Locomotoring

The recommendation for San Bruno Mountain Summit Loop Trail came from the book Peninsula Trails by authors Jean Rushmore, Frances Spangle and Betsy Crowder. On a fogless day, you can see a lot – Daly City, Colma, the Pacific Ocean, and the Santa Cruz Mountains, San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, Oakland, Mount Diablo, and the San Francisco Bay, planes taking off from San Francisco International Airport – you can also see all this without hiking by simply parking at the San Bruno Ridge Trail parking lot.

We had started the hike early, around 8:30 am, and we had a wonderful fog surround us (hello, Karl the Fog!). Views in Bay Area are common, hiking through a fog, far less so. When you can’t see much further than 100 or 200 ft, your focus automatically narrows around your feet. Much of the trail is rocky and each step needed attention. Sometimes a fine spray made us wonder if it was raining, but it was only the fog. Aside from bunnies, we had the hike to ourselves. All along the trail, there was profusion of flowering plants, growing in very close proximity. Monkey flowers and yarrows were growing in abundance. The fog rained down heavily under the trees.