While hiking the Corte Madera Fire Road, Huckleberry Trail, and Glen Fire Road, I came upon this scenic vista that both awed me and made me sad.From here, looking south, you can see the city of San Francisco. Moving clockwise, you can see Coyote Ridge, with Wolf Ridge rising behind it in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Then the impressive Throckmorton Ridge comes into view. You can even see the fire station at the base of Hogback Fire Road. In the foreground is Blithedale Ridge, with Warner Canyon separating the two of you. A little more to the right is the mighty Temalpa Ridge, with East Peak, and it’s watch tower, as the ridge’s crowning glory. You can almost reach out and touch it. A little more to the right Barnaby Peak is visible in the distance. This is a truly awesome vista of a vast area.
A couple of days ago, I hiked from Big Rock, up the Big Rock Trail to the top of Big Rock Ridge. From the top of the ridge, it was comforting to see so many ridges below me without fire roads or trails. I marveled at the amount of open space left for wildlife, without the intrusion of a trail or fire road.
The sad part of this vista is the number of fire roads carved across the landscape. Compared to Big Rock Ridge, the land here is badly scarred. From this point you can see Corte Madera Fire Road, Glen Fire Road, Elinor Fire Road, Blithedale Ridge Fire Road, Old Railroad Grade, Gravity Car Grade, and Hoo Koo E Koo Fire Road. Every ridgeline is scarred, as is the south face of Mt. Tamalpais.
In contrast, you can discern some of the trails on the south face of the mountain; particularly Temalpa Trail and Vic Haun Trail. Compared to the scars of the fire roads, these trails appear as wrinkles on the skin of an aging face.
The best vista is about 100 feet north on the Fire Road. Take the time to go there and contemplate the scars on the face of a beautiful wild area.
Many seasoned geocachers will question the placement of this cache. They will say “If I were placing a cache in this area, I would put it here”. To that I have to say “so would I”, but two other caches in this area are within 528 feet of my chosen location, so the cache was place here. In a way, sdarken and runnerfam determined the placement of this cache.
The cache is a lock ‘n lock container; large for a small cached, but not large enough for a regular cache. There are several trackable items in the cache, please move them on. Oh, and don’t be startled when you first open the container, it’s not real [?].