Redwoods and rain

Saturday was rainy. I drove to Purisima creek redwoods open space preserve, which was foggy as well as rainy. Steady rain throughout my hike. Whenever a bit of wind stirred the trees, the trees shed their accumulated load of water, so it was at least as wet in the forest as in the open.

A foggy redwood forest is a beautiful place. And as they say, there is no such thing as bad weather, merely inadequate clothing. I had the world to myself until about fifteen minutes before I got back to the parking lot.

It was the first time this season to see the newts out on the trail. Of the ten I saw, half were scrambling away at full speed. (Full speed would be on the order of 10 cm/sec.) The others froze, hoping to be invisible. One of the scramblers probably started as a freezer, but changed tactics when its onboard ballistic computer indicated a high probability of being stepped on. Given the motion preference of my visual filter, I imagine I passed by a lot more freezers that I didn’t notice.

A nice day. By the time I got drove back down into the valley, the sun was even peeking through. Not a long hike, just a pleasant one. Ten miles.

Sunday started cloudy, but also showed signs of improving. I ran to the baylands, around the levee loop, back through the town. It turned out to be just over ten miles again, which is further than I have run at one time for many years. Really nice to have the ankle back in working order! I don’t know whether I aspire to work up to a marathon, but a half-marathon is clearly attainable.

It is certainly the prettiest time of year here in town.

These are all imports — the native vegetation is not colourful. A reminder of how the opponents of global eclecticism impoverish their lives.

Tags: Purisima redwoods open space preserve