I realize that it has been a while since I last posted.  The past month has blown by in a whirl wind of day job activity, business travel to the East Coast, and dealing with a case of the flu (not sure which kind…).  I think my body is still recovering from flu and antibiotics which are just now wearing off, I say that because this morning the Mrs and I got up early for a morning hike in the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness area and climbing the trail to the ridge was a lot more taxing on my physically than it should have been.  🙂

One of the great parts about living in the Bay Area is the East Bay Regional Parks District.  A large collection of open space area in the east bay that creates wonderful buffer between the cities as well as provides a much overlooked set of recreational space.  Because of these open space areas, the East Bay has prevented the type of suburban sprawl that Southern California is known for (not to mention restricting the amount of space available to developers and helping to drive up the Bay Area housing costs).  Most locals to the Bay Area drive right by these parks on their daily commutes and don’t even know that they are there, which is a shame as some of the best views of the San Francisco area are obtained from the ridge trails of these parks.

The above photo was taken from one of the parks about 8 miles from my house.  After a 45 minute climb of about 500 feet up to the ridge trail (which is at about 1500 feet elevation), this was the view that we were greeted with.  I took this with my iPhone as I’m still not recovered enough from the flu to be caring 40 pounds of camera gear on my back and hike that trail.  It’s hard to tell in this photo, but the most distant ridge barely visible above and to the right of the red roofed house is actually Twin Peaks and San Francisco.   And during the course of the hike to the ridge, we climbed in elevation up past that red roofed house, at about half way up the trail we were below that house and couldn’t even see it.  Yes, next time I’ll bring the big camera with…

I’m struggle to catch up on the the things that I have fallen behind on over the past month.  One of those being my photography and postings here.  More to come soon…