By Jason
I just go back from a weekend trip to Yosemite, but I haven’t uploaded the photos yet so that story will have to wait. In the mean time, I wanted to report on two short trips – our trip across the bridge to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and a hike around the hills south of Mountain View.
The Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco have great views of the city and the bridge. You can get an idea how high the mountains are from this picture:
Here’s a black sand beach in one of the coves along the Pacific coast here. The sand was pretty coarse-grained, but the wind was still strong enough to whip it around.
You can see the city across the Golden Gate.
Here’s a view of the bridge from the vista point.
Ann smiles for the camera despite the strong wind.
This wall has bronze plaques that point to various cities and landmarks in the distance.
This photo is from higher up, on the other side of US 101. We were originally thinking about waiting for the sunset but we got too hungry and the wind got too cold. I have even more photos in the Flickr set, with more views of the bridge.
This next set of pictures is from a hike I took in the hills just south of Mountain View. I was actually hiking the trail that leads to the top of Black Mountain – the one mentioned in the city’s name. I saw this young buck when I came to a fork in the path – luckily he was on the trail down the valley, while I was headed up to the mountains.
Little lizards like this one scurried here and there across the path as I walked. I managed to get some photos of this particular lizard by moving very slowly and making full use of my camera’s zoom.
At this point I’m pretty sure he’s posing for the camera.
Here’s a view from a high point on the ridge. The big buildings in the distance are on Moffet Airfield and NASA Ames, including Hangar one, a huge dirigible hangar. You can see a few small towers in downtown Mountain View in the midground.
.Here’s a photo of Black Mountain from the other side of the valley.
The landscape in the hills and mountains is really amazing, and the light is really good in the evening.
I have more photos in Flickr, including more photos of that camera hog lizard. Next I’ll write about Yosemite.