Last weekend in Briones

In the beginning of the year, when I hatched the plan to visit all the parks in the East Bay system, I intended to use this blog for trip reports. I think I wrote one and a half of them. Anyways, think I'll try again, as a way to give some narrative to my photos, especially the ones I find interesting, but not aesthetically deserving of display on Flickr.

I started off at the South-East/ Lafayette staging area on Pleasant Hill Rd, near Springhill

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I've started a trip from this point once before, and there's a good reason I hadn't been back since: it sucks. Not entirely: even a bad day on the trail is better than a good day in the office, right?, but it's hardly the most scenic part of the park. In fact for the first mile and a half, there is a network of unmarked trails zig-zagging their way up the hill, frequently intersecting, and almost entirely in view of the parking lot. It's a little demoralizing to trudge so far putting so little distance from your starting point. Also, it's impossible to track on the map how far you've come. In fact, according to Google Map's measuring tools, it's 3.3mi to the first real branching (other than outlets to the streets), and the first opportunity to escape views of the highway.

Trail Map (PDF)

This time was equally frustrating. Add to that we started off the same time as a large family with a yappy Aussie who seemed to take especial offense to Allie. I hoped to outdistance them, but at one of the early branchings, I picked a longer route that, along with a long pause to examine a partial deer skeleton Allie found, allowed them to catch up. When we met again, I took a side route that turned out to just leave the park, so had to backtrack. They were still where I left them, apparently having lost a member of their group (not the yappy one). I selfishly continued on without inquiring into the problem, and eventually traversed Lafayette Ridge to Springhill trail. Springhill drops abruptly, losing most of the 1200 feet of elevation gained over the past three miles in just three quarters of a mile.


Deer Bones

At the base of Springhill is another outlet into a neighborhood, but a more bucolic one. Buckeye Ranch trail starts up there, and for a ways parallels a streambed and out next throughway: Sunrise trail. I unwisely passed up on a shortcut over to Sunrise; unwisely because once we started on Sunrise, we found our way blocked by two cows and their calves. This section of trail is fire-road wide, but with a steep embankment on either side, and a barbed wire fence on the downhill, so there was no easy way of going around. I attempted to send Allie around on the uphill side, but it proved too steep even for her, and the protective mothers were not budging, so we ended up backtracking to the shortcut in order to bypass them.



Sunrise eventually dead-ends on a fire road outside the park, then picks up again on the same road probably about 50 feet later. Seeing what appeared to be a use trail next to the fence line, I opted to stay inside the park boundaries, against Allie's recommendation. As usual in navigational matters, she was correct. The use path petered out near a gash in the hillside the involved some clambering. But it was all worthwhile, because serendipitous timing let me witness something truly cool.


cute frolicsome calf

Looking down the hillside to the North of the trail, I saw a flock of about fifty turkeys. Joining them, at speed, was a group of maybe two dozen more. And behind them:


coyote!

S/he ran right through them, scattering a few into the trees, but most stayed grounded. Their frantic calls sound less to me like "gobble, gobble", and more like bubbles popping, in front of a microphone.



He stopped at one point, to look up at me, but seemed to soon decide that I was no threat, and returned to harassing the flock.



He disappeared all too soon behind a thicket of oak trees, so I don't know if he ever caught one, but from the looks of it, he was chasing them as much for the joy of it as anything. If so, that might explain/ be explained by the largely uneaten cow carcass I found near the start of Buckeye trail (pictures omitted for the squeamish). Though the hindquarters were mostly gone, the shoulders and legs had yet to be touched. Interestingly, Allie did not sniff the carcass itself, but did seem very interested in the ground maybe eight feet away. I couldn't find anything visible there, but it could very well have been a predator scent marking.

Joy:


After a few more shots of the turkeys (there were still more on the other side of the trail), I called it quits for the dark and put the camera away. Still had a ways to go to Briones Crest and back to Lafayette. It was at least an hour in the dark, but I'll admit that showed Lafayette Ridge to better advantage. Total mileage, according to fitbit: 12.09.