The Newspaper of the San Francisco Bay Chapter
July - August 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES |
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Volunteer of the month
Diane Smith: a trekker for all seasons
"It's hard to imagine my life without the Sierra Club," says veteran hiker and hike leader Diane Smith. Her activities in the Club transformed her past and dominate her present.
Her present? Almost every weekend, Diane is pounding the trails. She estimates that she participates in at least 40 Sierra Club outings each year, leading perhaps 10. This spring she led a series of three "beginner hikes" (see future Yodelers for announcements of next spring's series). In May she also led intrepid experienced ramblers on a 4D day-trek (15 miles, 5,000 feet of elevation gain) to all four of Mount Diablo's main peaks. Oh, and during the week, she might use some of her precious evening hours to coordinate the outings for the Mount Diablo Group, where she also serves as treasurer.
Her past? Not an auspicious one for a woman who spends about 10% of her waking hours wearing thick socks and tread-soled boots. Diane was born and raised in southern Illinois, in Greenville, a town of 4,500 (population, not elevation), "half of whom I was related to," she says. Walking, hiking for fun? The idea didn't occur to most of the town's residents, and certainly not to Diane or her brother and three sisters. Though Greenville is touted now as a "Norman Rockwell town" and "a town for all seasons", Diane burst out the first chance she got. Ten days after she turned 18, she left, returning only for occasional visits, during which she can walk the main streets and still run into friends and relatives.
At first Diane moved just 50 miles west, to the college town of Edwardsville, where she earned an AA degree in business. Her next move took her further west, to Kansas City, where she worked in the employment division of Hallmark Cards. In 1972, tempted by the weather and tales of Kansas City friends who had migrated to the Bay Area, Diane again hit the road west. Settling in Oakland, she worked for UC for five years, and then enrolled in a paralegal program at Saint Mary's College in Moraga. She has been a paralegal ever since, currently employed by a firm that deals with medical malpractice suits.
At the end of the 1970s Diane was "an overweight smoker". She and some friends happened upon Desolation Wilderness, near Tahoe. "I was hooked," she says. She bought boots (which produced huge blisters) and a sleeping bag. A cousin who worked in San Francisco wandered into the Sierra Club's national headquarters, found a copy of the Yodeler, and mailed it to Diane. She read the announcement for a series of beginners' hikes led by Don de Fremery, plunked down her Sierra Club membership dues, and in May of 1981 joined Don's 1A hike for rank novices. "She was very pleasant," Don recalls, "but not a particularly promising trekker." Still, she returned for his second, 2B, beginners' hike. He remembers her impatience at being short of breath: "She quit smoking, cold turkey!" She was one of the much smaller group who completed his third, 3B, beginners' hike that spring.
One year later, in May of 1982, Don greeted the group for his annual, 12-hour, 31-mile trek on the East Bay Skyline Trail from El Sobrante to Castro Valley. He was surprised to see among the trail-hardened veterans Diane, and was even more surprised to see her at the front of the pack. For 17 years Don led that ridge-trail hike. Diane hiked with him four times.
On Don's hikes Diane met her former husband and made many friends, whom she admired for their intelligence and conservation values as well as their trekking talents. According to those friends Diane caught up to and, in some cases, surpassed them in ability. One of her early hiking comrades, Lucy Henderson, marvels at Diane's ever-increasing commitment and skills. "She's not getting old as fast as we are," she jokes.
Don de Fremery is more than a friend to Diane; he is her hiking guru. When she started leading the beginning hikes, she borrowed lots of his ideas. Don and Kate McKillop had developed handouts for the hike participants. Diane has updated these. On the first hike of the series, she includes in the schedule description the items the hikers will need: sturdy boots, sunscreen, water, snacks, and a hat. During their lunch break at the Borges Ranch, they discuss safety, equipment, good places to hike. On the second and third hikes, she helps the returnees hone their skills.
Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow (admittedly uncommon here), nor wind, nor ticks, nor poison oak, nor poor attendance caused by foul weather can keep Diane from the trails. When they were living at home, Diane's two daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, a senior and a sophomore at UC Irvine, used to hike with her (and not just leisurely saunters either once they all ascended Yosemite's Half Dome). One rainy weekend, Diane had scheduled a hike on Mount Diablo. She and Rachel waited at the trailhead. No one else came. The two of them set out anyway. They scrambled up and down, five hours in the rain. Did they have fun? "I did," Diane says.
Misadventures and potential dangers haven't dampened her enthusiasm either. "Once I got terribly lost as a rear leader for a hike Steve Bakaley was leading," Diane admits. "But I never got lost on that trail again." Hiking alone in Sunol last summer, she saw a mountain lion. One day she almost sat on a rattlesnake. Usually, she takes pleasure in her wildlife sightings - bobcats on Mount Diablo and in Sunol, coyotes on Mount Diablo, wild turkeys everywhere.
Does Diane have favorite places to hike? Mount Diablo, of course, Mount Tam, Point Reyes, most of the East Bay regional parks she relishes the diversity of the Bay Area. She sees herself primarily as a day-hiker, though she delighted in a nine-day Sierra Club backpacking trip in the Southern Sierra. Outside of California, she has hiked in the Washington Cascades, the Smoky Mountains, the Tucson area of Arizona, Colorado, Switzerland, and the Canadian Rockies. This summer, she plans to trek in the English Lake District. Each of the next five summers, she hopes to go to Europe and hike a week or two of her vacation.
She always returns, however, to Mount Diablo. A docent for the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association, she helps to maintain and educate some of the 700,000 people who visit Mount Diablo State Park each year. She has also been instrumental in sustaining the Sierra Club's Mount Diablo Group. Ken Lavin, former president of MDIA and organizer for the Mount Diablo Group's bi-monthly meetings, affirms that Diane is "always there" and "incredibly helpful". Besides her official callings as treasurer and outings coordinator, she is the snack-provider. "While keeping a low profile," he says, "she is always friendly, helpful, positive." If you want to help Diane keep the Group alive and kicking, contact or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 304
One of the most rewarding facets of Diane's outdoor activity is that it has brought her and her siblings closer together. One of Diane's sisters has also become a Californian (in Angels Camp); the other two live in Illinois, and their brother lives in North Carolina. A few years ago, the siblings began to hike en famille. In 2001 all but one sister climbed Half Dome together. In 2002 all five trekked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out again the first real hike that Diane's youngest sister had ever done. In 2004 they hiked together in Glacier National Park, and last August, when they gathered for a niece's wedding, the five spent one day hiking at Red Lodge in Montana. They are currently planning their next get-together.
How would Diane respond to compliments, like Don de Fremery's, that she is "a concerned, dedicated hike leader, who makes sure everyone has a good time"? "I'm really a participant," she says. "I only lead 10 or so hikes a year. I'm out hiking almost every weekend."
© 2007 San Francisco Sierra Club Yodeler