.

zoom in on the tree trunk showing acorns in the holes

I climbed my way up the first ridge, through the oaks and green hills and into the chaparral. I usually see people in the grassy areas closer to town, but there's a small slice running down the middle of the park where it feels like it actually lives up to its Wilderness designation. Up on the ridge in the scrub, it's usually just me and the birds.

two vultures perched in a tree, looking into the valley below

Since I didn't have a particular goal or destination this time, and at this point still didn't really even feel like being on a hike at that point, I sat at my favorite little rock formation perch near Eagle Peak for a while. There are always vultures circling overhead here, riding thermals. Sometimes low enough to hear the whoosh of their wings.

looking out over hills and a pretty sky with wispy clouds

I realized I'm not good at hiking without some sort of goal, so I decided to hike to the next ridge over, Rocky Ridge. This side of the park is part official wilderness area part cow field part water department land. There's also a big radio tower further up the ridge. It's mostly without trees, and you can see forever.

photo 1 of 3 making a sort of panorama: green sculptural hills against a blue sky with a path going up and over the ridge

2/2 - looking out into the distance over more hills

After the second ridge, it was back down and through the valley, and then back up and over the first ridge, finally ending up back in town.

I feel like I end up making routes for myself where I have to climb like 2000' right at the end of a hike pretty often somehow.

I love this section of climbing up steep, scrambly trail through a tunnel of scrub. I never feel more like a Creature than when I'm on trails like this.

I did end up feeling better by the time I left. There's something about putting my feet to work, giving myself a made up goal, focusing on my progress that seems to cure my restless angst.

a big oak tree and some rock formations breaking through the surface of the ground

me in a sports bra and ball cap, posing in front of a view

I have more posts from recent weeks to finish up; I am doing the short ones first and continuing to work on some longer ones. I have been busy both with work and with prep for my return to Henry W Coe SP in a few weeks.

It wouldn't be a worm mode signature backpacking trip if I didn't give myself at least 3 complicated projects that must be completed beforehand. I'm sewing myself a sleeping bag liner, adding a sherpa lining to a jacket, and making dehydrated meals for the whole trip from scratch. Yeefuckinghaw!

Oh yeah: Jeff Mills was incredible as always. There are few people I'd rally after a big hike to go see and he's one of them. Also he was wearing this pristine white button down with some kind of matching bandolier type sash. Exquisite.

blurryish photo of a club with Jeff Mills kind of visible in the background