Give Me Sugar

We approached Sugar where she stood in a sturdily fenced corral.  It was at this moment that I had a pang of regret for my voluble chit chat a week ago on the trail.  My musings on a wish to get to know a horse had become moist breath and big eyes and odd noises, and that was just me.  I came toward Sugar a step and a half behind Karen.  Sugar is a black and tan Mustang with an unreadable branding on her neck.  Karen put a halter on her.  I did not really know what to do with myself without a fence between me and this large living thing.

Very quickly, without preamble, I was handed the rope and instructed to walk with her around the corral.  I was told that the two things I had to know were that Sugar would try to pin me against the fences and that if she pulls ahead I need to stop her.  She immediately pulled ahead and Karen said I should just stop and she would stop.  I stopped. She didn't.   Then I learned to pull up on the rope near her neck, phew, we stopped.  Karen pointed out that Sugar wasn't walking parallel to me either and that this is a problem.  She was essentially cutting me off at the pass.  With instructions to look straight ahead while walking tall and also the need to turn my head and see the alignment of Sugar's hips I was sending quite whacked cues to the horse.  My main concern was not being pinned against the fence.  The other thing I was doing was talking.

As much as I wanted my main talent to sway the day, the horse does not speak English, or infer meaning, or even respond.  I felt like I was at a cocktail party with people who thought I was boring.  Tons of effort and a constant report of my internal feelings, asking permission for advances, and a side play by play of all of my thoughts to Karen and one could only call me at this moment The Horse Blatherer.  Much of the most effective advice was to stand tall or be big, open my arms to the side, hold my place.  It was all a completely new language for me and I was baffled and full to the brim with my first day amongst horses.

I asked Karen as we walked away from Sugar's corral to repeat the rule that horses like to pin you to fences and get ahead of you.  Her reply was "Oh no, that's just Sugar, all the horses have different problems, each their own."  This sounded ominous.

A Date with Dusty-Neigh

My introduction to a horse began on a rare beautiful April day.  I pictured myself learning how to communicate with a horse by just observing it, hanging out on top of a fence, projecting my thoughts telepathically into those huge orbs of obsidian that they have for eyes. Somehow coming to an understanding without overstepping my welcome, and certainly not by controlling the animal.

Well the first thing I learned with my new teacher Karen is that, like dogs ala Cesar Romero, a horse needs to know that you are worthy of its attention, and that you will take the lead in any waltz around the paddock.  I was introduced first to Dusty.  He was the oldest and mellowest horse at the stable.  I thought that he would be just fine for this investigation.
Karen encouraged me to tell Dusty that I was intimidated by his size, the old adage that a horse instinctively knows your fears has been amended with the suggestion that you fess up immediately and pretend nothing and 'use your words'.  Karen spoke  of others who oversee equine therapy in which humans are encouraged to tell the animals their troubles.  This was not quite what I imagined, more like I wanted the horse to tell me its problems.  She then demonstrated the proper distance from the animal one needs to pass behind it and thus we left quiet Dusty.

I then met Elijah, a brown and white horse who appeared more tense.  Or maybe that was me.  I met him inside a stall which really amplifies the size of a horse.  I repeated my tried and true first greeting and held up my hand to be sniffed.  Wondering if to a horse this was akin to asking him to kiss my ring made me ask Karen if horses like or want this particular attention.  She replied that Elijah was obviously already bored with my presence since he started looking away immediately after the first sniff.  I asked how do you tell if a horse is tense, she noted the ears, tension in the neck, and stance, pointing out that Elijah's left rear hoof was tipped up and his balance was on one leg there and this is a sign of ease.  I felt somehow accomplished for the mere fact of not frightening the horse.  This whole morning I had been holding back my coughing for fear it would spook one of the horses.  I have a strange idea of horse skittishness and obviously it is all projection.

As we left the at-ease Elijah and passed by Dusty again, whose back foot interestingly was also tipped up in hoof repose I heard Karen say "Well I guess we are going to work with Sugar."  as if she had asked the other two for permission to work with me and they had declined.

