Mar. 1, 2003: Morgan Regional Preserve

Part of the reason I wanted to move to the Bay Area was the accessibility of wildernessy areas from more populated ones. But I was hoping for more than Big Basins, Yosemites, and even Mt. Diablos. The same beauty which makes these places worth visiting tends to focus the numerous nature-lovers and tourists of San Francisco onto a couple of breathtaking acres, when part of what I'm looking for is isolation. Also, I think I figured out something which has been bugging me since I first started going out with the outdoors & mountaineering clubs at Harvard. That was when I first started meeting a few of these hardcore, peak-climbing, ice-pick-wielding, high-energy-mush-consuming, god-forbid-if-I'm-actually-comfortable-while-camping types, and I had to wonder if I was justified in identifying myself as an outdoorsy type when there were these people who almost seemed to compete to see how rough and miserable an experience they could have. But I figured out that the difference between me and those people is that although I enjoy hard hikes and bad weather, I want to experience nature by being in it, not competing against it, and I want it to be a part of everyday life, not a special occasion. I want to be able to go out without a big production, be in the mud and sagebrush on a unmaintained trail in a place that might not have 3000 ft. cliffs, 300 ft. trees, or waterfalls, walk around, come home, and be able to do that on any given day. Anyway, today Sarah and I determined to find someplace like that, and figuring that maps would only direct us to the same place everyone else was going, we took off driving pseudo-randomly. This is perhaps not the most efficient way of finding a secluded spot, but I have never been known for being well-prepared. But the drive was pretty and relaxing, even if we did go up and down the same road 5 times. Eventually we found ourselves on Finley Rd, heading up a valley past where ranches were offering to board horses, and stumbled upon a trail skirting some private land to the Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. At one point, while Sarah was taking a picture of the scenery, I looked up and noticed a coyote watching us over a hill just 25 feet away. It wasn't very afraid of us, so we got some good pictures. We only got in about 2 miles on the trail before we deviated up a hill to fetch a pail of water and watch the sunset. But no crowns were broken as we found our way back down in the dark, in typical A&S fashion.