The Hiking Section walks in John Muir's footsteps

Photo by Richard Boyden. A group of Sierra Club hikers on Mount Tam.

Among major urban centers, the Bay Area is one of the best in the world for opportunities to enjoy nature close to home. We have 200 parks and open spaces, thousands of miles of hiking trails, mountains, deep-forested canyons, and pristine beaches, all preserved by generations of environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts.

Sierra Club mountaineers and hikers, starting with John Muir and his friends, have been at the forefront of this conservation effort since the beginning. Muir urged his followers to enjoy wild places and to educate the public on the need to preserve them - and they have been doing it successfully ever since.

Every weekend (and on many weekdays too), the Bay Chapter Hiking Section sponsors numerous hikes at all levels of difficulty, from three-mile minihikes, to twenty-mile-plus odysseys. It is common to see veteran Club hikers in their 70s and 80s at these events, evidence of the obvious health benefits of hiking (and it's a lot more fun than going to the gym!).

The center of it all is Mount Tamalpais - at 2571' only the fifth highest peak in the region -but hands-down the best for hiking and enjoying nature. With 200 miles of named trails (and many unnamed ones), it features almost every kind of landscape and habitat found in this region, from great redwood forests to oak woodlands to mountain meadows. Many of the most beautiful areas of the mountain are accessible only by foot.

I spent decades in the Bay Area before I became aware of Tam's awesome north side. I had driven the windy road along Alpine Lake but never knew that between the Northside lakes and the mountain's long summit ridge is a great forest with rushing, cascading creeks, a forest of Douglas fir, native cypress, and serpentine outcrops. From here are visible Point Reyes, Tomales Bay, Mount St. Helena and, in winter and early spring, Snow Mountain, 100 miles to the north.

Mount Tam is only one of many outstanding hiking areas in the Bay Area. To the west is the spectacular Point Reyes National Seashore, to the south the Marin Headlands. To the east are the East Bay Regional Parks, including the 31-mile National Ridge Trail, Briones, and many others. And then there is the incomparable Mount Diablo, a craggy inferno in summer but a wildflower paradise in springtime. Further south are Sunol, Del Valle, and the Ohlone Wilderness, with yet another challenging long-distance trail connecting them.

No description of Bay Area hiking areas would be complete without the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most hikers know about Big Basin with its towering redwoods. Fewer folks in the Central and Northern Bay Area know that for a generation, conservationists and open-space advocates have been building a network of great parks, including the Mid Peninsula Open Space District, state parks, and the San Mateo County parks. These protect many ridgetops and canyonlands stretching from Montara Mountain in Pacifica to the Pescadero Creek watershed just north of Big Basin.

If I haven't mentioned your favorite hiking area, fear not: the Hiking Section probably goes there too.

The Hiking Section and its leaders welcome new participants every weekend and many weekdays. We encourage you to join us, whether you are an experienced or novice hiker or anywhere in between. Our hikes are listed comprehensively in every Yodeler, and on-line at: www.sfbay.sierraclub.org/hiking

Please read the hike rating system provided at the top of the page. It will give you a good idea of the difficulty of the hike, from very moderate to very strenuous. You can also find all the hikes arranged by date in our Calendar of Activities. Feel free to call the leader if you are new and have questions about a hike. Come join us!

Richard Boyden