I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I arrived at the Browns Valley Open Space trailhead in Vacaville, although I did know there’s no actual parking lot and I would need to leave my car alongside the road. That really wasn’t a problem since traffic is fairly minimal. But I’ll admit I felt intimidated when I realized that once […]
“Stick to it,” said Peter; “everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep on” — E. Nesbit in The Railway Children (1906)
This morning was beautifully overcast before the sun finally won out over the clouds, a little before noon. I was hiking the Monte Vista Trail near Salmon Falls on the South Fork of the American River. There were loads of yellow and purple wildflowers (along with the ever-present poison oak), and the views were pretty nice, too!
I’ve been climbing an awful lot of hills on my hikes lately, but that’s partly because the view is so much better from up high. Here are a few of the literally breath-taking sights I saw when I spent the afternoon wandering along the bluffs in Fair Oaks a couple of days ago.
With all the hiking I do around Lake Natoma, I’ve gotten to be in pretty good physical condition, and climbing hills doesn’t bother me too much. In fact, I enjoy the challenge, and it’s always a healthy aerobic workout. But it never occurred to me last Monday when I decided to trek all the way down and then back up this steep hill along the Fair Oaks bluffs that I was in training for some of those crazy hills in San Francisco a couple of days later.