Them Thar Hills!: Along the Tennessee Valley

Last week, I told about my first visit to Mt Tamalpais in over a year and spun a few memories. I didn’t mention that it was quite warm and humid that day, with only a brush of wind on the high grassy slopes overlooking the plate glass, fog-tabled Pacific. From experience, I knew the thick windless forests of Douglas firs up a piece from where I was were humming with hungry bugs, eager to dine on any hapless hiker who dared enter.

And so I drove back down the mountain to another favorite spot.

The Tennessee Valley (named after a steamship that ran aground here in 1853) is a grassland environment. That day, it was combed by gentle sea breezes. The valley, one of Marin County's most popular hiking spots, sits within the National Park Service’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Compared to Mt. Tam, getting there is easy. From Highway 101, take the same Shoreline Highway 1 exit for Stinson Beach; in less than a mile past a slough, there’s a turnoff to the left (be wary and patient; oncoming traffic provides many opportunities for an accident) onto Tennessee Valley for a winding 2-mile drive; the road ends in a large parking lot at the mouth of the valley.

From there, it’s about a 1.7 walk to the beach. The trail splits about a third of the way in; one loop rises to a long mildly muscle-stretching march above the valley; the other, narrower trail, follows the floor through the marsh, leading to the estuary at the end. I like this one, not because I’m lazy, but for its smaller, more surprising wonders.

The frequent fog banks that roll ashore during the summer turn the valley into something like an English moor, redolent of giant spectral dogs and deerstalker-wearing detectives. I first looked down into it from the top of Wolf Ridge, about 800 feet above to the south, during one of my first “epic” walks in the late 1990s; a heart-pumping climb from Rodeo Beach to the ridge, followed by a knee
splitting descent down a twisting ravine into the valley. Then I turned around climbed all the way back up and finished running downhill on the other side to catch the bus back to San Francisco. (My pal Hal, a loyal reader, questioned my sanity with a deep scowl at Frankie’s that evening. “My beer tastes better than yours,” I retorted, with that sneer that only serious hikers can conjure—exhausted body, boosted ego.)


I didn’t really get to see Tennessee Valley until I went with a friend, Alan Brewer, sometime later. As we walked along, I murmured clichéd variations on “Oh wow at the high misty hills. We came to a small beach that was framed by two towering cliffs; the waves thumped through me as they pounded the shore like fists and their foam hissed around our feet; a plump handsome western seagull squawked greedily nearby as we ate trail mix (we were too big for it to bully) We said little, busily
soaking up the spare beauty and menacing power. Even with all the people around, I felt like a survivor pushed to the haunted edge of the world.



Aside from its atmosphere, another thing I like about the Tennessee Valley is that it’s home, like the rest of Marin Headlands to one of my favorite avians, the redwing blackbird. This bird’s crimson patch is a burst of molten fire in black space; I saw none on last week’s trip, though I occasionally heard the electronic wheeze of their call; as I walked along the lower trail, pair of Moms pushing baby carriages approached me and flushed a red-tail hawk from the tall brush. It briefly flew out of the trail and vanished back into the reeds. The valley is one of Marin’s most popular spots for families.

Here, two springtime’s ago, my wife and I witnessed one of nature’s bursts of brutal spectacle. Just as we were approaching the beach, Elizabeth pointed up the brushy slope to our right. There stood a tall, elegant great blue heron, its long head and pointed bill all set toward the ground, as still as a lawn statue. Seconds after I saw it, it attacked the ground with one short stab and came up with a plump, furry, undoubtedly unhappy, vole. The heron took to the air on its broad wings and swooped over to where the estuary had cut a small shallow stream through the
black sand on its journey to the sea. The heron landed in the middle of the stream. A crowd of beachgoers gathered around. The heron doused the vole in the stream again and again, short brutal stabs, like a knife, until its prey was close enough to dead for swallowing. The birds tipped its head back. The vole disappeared down its gullet, making a brief lump in its predator’s throat. We all murmured, amazed, awed, maybe wondering about that day when we would become the vole.

Last week, I saw no bloody spectacle, only the brown pelican you see below, missed by everyone else as it plodded quietly, unobtrusively up the beach into the lagoon (its unusual behavior indicates it may very well have been ill); in summer, the lagoon retreats inland and loses contact with the ocean waters; I walked over to where the pelican disappeared behind the long grass; as I took my photos and some clumsy video, it seemed to have had enough of my attention and slowly, almost resignedly,
disappeared slowly into the reeds.

Them Thar Hills!: No Other Heaven.