Horse Time

Now that that last little adventure is over, and my personal responsibilities have subsided for awhile,  I am beginning a new odyssey of the Black Phoebe as I flit away from hearth and back again.  Staying available to family and loved ones and yet adventuring in my mind into new worlds.  Mere steps away from home.

I have recently been thinking that because of my aversion to the hubris of humans, in this case horse-back riders, that I have never really gotten to know horses very well.  Dogs, cats, even a canary, but with these pets  I never tried to ride them.  I admit that I get judgmental when I see someone on a horse.  It seems like the ultimate in vanity to elect to subjugate and be carried about by an animal.  I feel the same way about rickshaws and pedicabs.  This may be a product of living entirely in the age of the combustion engine.  For me though it seems incredibly arrogant to ride an animal.  My heart is not in it.

When I was a teenager I rode the pony rides at Tilden Park.  I took lessons with the Girl Scouts as a teen, and in my third year of college I took riding lessons.  Riding a horse is definitely exciting.  I enjoyed all of these times with horses though I was aware of my fear of such a large animal.  I had been run-away-with at a dude ranch in Red Bluff, all the way back to the barn and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.  The best thing these exposures did was impress my mother-in-law enough of my horsemanship to remove this skill, at  least this one thing, from her list of snarkies.

I mused over my lack of recent knowledge of these magnificent, HUGE, creatures, and realized most of my interaction with them in the last twenty years has been entirely holding the back of my hand near their nostrils to let them sniff.  Occasionally I would touch their neck from behind the safety of a fence.  I muse over many things and never act on them, and this recurrent though not necessary desire might have remained un-acted on.

There are many trails near my home where I walk our dog, Barkeley.  One day after going down a steep hill my knees began to ache.  (This occurs frequently now that I hiked down the eastern escarpment of the Sierra in about three hours at the end of my Sierra crossing).  To counter the pain I began a very weird goose step that looked like I was bicycling a Victorian large-wheel bike.  I thought I was alone but I had attracted the attention and concern of a tall woman on horseback.   She veered off her trail to check on whether I was OK.  I think tall women on large horses are more brave and more equipped to be heroic than hikers.

It turned out she was a woman I had met earlier who owned a stable very near our house.  We chatted, and I do go on, and in my blather I told her how I had been thinking about finding someone in town that would introduce me to horses without my having to ride them.   She said that I was not the only person who had asked her about this kind of 'lesson' and she had been musing how to construct such an approach for people like myself.  She suggested an introduction to horses for free the next week and I took her up on the idea.

At This Point Who Cares?

I have completely dropped this account of my wonderful walk across California last year. We finished the Sierra Crossing in July and the last little bit of Walker Lake to Nevada border in Novembrrrr. I intended then, really I did, to sit down and write it all up.

I think we walked some 360 miles and took about 40 days with 3 rest days on the Sierran crossing. One of my hangups is that I wish to nail down figures like that and it requires figuring out my haphazard notes. Also of course, life happens, and a good share of it was dealt to a loved one recently and that has distracted me and mine. Things have calmed down for the moment and I am eyeing the Black Phoebe once again.

It Comes with the Territory

Day 7, May 10, 2009

Route: From Old Finley Road near San Ramon, into Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. We followed what is now established as the Diablo Trail, going up Old Finley Road to Sulphur Spring Trail, to Black Hills Trail, to Crestview Road, to Highland Ridge Rd, to Highland Ridge Trail, and then down past the Morgan Backpack Camp and horse corral, to Morgan Territory Road.

Mileage: 8.1 miles

Flora and Fauna: I am not sure I have explained that I only put down new sightings in this section. As I travel through more of one habitat type I see fewer new species. The whole walk has been rich with wildlife but at this stage of day seven of the Coast Ranges I rarely see new things. Hence, only Mule’s ear, a big-leafed big-petalled daisy of the grass fields gets noted.

