Home Turf
            Hikingautism.com is posting early this week due to a short escape from the Bat Cave to visit family back east.
            I grew up surrounded by corn fields, dairy cows, and rapidly changing skies. The apple trees by our house were countered by pine, birch and maple trees elsewhere. Our dark creeks ran icy cold during long, snowy winters as well as through hot, humid summers.
            A cedar tree I used to climb. The secret easy passage through a barbed wire fence leading to back fields. The stretch of creek with the shallowest crossing spot.
            Childhood reflections shimmer with the supernatural power of memory.
            I have spent almost twice as many years in our San Francisco bungalow as I did in my childhood home. A jolting thought.
            My children grew up near the beach in San Francisco. Their memories are marked by pelicans flying overhead and sand in their shoes.
            This week’s Hike Notes are about a “backyard walk” in my current life, Ocean Beach – North End.
            A beach is just a beach, you may think. Especially one that looks broad and nondescript at a glance. But every beach has its own character. Ocean Beach in San Francisco offers sea life close-ups if you look down, and broad vistas if you look up.
            Please feel free to share. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photos!
            The list of hikes is getting long! Please check the Quick View Hike List or scroll down the main Hikes page to see the current list of hike notes.
New this week:
Hike Notes 22: Ocean Beach – North End

The Unexpected Path
            Recent birthday goals:
Take the full day off. Finally try that restaurant we’d read about. Visit the Marine Mammal Center.
Top goal: New hike, a short steep climb to a high ridge above the Golden Gate Bridge.
Work deadlines inescapable. Strike one.
Restaurant closed. Strike two.
Road to Marine Mammal Center blocked. Strike three.
Also blocked: The road to the trailhead for our short ridge hike. We drove in loops trying to find a way around the traffic obstruction. No luck.
We’d driven by a sign for a base-of-the-bridge trailhead parking lot — which stared at us just before our roadblock — countless times. Not being visible from the road, we’d always been leery about turning in there. Here was our chance to try it.
Our morning arrival won us an open parking spot. First good luck of the day.
Between the trailhead signs and our map, we realized that we could still get to our original ridge destination. Original plan: 0.4 mile steep climb up, easy 0.4 mile downhill return. Roadblock alternative option: A steep and twisty 3.2 mile loop.
The switchback trail cut back and forth as we gradually ascended above the Golden Gate Bridge, stunning views of Alcatraz and Angel Island, the San Francisco cityscape, and Marin county at every turn. Blustery winds threatened to steal hats toward the top, but we arrived unscathed at our connecting trail. A short steep climb up Slacker Ridge rewarded us with a 360 degree view over Marin and San Francisco.
No full day off. No new restaurant experience. No animal rescue center visit.
But we ended up on an amazing trail that we weren’t expecting. It was longer and more grueling than what we had planned, but it was really beautiful along the way.
Yes indeed, you may insert your own life analogy here. We start life endeavors with a plan. Almost invariably, the path we end up on strays from what we first envisioned. With luck, some of the unexpected challenges may be counterbalanced by unanticipated joys.
            This week’s Hike Notes describe our surprisingly wonderful unexpected path, Slacker Ridge from Golden Gate Bridge, a steep and twisty hike that offers dramatic vistas with each rise in elevation.
            Please feel free to share. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photos!
            The list of hikes is getting long! Please check the Quick View Hike List or scroll down the main Hikes page to see the current list of hike notes.
New this week:
Hike Notes 21: Slacker Ridge from Golden Gate Bridge

