Hike 7

What a beautiful day yesterday was for hike number 7. This was a buddy hike, meaning you hike with the people that live around you. My team hiked with a couple of other teams and we started out in Danville on the other side of Las Trampas Regional Wilderness where our last buddy hike was. We started by walking up, up and up on Prospect Avenue it was about a mile and up 900 feet when we came to this.

This was a monument right before we got to the trailhead, it was to a PFC Green who died in England in 1950. Now you can see there are fresh flowers at the site and I wondered who brings them? It has been sixty years since PFC Green died, who is left to bring flowers or who will be left in a few years to bring flowers? What will happen then. Once past here we came upon the retreat center of San Damiano where they were having a silent retreat. So we quietly made our way up, up, up.

We hiked up to the ridge at 1888 feet. Now when you get up there you think "wow, I made it". Obviously I must be new at this, cause I don't think "geez, now I have to go down." Well, I think now I'll be thinking that, cause the way down was really steep. I am so glad I got trekking poles cause they saved me from falling on my butt quite a few times on the way down.

This tree looked like a ghost tree to me, everything else was green and this tree stuck out white against the hills. It was beautiful.

I got a feeling that someone hit their head, what do you think?

We came down off the ridge at the Eugene O'Neill House. It seems Mr. O'Neill and his wife lived in this big beautiful house in the 30's & 40s and it seemed to inspire him since he wrote The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten. I tried to imagine how remote this location must have been then.

Then it was a short 2 miles down the Iron Horse Trail to the starting point. Eight miles, 4.5 hours and all my water.

I think I might be starting to like this hiking stuff, since today when I was driving along 680 I kept looking up at the hills and wondering if you can get up there.