Logistics: We are dropped off at the Finley Road gate by Peter. He has provided us with his GeoTracker again, which clues in friend Kale to our proximity to the pick-up spot on Morgan Territory Road, so that he can drive the long way out to pick us up. We have only daypacks– thank God.

Recommended Reading: The Morning Side of Mount Diablo: An illustrated account of the San Francisco Bay Area’s historic Morgan Territory Road, by Anne Marshall Homan, 2001. At times a lyric ode to the days of the ranchero, cowboy, and farmer this substantial investigation provides detailed accounts of the people that managed rich family lives along this one steep view-ridden road–the principal access to the back side of Mount Diablo.

My first promise here is to assure any reader that I vow to never discuss our feet again. After only one day of rest, even with the same boots, they became a non-issue.

This was a very beautiful, expansive, lung-opening walk on Mother’s day. We started up the wooded and shady Sulphur Spring Trail coming to Crestview Road. Here we could look back over the unfocused soft-masses of distant oaks in the foreground of a majestic view of Mount Diablo from its east side. My notes say simply ‘dreamy’.

Without our heavy packs the day just skipped along. We turned south again on Highland Ridge trail. The trails below us and ahead of us were constantly visible from all points of the walk giving a foreshortened effect. With the provisioning of great views our spirits hardly noticed the altitude gain. We had lunch at the highest spot of the hike and were rewarded with a call from our daughter wishing me a happy Mother’s Day.

Peter had lent us a GeoTracker Spot device which added a techno element to our walk. This was the first day that it served us in a larger manner than previously. We had carried the palm sized orange transmitter for most of the walk beyond Tilden Park, enabling Peter and other friends to watch our progress at a site on the internet. The device also can make a 911 call to a satellite in case of emergency (we deemed blisters not enough of an emergency). This day however Peter decided to monitor our pace and inform Kale when to pick us up at Morgan Territory Road based on our progress across the ridges.

When we had lunch at our spectacular high spot we rested and relaxed for quite a while. We were unaware that our early quick clip and accumulating mileage gave our friends the impression that we would be at our destination shortly. It should have been a quick trip down from the ridge but we dawdled at lunch, and explored at length the Backpacker’s Camp further down the trail. We had suggested a time to meet Kale, but equipped with up-to-the-minute Spot information he headed out earlier than necessary. The lesson of the story is don't forget that a good walk also must have a good rest–a moment to relish the place or mileage obtained.

A backpacker’s camp seems an intelligent new twist on the usual Regional Park offering. Had we done more investigation prior to our walk we might have timed things to allow us to camp there legally. I encourage others to do so and keep it popular enough to survive budget cuts in the future.

For the first time since the urban strolls I felt strong.

Where Were We?

Day 7, May 8, 2009

Route: From our campground, uphill to the Wind Caves, to Wall Point Rd (part of the trail to the summit of Mt. Diablo where we are NOT going, thank you), crossing South Gate Road at Curry Point. Down from there on the Knobcone Point Trail (fire road) to Black Hawk Ridge Trail (fire road) to Oyster Point Trail which leads to Morgan Territory Regional Preserve and then out Old Finley Road to pavement and middle-of-nowhereness.

Mileage: The longest 7.5 miles I have ever experienced

Flora and Fauna: Here one has to admit that if you do not look for anything, you will not see anything. The following creatures were noticed only because they did their best to get noticed. I thank a warbling vireo and a hermit warbler for their kindness. Looking back on photos I also saw sycamores and buckeye trees. But obviously I didn't really see them at all.

Logistics: We basically walked uphill, hobbled downhill, had lunch and unwrapped my now bleeding toes, resumed the up and down and up and down, deciding in the end to seek civilization and foot rest, delivered nearly 30 miles from Morgan Territory Road to Walnut Creek Bart Station by a woman and her 14 year old daughter who took pity and put us in their van. I vow to purchase new boots.

