Saturday, November 19, 2011

Garin and Dry Creek Hike

I went on a hike at Garin and Dry Creek parks today.  I thought it would be a small intimate group as only one person showed up at the car pool location.  She and I drove to the park to meet D the leader.  When we got there five more people showed up so we had a nice group of eight for the hike.  I volunteered to be D's co-leader and did the sweeping.  We headed off on the hike with blue sky scattered with fluffy white clouds.

The first part of the hike was fairly flat and we crossed creeks about four times on these narrow bridges.  I told D he should rename the hike the narrow bridges hike.  D showed us a place next to the creek sort of hidden behind thick bushes where he has visions of bringing a romantic date to make out.  I have no desire to make out there but it would be a nice private cool space for a nice long intimate conversation on a hot summer day.  After checking out this secret spot we headed off to Jordan pond where we stopped for a snack.  Lunch was planned at Gossip rock which was a ways off yet so this snack break was to fortify us for a late lunch.

After our snack we took advantage of the porta potty set up near the pond picnic area and then headed off up the hills.   There were wonderful views of green hillsides, blue sky, and white clouds as we made our way up the hill to Gossip rock.  We reached the ridge and walked along the ridge a bit.  You could see San Francisco bay and Silicon Valley from the ridge on one side and wilderness on the other side.  We soon reached Gossip rock where we saw small bowls carved into the rock where Indians used to grind grain.  We had lunch at Gossip rock but we did not gossip.  I got bonus lunch items offered by my fellow hikers: dried mango, licorice, and Dove chocolate.

After lunch we started heading downhill.  It was steep but the ground was fairly dry despite yesterday's rain so there was good footing as we made our way down.  The sky started to get a little more cloudy with more gray clouds rather than the fluffy white ones.  There was one more slight hill before we reached the bottom of the park near where our cars were parked.  We got to hike through some small canyons in the woods and that was a nice change from the open hill sides.  We finally reached the bottom and hiked to the trail head and had time left to check out the gardens right at the entrance to the park.

I'm not a gardener so I can't tell you all the names of the flowers that were there in the late fall but it was pretty and I took lots of pictures in the garden.  It was a nice way to finish off the hike with a small walk through the garden.  After seeing the place, we all said our goodbyes and S and I drove back to the park-n-ride lot where we said our goodbyes and I came home to a nice hot shower and good memories of the hike.