San Francisco from Rock Spring on Mt. Tam

The East Bay Regional Parks are a string of relatively small pleasures. Running north and south, east of San Francisco Bay, many of them consist of golden grasslands, canyons, and mixed forests of oak, madrone, eucalyptus, and some groves of second-growth redwoods. Redwood Regional Park is particularly appealing as are the grassy heights of Briones, (also a working cattle ranch with a Rawhide flavor). Mt. Diablo has a wild majesty when storms blow by or when the springtime flowers bloom. Yet, wherever I go, I sense the grim hum of urban sprawl, like a snoring odorous bear.

In summer, temperatures rise into the 90s by late morning: this area becomes dangerously uncomfortable. That’s when I turn my bootheels west, toward the coast, mostly to my favorite wonderland of all: Marin County’s Mount Tamalpais.



Though not as high as Mt. Diablo, you can see Mt. Tam from almost anywhere in the Bay Area. The 2,571 peak dominates the titular 6,300-acre-state park. It’s a short drive up Highway 101 from San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, a few miles past the Golden Gate Headlands. From 101, you take the Highway 1 exit to Stinson Beach for a long snaky drive until the road splits in two; you take the right up onto the Panoramic Highway for a snaky ten miles across the mountain’s south slope. Mt. Tam will loom at you on the first rise like a green tidal wave. Most California coastal mountains run north to south, following the coast and the major fault lines. But Mt. Tam is an exception: it runs west to east.

I briefly sampled Mt. Tam in the mid-1980s. In the late 1990s, as I spread into middle-age and my skepticism toward city life deepened, I seized on hiking as the best way to cope with physical change and spiritual entropy. My first hike was to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay; the following weekend, I hopped the Golden Gate Transit bus right by my apartment on Post Street for the 45-minute ride (one transfer) to Mt. Tam’s steep piney slopes.

For over two years I hiked, clambered, climbed, and crawled the 50-miles of trails that braid the landscape, through its delightfully wide variety of ecosystems. Many trails are steep, often rocky, so I started out on short hikes then became more adventurous. The first time I hiked the nearly 3 miles from Stinson Beach up Tolkien-esque Steep Ravine to Pantoll, I raised my fists in triumph but I was really more like a toddler who'd just learned to climb onto daddy's chair.



Radically more daunting was the trudge up steep Willow Camp Fire Road (over 1,500 feet in 3 miles) to the Coast Trail, then over to McKennan Gulch Trail for a 2-mile trip back down, then a long loop back to Stinson where I found the path blocked by a gi-normous eucalyptus that had toppled across the fire road. I bushwhacked up a steep bank on my hands and knees to get around it. I was grateful to learn that I’m not especially sensitive to poison oak.

One Saturday, I started out from Pantoll (park headquarters and the start of most of the main trailheads) and hiked all the way around Mt. Tam’s north side: 8 miles in around 5 or 6 hours. Near the end, I stopped at the top of Wheeler Trail on the northeast slope and checked the map: it seemed to promise a quick trot down to the Hoo-Koo-E-Koo Trail. “Easy,” I sneered and damn near broke my ankles on what turned out to be a rock-jumbled stream bed that would have made a snake weep. At the bottom, I collapsed and was mistaken for dead by several passing hikers. Another memory from that day: the taste of cold beer and watching the afternoon fog pour up over the ridge and down into Muir Canyon. (If you’re up for a truly Gothic experience, nothing beats hiking Mt. Tam in the summertime coastal fog.)

I took risks, but I took them prepared: map, first-aid kit, some food, compass, Swiss Army knife and always always more water than I needed. In those two years I spent most weekends on Mt. Tam, but I only got lost once. It happened like this.

I was single then and joining a hiking group seemed to be a good way to meet chicks. The Mt. Tamalpais Interpretive Association sponsors two kinds of hiking groups: nature lovers and power hikers. I tried the nature lovers’ Saturday hike first but it felt a little slow to me. The following Sunday, I joined the power hikers. And that was how I got lost.

Ten minutes into the hike, I knew I’d never want to go power hiking again. I may walk faster than the Saturday crowd, but I’m still a dawdler, a “oh-gee-what’s that-flower” kind of guy; sometimes I’ll lie down for a nap.

It was when we were stumbling along the foot of the very steep north side of the mountain, that our power hike leader stopped and turned: “Hey! I think we’re lost!” Not long after, as we fought our way back up through thick brush in the heat, she took a look at my beety face and asked, “Say, do you have high blood pressure?”

. . . which of course, did nothing for my blood pressure . . .

I left the group at that point and was led out on a shorter, alternate route by a forgiving veteran who eased my embarrassment with tales of his own stumbles into danger: “It happens to us all, even old-timers.”

The view from O'Rourke's Bench

For a year, I worked for the association as their volunteer publicist. Not long after, I met Elizabeth (I wanted to stage our wedding here, but it was unworkable). Now that we live in Emeryville, Mt. Tam is a circuitous hour-long drive away. A week ago Friday was the last time I’d visited in over a year. I drove to my favorite area, the west end around Rock Spring. A half mile southwest, overlooking the Pacific you’ll find the bench pictured below. Dad O’Rourke’s words are more eloquent than mine.

