It’s been a while since I posted. In fact, this may be the first one this year. This is hike #11 this year for the Peninsula Hiking Club, founded in 2021, by yours truly. January is always Mission Peak; May, the Dipsea Trail; October, Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve; December, El Clasico – Lands End, to Golden Gate, Presidio, Gordo’s on Clement, and back to Lands End. November? It’s been a mixed bag. Point Reyes in 2021, Montara Mountain in 2023, and so on. I think, finally, we have a winner: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/california/simmons-kent-helen-markt-and-cataract-trail-loop
10.5 miles, 2,630 feet elevation gain, considerably harder than it looked on paper (or on the screen), but still eminently doable. Visually spectacular, as the photos below attempt, with some success, to attest.
We had a large group, maybe 25-28 hikers. Another group (meet up) was also meeting for a hike at the Pantoll Campground Parking Lot at the same time. A few of the hikers from that group joined ours. The hike down to Alpine Lake, past Cataract Falls, gushing after this week’s rains, was gorgeous. The hike up, and namely Kent Trail, was surprisingly technical, whether hopping rock to rock in a stream bed or descending rock-cut steps that arguably passed for a trail. With a group our size, dispersion was inevitable, and while the group split in two, both groups finished the hike in relatively strong form.
Our next hike, you might ask?. San Francisco, El Clasico, in December. I am already thinking about the in-hike burrito. See you then.
The Peninsula Hiking Club 