Once again, after spending most of the season in the top four, Leicester City is out of UEFA Champions League (UCL) play. Chelsea slid into the fourth (and final) spot, after Leicester City lost to Tottenham (2-4) and Chelsea lost to Aston Villa (1-2). For Chelsea, better to be lucky than good rings true once again. Liverpool earned a 2-0 home win against Crystal Palace, securing the third spot in the table, after a rollercoaster of an EPL campaign. Man City and Chelsea battle in the UCL final in Istanbul this Saturday. The UEFA European Football Championship starts on June 11, so there is no rest for the weary (player), but for the serious fan, this is soccer gold.
Speaking of gold, 1,132 acre Windy Hill Open Space Preserve (Portola Valley, California) is one of the jewels for local hikers. The hike, this past Sunday, started at about 11am, after my typical early morning pickup soccer game. After meeting in the parking lot off Portola Road, our intrepid hiking crew headed west, to the one-way (as a COVID precaution) Betsy Crowder trail, which, after about a 15-20 minute climb, met with the Spring Ridge trail. Peninsula Trails: Outdoor Adventures on the San Francisco Peninsula (Rusmore, Spangle, Crowder; 3d edition, 1997) is the bible of local hiking. Crowder, a local environmentalist who died in an auto accident in 2000, is the namesake for this trail. Needless to say, the book has a map of this trail, but it is only a dashed line (without a name); it was named Betsy Crowder trail posthumously.
At the top of the Betsy Crowder trail, we turned right on Spring Ridge, continuing for about an hour, conquering one steep incline after another, mercifully interrupted by short flats. Spring Ridge is wide and expansive, with views of San Francisco to the north and the bone-white Redwood City salt ponds, the bay, and golden hills to the east. Cattle grazed the grassy slopes some time ago. Second growth forests stand behind these slopes. A red-tailed hawk glided above the trail, according to this amateur ornithologist. I hiked Spring Ridge three or four months ago. It was emerald green. Hikers were almost invariably masked. With rising vaccination rates locally, low positivity rates, and recent CDC guidance, there was now a more relaxed vibe. In time, we reached Skyline Boulevard, the end of the trail (1791 feet), savored the views, and started our trek down the mountain.
Hikes lend themselves well to introspection and interesting conversations. A member of our crew will be moving abroad soon, and most likely it will be some time before our next group hike. Unsurprisingly, our conversation was wide-ranging, covering the upcoming move, our next hike, the challenges of and tools available for learning a new language, the day-to-day of living in a new country, the availability (or lack thereof) of a good, Mission style burrito abroad, work, first jobs, growing old(er), what we have achieved so far, etc. To my surprise, the older I get, the less interested I become in looking back, analyzing the near and not-so-near misses, the counterfactuals, and so on. Those are lands far, far away, inaccessible now through time and space. Conversely, the future, nebulous and amorphous in some respects and likely drier and warmer, is of greater interest, but, inevitably, less wide and expansive than it once was and fraught with its own issues. Since the pandemic, I have been pruning obligations, focusing on ROI (return on investment). Hiking has made the cut, and I have planned my next hike to Windy Hill. Comments welcome
The Peninsula Hiking Club 