On the afternoon of Sunday, January 12th 1997, the East Bay
Barefoot Hikers met for a barefoot hike along the Bear Creek,
Homestead Valley and Crescent Ridge trails.
Thirteen people took part including myself, my son Gareth (13),
Teresa, Tess, Dan, Maggie, Tim and his son Christopher (8), and
the twins Jonathan and Hilary (6), Hap, Leo and Peter.
It had been a 6-week break since the last hike. Northern
California had been getting a LOT of rain. We were eager to start
since it was cold and misty and we wanted to get those toes
flexing !!.
We set of from the parking lot at about 1:15pm, crossed a very
wet expanse of grass and descended the ravine trail to cross the
creek. The water was surging by and was the color of tea (with
just the right amount of milk). This was a wading job, but the
depth was only about two-thirds of the way up to knee. A steep
climb up through oaken forest took us onto the narrow Bear Creek
trail. The party strung out and built up a reasonable pace, with
the twins out in front. I soon started to feel warmer. In fact,
my feet felt particularly warm. Somehow, some regulation
mechanism seems to "kick" in after about ten minutes of
brisk walking.
We paused for snacks when we entered the meadow in the Homestead
Valley. After some difficulty finding a good place to cross the
creek, we started squishing our way along the valley trail. There
was a lot of standing water on it. The water was pretty cold.
After a while, Dan asked me (jokingly) if there were any hot
springs nearby. Some hope !!. I had forgotten about his comment
when, about ten minutes later, people starting saying "Is
this water getting warmer ?". It certainly seemed to be. We
came around the next bend and there, on the side of the hill, was
a sort of spring covered with a wooden platform. Steam was rising
from it !!!. Nearby, the water was deliciously warm. Errr .... we
kind of hung around for a while.
The path climbed up to the Briones crest trail. As we reached the
Crescent Ridge trail, it started to rain. Fortunately, it was
fairly light and intermittent. The ridge provided spectacular
views as the pastured valleys below vanished and reappeared in
the mist. Gareth paused to refect, with his head covered by a
poncho and said "I feel like I'm in a Japanese anime
cartoon".
The mud was tricky on the downhill sections. I spent much of the
return trip holding young Hilarys hand to ensure against falling.
Peter had a digital camera along on this hike. He put some of the
his best pictures up on a web page.
Take a look at:
http://www.ccnet.com/~pgnomes/page06.html
Congratulations to young Christopher !!. He went barefoot the
whole way on this hike. He hasn't done that before (though his
younger siblings always have).