Recommended Reading: Mount Diablo, Los Vaqueros & Surrounding Parks Featuring the Diablo Trail Map, produced by Save Mount Diablo, available at REI (map sponsor). Waterproof, Tearproof, detailed, a whole world offered for your perusal. The Best Diablo Map, if not the best regional map I have ever seen. About ten dollars.

This is a tough day to write about because it was such a tough day of painful feet and low spirits that I took only the following notes: warbling vireo hermit warbler. That is it. Coupled with the fact that I am writing about it now a mere five months after walking it may reflect, and reflect poorly, in the following account.

When I started this walk and this blog I figured I would reminisce about time well spent in the Eco-tones of California. I planned to write about what California had meant to me, what I had seen, and produce a kind of autobiography enmeshed in landscape. If I do that I will never finish.

So forgive me here if I don't tell you about slicing through the fine clays of Black Diamond Regional Park on the north foothills of Mt. Diablo while participating on an archaeological dig in college days and found green leaves a foot down folded into a capsule protecting a solitary leaf-cutting bee's eggs. I also will not tell of the ravens, the ruling pair, atop Mt. Diablo, or my subsequent epiphany while camping solo that even the most dreaded and raggedly-poor campground neighbor has love and forgiveness to offer. I won't even mention the visual impact of a wooly blue-curl atop the jumbled boulders on Pinnacles National monument in April. I will just stick to the walk events, and beg your forgiveness for drawing this account out so long.

Mt. Diablo is a very special place. I had pictured us climbing to its peak in a triumphant attainment of a milestone, looking back and forward at vast views, probably feeling superior and certainly feeling connected to its specialness. That picture was not to be as my toes were far too blistered to make unnecessary mileage and altitude gain. We would skirt the southern flank of Diablo and regain the eastern side by traversing its lower slopes.

Without a ridiculously overfilled backpack of tent, sleeping bags, journals, five days of food, walking sticks, clothes, flashlights –our house on our backs–and without the bulbous fluid filled bruising of blisters (Steve's entire soles were a blister) this would have been another perfect walk. Gorgeous weather, intimate canyons expanding into vistas at their heights, yadda yadda.

After visiting the Wind Caves (not actually formed from wind erosion but rather from water percolating into areas where the water dissolves the natural cement holding sand grains together), we came to our highest point at Curry Point. We walked down Knobcone Point Trail to a junction with Curry Canyon but counter-intuitively did not turn toward the east but kept just inside of the western foothills that fend off ritzy developments like Blackhawk. After climbing quite a ways back up to a junction of four trails we dropped our ridiculous loads for lunch. This is where I heard the warbling vireo in an oak– a sound that finally penetrated my self-absorbed self-pity.

Having seen nary a soul the entire walk we were surprised by the arrival of three people all at once. First came a cyclist who veered off onto our future single track trail. I remember thinking that he was taking a path where bicycles were forbidden. At the same time there was a relief that people pass this way, even illegally, and I felt instead of my usual annoyance at wheeled scofflaws a certain love and well-wishing that he be safe and enjoy himself. Perhaps a sign of becoming delusional but probably just old age laissez-faire making another attempt at ruling my life.

Then two perfectly-bodied female joggers in cute outfits, about our age, came to the junction, saw us under the tree, and one of them trotted up and asked "Excuse me, do you know where we are? We seem to have missed our trail." We had a map, a great map, the Save Mount Diablo- produced map referenced above. These ladies had already run many miles, had missed their original exit, and now were looking at an extra couple of miles to get back to a path that would lead them home eventually. I do not think the extra mileage would have phased them even if they had remained lost. Off they went, at a good speed, chatting. I was impressed. I had pictured the trophy wives of Blackhawk to be more odalesque than olympian.

