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canyonwalkerOn Sunday this weekend we started off taking it easy. We were pretty wrecked— but in a good way— from our epic hike at Zim Zim Falls a day earlier. We spent the morning taking it easy, went out for lunch and to run a bunch of shopping errands, then came back home before deciding what to do next. "Spend the afternoon laying around the pool" was seriously entertained as an idea... but then we agreed getting out for a short hike in the area would be better. We could always come back to the pool afterward. 😂
"Where to go hiking?" was the next challenge. For that I suggested Alviso Marina County Park. It's nearby... almost deceptively so, because going to Alviso is almost like going to another planet.
First, Alviso is like the land that time and Silicon Valley forgot. It's an old time-y, down-on-its-luck little burg in the shadow of Silicon Valley. It was a bustling local port some 120 years ago. In the mid 20th century it was a heavy manufacturing town. Now all that remains of those industries are the empty shells of buildings that haven't actually been torn down. Ah, but there's something different I noticed compared to our previous visit here, in August 2023. There's no longer a wrecked ship in that grassy field in the scene above. It had only been there for, like, fifty years. For 50 years nobody cared to take it away, and nobody cared that nobody cared.
Alviso is also like a gateway to another world in its gateway to the great outdoors.
Go through these gates and it's not just rushes at the foot of the San Francisco Bay you're walking into. The South Bay is full of salt ponds.
What's so special about salt ponds?
This. This is what's special about salt ponds. It's like the surface of Mars, but it's water.
With a beach made entirely of salt.
Salt ponds here are a naturally occurring phenomenon. The Ohlone people native to this area harvest salt for centuries. When Americans settled here in the1800s they commercialized salt production. There's still parts of the South Bay shorelines that are used for the salt business, though this area was sold back to the public for restoration as a natural habitat. So this orange water and salt beach (and the salt islands in the photo above) are natural.
"Where to go hiking?" was the next challenge. For that I suggested Alviso Marina County Park. It's nearby... almost deceptively so, because going to Alviso is almost like going to another planet.
First, Alviso is like the land that time and Silicon Valley forgot. It's an old time-y, down-on-its-luck little burg in the shadow of Silicon Valley. It was a bustling local port some 120 years ago. In the mid 20th century it was a heavy manufacturing town. Now all that remains of those industries are the empty shells of buildings that haven't actually been torn down. Ah, but there's something different I noticed compared to our previous visit here, in August 2023. There's no longer a wrecked ship in that grassy field in the scene above. It had only been there for, like, fifty years. For 50 years nobody cared to take it away, and nobody cared that nobody cared.
Alviso is also like a gateway to another world in its gateway to the great outdoors.
Go through these gates and it's not just rushes at the foot of the San Francisco Bay you're walking into. The South Bay is full of salt ponds.
What's so special about salt ponds?
This. This is what's special about salt ponds. It's like the surface of Mars, but it's water.
With a beach made entirely of salt.
Salt ponds here are a naturally occurring phenomenon. The Ohlone people native to this area harvest salt for centuries. When Americans settled here in the1800s they commercialized salt production. There's still parts of the South Bay shorelines that are used for the salt business, though this area was sold back to the public for restoration as a natural habitat. So this orange water and salt beach (and the salt islands in the photo above) are natural.
