Mt. Burdell -> Olompali State Park Hike

The Friday before Labor Day was the first day in a while without smoke from fires and was only in the 80s, ahead of a scorching 100+ degree labor day weekend. Jon took the day off and did a 12+mile hike up Mt. Burdell and down through Olompali State Park. The park is near our house and has a rich history - just before it was a State Park, it was a hippie commune chronicled in a movie called Olompali: A Hippie Oddyssey. It also contains a Coast Miwok village - from some of the early inhabitants of the area. The hike up the mountain was familiar - but we've only done the hike down once. It is long and winding and mostly wooded. On the way up, I shot GoPro panoramas at the overlook over our neighborhood where we have spread our dog's ashes and another from the mine tailings at the top of Mt. Burdell. It was still a bit hazy from the fires. Care and her friend Ruth did the same hike the next day, Saturday. Here is an article about the Grateful Dead spending a summer at Olompali.

End of Days

The second week in September, smoke from fires North of San Francisco, covered the Bay Area at high altitude. The smoke filtered out the blue light so the whole bay area had a dark red tinge. It felt very apolcalyptic. We were supposed to go to AutoCamp in Yosemite, but air quality there was bad because of the Creek Fire. We originally planned to go last April and had to reschedule because of the pandemic. We have now scheduled to go in November