Bruce Lee Trail Magic

The bricks of the stairs were damp and deep red, and the mud I envisioned on my boots left an imaginary trail behind me as I whipped out the cell phone to call Damon.  "You busy tomorrow?  I think my boots need to get a little muddy." 

"I know a good place." 

And that was that.  We had a plan.

The entrance to the park was at the end of a row of yuppified houses.  But for the clouds, their massive back windows no doubt boasted awesome views of the mountain.  We were headed into the canyon, slogging the trail against the rushing sound of water over a rocky stream bed.

Come July, the bright shades of greens and reds won't look nearly as intense, giving way to the hues of dry, dusty gold that give the state its name.  The sounds of water-worshiping birds, stopping here on their way somewhere, anywhere elsewhere, will give way to the noise of jet engines and airplanes headed in and out of the metropolis that's creeping over the ridge to the West. The air will carry away any water it can manage to get hold of, even the sweat from your reddening neck.  The waxy leaves of the shrubs are smarter than that though, and won't let it go so easy, so they'll keep some color.

Jess and I had been along this side of the mountain last August.  We ran into a raccoon enjoying what food it could find the night before our walk around the summit, and nearly died of thirst a quarter mile from our starting point on the return.  This time around, there was no dearth of water.  I cupped my hands and drank (ok, there's nothing wrong with a little mercury, arsenic, and other naturally occurring ionized metals) more than once, the wet stuff dripping in my beard.

On this trip we started a little lower.  The first hill, Damon imparted, was where others usually said "...came this far, may as well keep going."  He didn't mention that there were more coming up, but being that it's a mountain and all, what could you expect?

(I think Damon took this shot)

It wasn't until the echoing sound of distant water caught my ear that I looked up from the choppy loose rocks descending in front of my feet.  We looked out alongside clouds drifting through the canyon, and when they cleared, the first waterfall was there.  A few steps further and I caught a glimpse of its next of kin from behind an old manzanita.  It was worthy of a photo.  Belly down, I steadied the camera on a half-withered log.

And then I snapped out of my "Leaves of Grass" prose and started writing like a real, currently living person.

When we got closer to the water, Damon had this bright idea to get close to the pool below the upper fall.  Luckily, my big size 15 boots were actually able to grip the loose gravel.  The roots from the poor, defenseless plants we were crushing were trying to keep the soil in place.  To make ourselves feel better about it, we just said that we were speeding their evolution by moving them to a new location (as they rolled in clumps of soil down the hill).

(this was before we got to the rocks)

The "trail" we were hiking (climbing) on petered out at a rock wall.  It wasn't perfectly vertical, but the crumbling chert (that blocky-breaking rock) made it a little more difficult to maneuver.  At one point an entire chunk twice the size of my head came loose when I tried to hold for support.  Once to the other side it became apparent that the only way down was to climb the wet rock, and Damon pointed out the foot holds for me while I struggled to keep my giant boots from slipping.  It wasn't too high, maybe 15 or 20 feet at most from the top, but I'm usually not one take a chance at breaking a leg, skull, or teeth.

Once at the bottom we found our first real reward.  It was a fruit and nut bar freshly dropped by the last daring adventurer.  We joked that whoever it was probably lost it when they fell off the rocks we'd just climbed down, and the Medivac guys hadn't seen it in the dark.  Damon was about to put it in his pocket with the rest of the trash he'd picked up, when we checked the expiration date.

SCORE!  A delicious, nutritious snack!

Our bellies a little fuller, the hiking got easier on the way down.  Able to look up from the trail, we spotted a couple of critters we hadn't seen on the way up.  The first was a little cottontail that ducked in and out of the brush a few times.  Damon apparently saw what he called a huge rat, which I missed since my useless wet glasses were in my pocket.

Splitting from the more direct path, we forked onto the narrower Bruce Lee Spring Trail (a fitting name considering the earlier rock climbing acrobatics, but this Bruce Lee was a local appliance salesman who liked to ride horses, no relation to the one of martial arts fame).  The dense chaparral broke to a hillside of grassy fields with oaks here and there.  It reminded me of the ridge next to Susan and Gary's up in Healdsburg where I hiked once at dusk and got a little confused (dare I say "lost?") after dark.  The next morning I went back to see where I'd been and found a dried-up hairball from a mountain lion.  It was smack in the middle of the trail.  It was old and dry, so I kept it as  a souvenir.  Even in a sealed plastic bag, our house cats sniffed it out and tore it to shreds.  There were little pieces of chewed, petrified hairball all over the house.

"Bobcat!"

The word snapped me out of my thoughts...

Just as startled by the outburst, my first wild bobcat was right there, and it was surprisingly bigger than the ones I've seen stuffed and in zoos.  All I could say was "camera... camera...  CAMERA..." while fumbling through my backpack to get it out.  The cat stopped and looked at us with one of those familiar "WTF?" looks that house cats make (well, we were making noises to keep its attention... go figure) for just enough time for me to get a quick shot.

BOOYAH!  It was the icing on the cake, trumping even the waterfalls and the climbing, the granola bar, the wildflowers, muddy clothes and boots, and jumped-over streams.  We were so high on the whole trip that even checking out a fresh turkey dropping was exciting enough to take a photo.  We even got a kick out of looking for pig tracks in an upturned field!

From a passing thought about muddy boots, this trip was one of the best even with the rain, risky climbing, turkey poop, and all...