Hiking San Bruno Mountain (Again!)
Jan. 11th, 2021 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThis past Saturday we hiked San Bruno Mountain just south of San Francisco. In my previous entry I provided some setup for the trip. Among other things I noted that we'd visited this park just under 6 months ago; hence the "Again!" in this blog title. So why go again? Well, 1) The views are amazing in clear weather, like we had on Saturday, and 2) Last time we didn't get to the top because of trail restrictions we chose to obey (which many fellow visitors ignored). Saturday we took a different route with different amazing views and a trek to the top.
The trail started out quietly. The route we picked begins by descending at least 200 feet— not a great beginning for people wanting to ascend a mountain. That makes it less popular than the other trails, and that's a good thing. We enjoyed the brief solitude. Nature seemed to close in around us. Though we could hear cars buzzing by on the parkway just 100 meters away, we could also smell the fresh air and the rich musk of undergrowth still damp from rain a day or two earlier.
Soon it was time for the first leg of the ascent. And with it, the first rewarding vista.
![View of San Francisco along the trail to San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/22889.jpg "View of San Francisco along the trail to San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]")
We huffed and puffed up the first ridge, working our way south. Looking up it seemed like we were less than halfway there. But turning around and looking north, with almost all of San Francisco coming into view beyond the foothills, we could see we were already "there".
As we climbed ever higher to the second ridge we took a slight detour, breaking away from the views of San Francisco.
![View of Colma and the Pacific Ocean from along the trail to San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/24842.jpg "View of Colma and the Pacific Ocean from along the trail to San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]")
On this leg of the hike hiked a ridge overlooking Daly City and Colma to the South. In the distance is the Pacific Ocean, with the sun starting to set over it. (Yes, it's only 3pm. Screw winter and its short days.) In the midground are the cemeteries of Colma.
Yes, Colma is basically a necropolis. Huge cemeteries were plotted there starting in 1900, when San Francisco outlawed burial within city limits. Today it's estimated more than 1.5 million people are buried there. The number of dead dwarfs the living population of about 1,500— by a ratio of 1,000 to 1!
After walking that ridge we had one more stretch of huffing and puffing to reach the summit.
![View across the bay to Oakland from San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2020]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/23118.jpg "View across the bay to Oakland from San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2020]")
The summit itself isn't much to look at. Like most prominent mountain peaks, San Bruno Mountain has an antenna farm at the top. Utility companies bought up land rights in the 1930s and 40s, a few decades before even the Bay Area's robust environmental movement formed to purchase land for preservation and recreation. The two uses (utilities and recreation) now coexist atop many of these peaks. Find spots between antenna towers and you can enjoy views in 360°. The pic above shows the long-distance view east across the San Francisco Bay to Oakland and the Oakland Hills beyond.
Because it's not the top that matters as much as the views from (near) the top we paused at the summit long enough just to catch our breath and snap a few pictures. There were plenty more vistas on the way down, though, as our loop trail took us down the opposite flank of San Bruno Mountain.
![View of San Francisco from San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/23795.jpg "View of San Francisco from San Bruno Mountain [Jan 2021]")
This is a slightly zoomed-in view of downtown San Francisco. You can see all the main towers. Toward the left is the brown-ish Bank of America Building, for many year the tallest skyscraper in SF. In the middle is the "Eye of Sauron" Salesforce Tower, now the tallest. Toward the right, at the foot of the Bay Bridge, is the Millennium Tower, aka the Tilting Tower, because it's sinking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (though not quite as badly— but give it a few decades!). Beyond, at the far right, are the towers of the western span of the Bay Bridge.
We got back the trailhead parking lot at 4pm. We'd hiked just over 5 miles— more than we expected, though we didn't object. The thing is, though... by Saturday night and Sunday morning our muscles did object! That just reminds us that we need to keep in better hiking shape, Coronavirus or no.
The trail started out quietly. The route we picked begins by descending at least 200 feet— not a great beginning for people wanting to ascend a mountain. That makes it less popular than the other trails, and that's a good thing. We enjoyed the brief solitude. Nature seemed to close in around us. Though we could hear cars buzzing by on the parkway just 100 meters away, we could also smell the fresh air and the rich musk of undergrowth still damp from rain a day or two earlier.
Soon it was time for the first leg of the ascent. And with it, the first rewarding vista.
We huffed and puffed up the first ridge, working our way south. Looking up it seemed like we were less than halfway there. But turning around and looking north, with almost all of San Francisco coming into view beyond the foothills, we could see we were already "there".
As we climbed ever higher to the second ridge we took a slight detour, breaking away from the views of San Francisco.
On this leg of the hike hiked a ridge overlooking Daly City and Colma to the South. In the distance is the Pacific Ocean, with the sun starting to set over it. (Yes, it's only 3pm. Screw winter and its short days.) In the midground are the cemeteries of Colma.
Yes, Colma is basically a necropolis. Huge cemeteries were plotted there starting in 1900, when San Francisco outlawed burial within city limits. Today it's estimated more than 1.5 million people are buried there. The number of dead dwarfs the living population of about 1,500— by a ratio of 1,000 to 1!
After walking that ridge we had one more stretch of huffing and puffing to reach the summit.
The summit itself isn't much to look at. Like most prominent mountain peaks, San Bruno Mountain has an antenna farm at the top. Utility companies bought up land rights in the 1930s and 40s, a few decades before even the Bay Area's robust environmental movement formed to purchase land for preservation and recreation. The two uses (utilities and recreation) now coexist atop many of these peaks. Find spots between antenna towers and you can enjoy views in 360°. The pic above shows the long-distance view east across the San Francisco Bay to Oakland and the Oakland Hills beyond.
Because it's not the top that matters as much as the views from (near) the top we paused at the summit long enough just to catch our breath and snap a few pictures. There were plenty more vistas on the way down, though, as our loop trail took us down the opposite flank of San Bruno Mountain.
This is a slightly zoomed-in view of downtown San Francisco. You can see all the main towers. Toward the left is the brown-ish Bank of America Building, for many year the tallest skyscraper in SF. In the middle is the "Eye of Sauron" Salesforce Tower, now the tallest. Toward the right, at the foot of the Bay Bridge, is the Millennium Tower, aka the Tilting Tower, because it's sinking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (though not quite as badly— but give it a few decades!). Beyond, at the far right, are the towers of the western span of the Bay Bridge.
We got back the trailhead parking lot at 4pm. We'd hiked just over 5 miles— more than we expected, though we didn't object. The thing is, though... by Saturday night and Sunday morning our muscles did object! That just reminds us that we need to keep in better hiking shape, Coronavirus or no.
