Rancho, again

Sunday, 29 November 2015

Jacky and I went to Rancho a couple days ago, but I thought it would be a good place to go for a killer day. And it was. I hiked the perimeter trails; usually I do the route clockwise, but I reversed the order today and added a few frills, including the side trip into Hidden Villa. I decided to omit the built-up part of the area, bypassed it by taking Grapevine trail, which I had not previously hiked. It turned out to be a steep descent to Adobe creek (so this is where the Palo Alto Adobe creek comes from!), then the steep ascent back to Black Mountain trail.

The rock field at the top of Black Mountain road is a popular destination. Probably met twenty hikers coming or going during the time I was on this particular stretch of trail.

Moffett field down there, soon to be home to an expansion of the Google campus, which is presently off to the left of the picture.

And seriously bad news for someone, probably in Sunnyvale. Half an hour later, the black smoke had settled into a horizontal cloud, and there was a plume of white coming up from the ground, indicating condensed steam from the fire-fighters’ attack. Half an hour later still, I got a slight whiff of the smoke myself.

Nice day, chilly. A round dozen deer early in the day, another ten mid-afternoon. The mountain lion seen here a week ago should be texting all his buddies that the pickins are pretty good here!

Only 19 miles, but 4100 vertical feet, where 4k feet of climb qualifies it as a killer hike.