(All photos by author)

The Street Where I Live

It's a jungle in here . . . but outside, more ominous things await!

Those of you who live in the San Francisco Bay Area may have cause now and then to journey into Emeryville. At the intersection of one of the main thoroughfares into this famous, but enigmatic, city of around 7,000 souls, you’ll drive past what looks like a park: There’s a tall row of green, with concrete and a chain link fence running east toward the heart of Emeryville. A screen-block fence runs north to south along one main thoroughfare. An Alameda Transit County bathroom squats, chin up like a proud toad, as a gateway to the city.

Within that scraggly-looking patch of green is a lush oasis that shelters your correspondent. From his second-floor office window, naught stains his sensitive eyes, but a restful tangle of green trees, flowers, and bushes. Occasionally, an iridescent Anna’s hummingbird floats past, reminding him of his childhood in verdant downstate New York. That is, if he plugs his fingers in his ears. He vainly tells himself that the dull persistent roar of traffic that hums fifty feet away is only the wind . . . the wind . . . the wind! Those cries of “HEY! FUCK YOU, FUCKIN’ ASSHOLE! YOU WANT SOME O’ THIS!?” are actually the raw exuberant calls of blue jays building their spring nest outside his bedroom window! And those howling sirens? The hoots of owls beating their way through the starry night sky!

Elizabeth and I moved into this park-like island five years ago this last Friday. The house was among the first places we looked at, after we decided to nest together. We wanted it at first sight: 1500 square feet, two floors with two bright, large upstairs rooms, big enough to swing an ocelot; down below, a large, lovingly built kitchen, with beautiful Mediterranean-style tile counters, tile floors throughout and an excellent professional range stove. The rest was large enough for Elizabeth’s walnut Kawai grand piano. The final touch is a quiet nook perfect for reading and meditating. All of it framed by a quirky, brown-shingle skin, faintly reminiscent of my childhood home.

We liked Dave and Carla, the landlords, and they liked us. Dave had built our place himself out of the remains of an old chicken house. A fig tree and an apple tree face our front door. Three towering tanoaks, wrapped in ivy, do their best as a sound baffle to the left. Gardens stretch along on three sides: geraniums, roses, pansies, dahlias. In the driveway, stand an ornamental pepper tree, a cypress, and one that might be an avocado tree, except it bears no fruit. In addition to the hummingbirds, robin, finches and towhees build their nests around here.

Bougainvillea and yucca line the driveway. When I need some lemon zest for cooking, I have six lemon trees to choose from out front. There’s a bush of rosemary, too. In places, the one-acre compound becomes almost a jungle. From some spots, you can barely see the street.

Three other houses make up the compound. One of them, an old Victorian built around 1884, is considered the oldest house in Emeryville, and was the main residence of a two-hundred acre cherry orchard. My favorite house is a towering 2.5-story structure built maybe in the early 1890s. In Emeryville’s wilder (and more interesting) days, Dave tells us, it was a house of ill-repute. Until the recent (and excellent) remodelling by Matthew, our caretaker, you could see, in the basement, the remains of the tile flooring of the hair salon whose business was keeping the gals well-coifed.

Upstairs, the first floor is a high-ceilinged homey stunner. There’s an old tiled and light wood-framed fireplace in the living room. Glass double doors, their tops stained, open onto a porch (Envision me reading the Sunday paper in my robe, drinking fine single malts and bellowing at you to get the hell off my big front lawn.) Twice, we’ve had the opportunity to take this place: the first time we turned it down because of lassitude; the second, because we’re moving next spring.)

Space forbids me from telling about the cozy, curious series of warrens on the second floor, because I have to tell you about the art work: Back in the 1920s, Harlan Wilson, a former Emeryville mayor, bought the compound with the idea of turning it into an artist’s colony. How close he came to reaching that goal is not known, but he left some tantalizing clues. The circular driveway in front of the 1884 house contains mosaics pressed into the concrete. A painting of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is framed in the coiling brickwork of the Big House’s south wall, while a tile landscape painting winks at you from the southeast front corner. Three more mosaics can be found on the north wall, one of them incorporated into a chimney.

Turnover in this paradise is low. Even the birds, and the stray cats that hunt them, stay for years. (We even had a possum wander through occasionally, name of Lyle.) The most recent departure left after nine years. The longest residents have been here for twelve. (There are, surprisingly to me, no legends of hauntings, though I wonder about that chicken house.)

“Sooooo, Burchfield,” I hear you sneer, “if this place is soooo wonderful, why are you leaving!?”

That question, I’ll tackle in a later blog: The one where I take you outside the gates of paradise.