There is no pain like post toe-freedom pain with blisters. We took the single-track Oyster Point trail towards Morgan Territory. At its highest point we could see another of Diablo's wall rock outcroppings, my guess is that it holds fossil oysters in abundance. Here we rested and I indulged in heavy doubts about my ability to do this walk. I felt so out of shape and unlike the old days I did not appear to get stronger but rather more tired each day. I wanted to throw off the pack big time. This is where a hermit warbler preened and tisked around us and broke through my morale-damaging reverie.

We were on the last stretch of Oyster Point trail, in need of water, and looking forward to Tassajara Creek at the bottom of the canyon. We had originally planned that we would guerilla camp in Morgan Territory, that we had to make use of this stupid food we carried, this stupid tent and cook stove, the incredibly inane multiple eating utensils. Why put ourselves through the torture of carrying all of this stuff if we were not going to tough it, be excitingly illicit with our illegal camping, be the adventurers we had ceased to be twenty years earlier? Either God is a stickler for the letter of the law and gave us blisters to 'mend' our ways and make us knock off this notion, or we took the signs of multiple mosquito attacks at the creek as definitive, or we realized when we emerged laden with all this crap, that sheesh Morgan Territory was well-used by local residents and that hiding out in a camp was going to be hard. We decided, glory-be, to give up our folly.

I felt like crying with relief when we decided to just walk out here at Old Finley Road, and call one of our patient friends to pick us up. We asked a nice family of father, son and uncle where we were in the civilized world and they described that we would need to walk out of the park through a gate, but that there was no actual parking lot for a mile or so. The private homes at this entrance were buffered from park user cars. Which was nice for them, but also meant we couldn't keep up with these informants over the next mile, and therefore lost our chance at a ride.

The first home we came to looked like an old ranch. Very picturesque, it was set amongst huge sycamores. We doffed packs and played with a dog that seemed to belong to the big barn/house complex that looked a hundred years old. Steve tried to find someone to let us use a phone because our cell phones had no coverage. After not being able to raise anyone but the dog, Steve suggested that we go on down the lane of eight big expensive, well-appointed houses and knock on their doors (or ring their security buzzers) to ask for the use of their phone. . We looked disheveled and needy, I could not bring myself to do it. It was like penetrating a veil of protection lain wordlessly and fencelessly that the homeowners had constructed while making the deal with us hiking riff-raff – you may pass, but do not bother us. I guess I still respond to class notions in my own head. I asked Steve to stay put and I would hobble ahead to investigate the so-called parking lot and try to find cell coverage.

Neither of those things did I ever find. The only thing to do was to hike miles to San Ramon or flag down a car. We put the packs back on and trudged out to the road. We hid our packs behind an oleander and walked without loads until Steve flagged down a passing van. Liz Wilson and her teenage daughter lent us their operating phone, but neither Steve's cousin, nor his Best Man in All Ways, Kale Williams answered. These people had driven us around, put us up, provided a GPS tracking unit, fed us, but here right now, they had their own lives apparently. So Liz gave us a ride to the Walnut Creek Bart Station, hugging the larger contours of Diablo's foothold, nearly forty minutes by car. She and her daughter were out driving for no good reason but companionship and cow watching. They had a great relationship obviously. and enough room in that relationship for us in their day. I salute their lives and generosity.

Steve left his binoculars on the Bart station platform, we both left our notions of invincibility behind permanently, not to mention pride. Peter had to pick us up at the Rockridge Bart Station, we could not walk the four blocks to his home.

Upward

Day 6, May 7, 2009

Route: From Walnut Creek Bart Station east along Ygnacio Valley Road, right on Homestead Ave, left on Marshall Drive to its end at Shell Ridge Open Space, rejoining the Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail (BTMD), to a junction with Borges Ranch (where we had lunch), backtracking uphill to continue on the BTMD trail to Rock City and collapse at our camp in the Live Oak Campground.

Mileage: 11.4 miles

Flora and Fauna: Brown-headed cowbird, fig, Bullock’s oriole, wild boar, western screech owl, great horned owl, brodiaea, ookow (Dicholostemma), western rattlesnake, gopher snake, mockingbird, great horned owl.