You Are Not Alone
            “I no longer see friends. Just therapists and doctors.”
            “I want to talk to someone but don’t even see family much now.”
            “I feel totally overwhelmed, but I don’t want to bother anyone.”
            I hear these thoughts more often recently.
            From families like ours dealing with a developmental disability.
            From friends dealing with a tough diagnosis—cancer, multiple sclerosis, heart disease.
            From relatives helping an aging parent with dementia.
            From his diagnosis at age three, I spent every spare breath finding ways to help our autistic son. I was exhausted, doing nothing to reenergize myself. Irrepressibly optimistic, I also danced between patches of PTSD and depression.
            Years into our struggle, I realized that isolation is a stairway to despair.
            Isolation for the person who is ill. Isolation for the person with a physical or mental challenge that makes the world hard to navigate.
            Isolation for caregivers—devoted to loved ones who need them, sometimes at the expense of their own physical and mental health.
            There is no handy “Instruction Manual” for dealing with life’s challenges. Most of us end up reinventing the wheel as we go along.
            I don’t have easy answers for anyone. I do know that it helps to reach out to others.
            If you need help, ask. If you can offer help, offer it. Don’t stop trying.
            Different things work for different people. For me, finding support that allowed me to get my son, myself and the rest of the family out on a hiking trail was a huge turning point.
            This week’s Hike Notes lead to a family favorite, San Bruno Mountain – Saddle Trail, a not-overly challenging hiking area with great cityscape and bay views.
            Please feel free to share. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photos!
            The list of hikes is getting long! Please check the Quick View Hike List or scroll down the main Hikes page to see the current list of hike notes.
New this week:
Hike Notes 20: San Bruno Mountain – Saddle Trail

Try a Little Tenderness
            The world can be a harsh place. Life deals all of us nasty blows. No matter how nice we are. No matter how innocent. A simple twist of fate can make life difficult, undeserving of pain though we may be.
            And there is the darker side. When people intentionally inflict pain and suffering on others. We can’t always block those instances. At least not directly or right away.
            What we can do is choose to be kind. Choose to be understanding. Choose to be supportive.
            Standing up in the face of meanness is a separate topic. I’m thinking today about the spirit in which we ourselves initiate actions toward others.
            In our own time, in our own place, we can be the ones who choose to offer kindness.
            It’s hard to find a more natural image of tenderness than a mother in the animal world feeding and protecting her young, like this Tule elk mom and her calf in the Tule Elk Reserve in Point Reyes.
            This week’s Hike Notes lead us to Tomales Point – Point Reyes. Starting at Pierce Point Ranch in the northern part of Point Reyes National Seashore, this out-and-back hike leads through herds of elk dotting the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. (Tule elk photo courtesy of the steadier hand of our intrepid hiking guide for close up shots that day.)
            Please feel free to share. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photos!
            The list of hikes is getting long! Please check the Quick View Hike List or scroll down the main Hikes page to see the current list of hike notes.
New this week:
Hike Notes 19: Tomales Point – Point Reyes

Long Steep Stairs
            Some people like stairs, some people hate them. If I have a choice between stairs and an escalator, I’ll take the stairs. It helps burn up excess energy. When I go to my 21st floor dentist office in downtown San Francisco, I sometimes see how fast I can scoot down the stairs from the 21st floor to the lobby. You’d be surprised how fast twenty-one floors pass by when you’re heading downward.
            But climbing up. That’s a different story. In one public transit station that mysteriously offers an escalator down but only stairs going up, my thigh muscles cry for mercy by the time I get to the third story level.
            Sometimes we don’t have a choice. A hard uphill climb may loom before us. No way backwards. Can’t stay where you are. Steep stairs in front. You just have to pick up one foot, place it on the next step. Raise yourself up, and plant the other foot on the next step. You can go slowly. You can take breaks. But you have to keep climbing and move forward.
            Lots of things in life feel like that. Getting through school. Learning what you need to know for a job. Raising kids. Helping a family member with special needs. Getting through an illness. Working through grief. Getting through any tough stretch of life. We somehow keep climbing those stairs.
            If we stop, turn around, and look where we’ve been, we see that our hard work reaching the next plateau has been worth it.
            This week’s hike is like that. There are lots of stairs. It starts out going downhill. That sounds easy but also involves challenges. Avoid twisting an ankle. Take care of those knee joints.
            The apparent goal of this hike is to reach a scenic beach after a long stairway and trail descent.
            Then you have to climb back up. Steep stairs, steep trails. Every time you turn back and look at where you’ve been, though, you realize that the view from the hill above is as satisfying as the break on the beach.
            This week’s Hike Notes lead us to Marshall’s Beach from Immigrant Point. Starting at the northwest area of the Presidio in San Francisco, the beach destination offers close up views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
            Please feel free to share. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photos!
            The list of hikes is getting long! Please check the Quick View Hike List or scroll down the main Hikes page to see the current list of hike notes.
New this week:
Hike Notes 18: Marshall’s Beach from Immigrant Point