Logistics: This day we pretended to be backpackers, taking our one shared pack to the Rockridge Bart station on foot. We had left a very heavy pack at the Mt. Diablo State Park camp that we had set up the afternoon of the day before. We shared the load as we walked from the Walnut Creek Bart station up and up to our camp. Thank goodness we did not have a full set of packs because it would have been too much.

We walked from the Walnut Creek Bart Station with me wearing our one pack. I am sure I looked odd bobbing down commuter-busy Ygnacio Valley Road and my companion carrying zip. This was further made weird by a couple stopping their car on Homestead Ave to ask us if we were ‘going backpacking!’, and how they thought that was cool. Steve repeated his schpiel about my birthday aims, and though each rendering seems a boring tale, the couple in the car seemed impressed, wishing us success. The same wish was repeated by Hilary, walking her dog at the Shell Ridge Open Space where we had regained the Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail. I received a benediction in Hilary’s eye-contact-rich cheering “way to go, my friend.” It was still awkward to be heralded. Internally I felt the “too much information” reflex of Steve’s to be more an attempt to cement my resolve to finish than to provide total strangers with some bit of awe of this small feat.

Shell Ridge Open Space is gorgeous, and I remembered to thank the Save Mount Diablo non-profit organization for its potent activism of saving lands surrounding this wonderful mountain from over-development from the 1970s up to this day. The hills of resistant sandstone (many of which provide fossils) create a bowl, a moat around the southwestern foot of Mt. Diablo, shielding us from any sight or awareness of the modern nature-mindless metropolis on the other side.

On the wide fire trail it is an easy thing to keep your head up, looking around, absorbing the panaroma, but as the steepness increased, my head was lolling in sympathy with the labor of walking, and I was therefore able to spot a rattlesnake one foot to the left of my path. Stretched out and still, it made no warning. Steve, ahead of me (as usual and always) had walked by without noticing. Luckily the snake had found him unremarkable. Or like me was just too enervated to make a fuss.

When we had attained about half of the day’s elevation, we came to a gate on the Mt. Diablo State Park border. Down a canyon to our left an oasis of green trees and some very dark old ranch buildings beckoned us for a lunch stop. This was the Borges Ranch, a Walnut Creek-run park that preserves the old buildings of the Borges family cattle ranch that set-up here in 1899. The park offers living history programs, houses 4-H animal projects, provides a ranger residence and ample shade.

The old barn is so aged that its wood is black, looking burned and turned to charcoal in place. All the buildings have been transformed by decay and heat to resemble not so much wood but old taxidermy, slightly oily and off true color. Their age is picturesque and moving. Old fig and fruit trees are full of birds. Flowers have been planted with generosity. A brilliant Bullock’s oriole, finches, warblers, scrub jays, mockingbirds and bluebirds congregate on non-native food sources lush with leaf and health. A gopher snake basked next to the garage, bees swarmed, chickens investigated our lunch, pigs seemed indifferent to kids screaming into their pen. All of this life was in contrast to the sparser, more spread out wildlife we saw, or rather, rarely saw in Shell Ridge Open Space. This pocket of plowed and trampled earth was busy with activity.

If we had not walked here for miles but had rather driven we might not have noticed this disparity in diversity and number. Perhaps if we had driven we would only have noticed the human history, the stories of human striving. But by contrast this energetic place becomes a proof. Here it is evident that humans are not all bad in their activities on top of a landscape. The Borges ranch fits in. It provides function. It has a niche. The Borges ranch asks the question —did all of this locus-of-lifeness predate the cattle ranch or result from the cattle ranch? Were there springs here, well-watered trees, diversity of habitat prior to the Borges’ arrival? Is that what brought the family here? Or did the Borges themselves wring out a better arrangement for all through their ranch works?

We talked to a ranger who oversees Borges Ranch and the Shell Ridge Open Space. He told us that members of the Borges family come back for reunions here. I wonder if the current family experiences a wistful or relieved emotion upon return. Probably just pride that something this choice remains for all to enjoy. He was unable to tell us about connecting trails in Mt. Diablo State Park next door. Like other park workers, (as we discovered this truth all along our walk) he explained that when they get a day off the last place they go is further a-field from their office by trail. He and his wife would escape to the East Bay, shop, get civilized and take much needed breaks from cleaning up after drunken picnickers. He pointed out that stoners are nicer than drunks.

At lunch we had made the mistake of taking off our boots. When I removed the boots my toes escaped their bonds only to scream with pain at each barefoot step. The nerves were back, alive, and it felt like my toes were doing a miniature challenge of tiny little beds of coal walking. Once back in the boot, the toes took over a mile to become numb again in obedience to our goal.

Steve and I invented “a little game” today that as the days wear on I will regret having started. We count the number of hills we are climbing. Each hill is judged by a physical gear change. If your body shifts from plodding to ease with a following re-shift back into plodding low gear then you have ‘taken’ a hill. It was fun to yell out “Hill # 3!” It was not fun to yell out “Hill #16!”. So —a warning— don’t play this game (or sing ‘I love to go a wanderin’). You will hate your life.

We begin to see our first glimpses of the Wall, a huge escarpment of rock that rises to the east of us, quite a long way off of our route. Tourism, from the vantage point on Hill #9, looks less and less desirable. We choose instead to explore the closer smaller wall of rock to our west, across a field dotted with cows.

This being Spring the grass was deep and mostly green in spite of bovine predators. The chalky-appearing, pocked and bowled rocks—layers of erosion-resistant sandstone beds turned up on their sides through uplift of Mt. Diablo—attracted us to them through the emotional pull of their appearance of unfathomable age. Their seat in the rolling, contoured and soft field drew us as if we were just that moment spotting bones or the gumless teeth of a skull projecting out of a long ago burial or cache. There was a tingling spookiness about them and the promise of discovery in hand-size recesses. Once the mini-Wall was obtained however, much of this mood dissipated with the sighting of tidy, pool-bedecked cul-de sac house developments just below them on the other side. A chewing cow kept us wary company and looked possessive of this amazing spot between all that is modern and all that is ancient.

Mt. Diablo is a bit of a mystery itself. What geo-morphological processes were at play in its creation is still in debate. Is it a bubble of lighter rock that rose when upper layers eroded away, or is there more faulting and tectonic movement involved than had been detected by other theorists? It is not a volcano, that is clear, and don’t ever say that. By the time we reached Hill # 11! I did not care at all how it had been made.

I stopped being able to carry even our pseudo-backpack (a full-size pack with two water bottles, coats, lunch, journal, etc. what, fifteen pounds tops?). I sloughed it over onto Steve. This was my last happy moment until camp. We tackled, or rather the next five hills tackled me. What was a very pleasant temperature seemed to become torment. I hated an innocent man who sprinted by us at an incredible clip. By Hill # 13! I was red in the face and had to have a granola bar to refuel. I mean, I really had to have it.

Steve got so far ahead at one point that I could only spot him, out of earshot, like a buck on the prow of a cliff, waving back down at me jollily. This was particularly frustrating because at that moment I had spotted at the base of the gulf between us a black boar sow and her two piglets. Steve waved… I pointed madly for him to spot the boar feeding …and so it went, with no understanding between us but that we were both gesticulating idiots.

I really hate my inability to pull my head out of physical suffering, and as we approached our camp, (Hill # 16!) passing the familiar carved rock faces of Rock City, I could only grumble in tune with the small vexed cranky world of looking at my feet so as not to fall. All would have to wait until rest. Toes free, dinner delicious, beauty returned then, at sunset, on top of Rock City looking west back to the Bay Area. The sound of a western screech owl (sounding like he was dropping a flutey ping-pong ball repeatedly) chimed as the dimming light showed us, even now so early in our walk, the impressive and unlikely distance that we had won through walking.