INCH Hike: Steve's Superhike

125. Steve's Superhike (06/19/99)

Hikers (2): Russ, Steve
Distance: 22 miles
Rating: 5 difficulty, 8 beauty

Write-up by Steve

No one expected a big turn out for Steve's Superhike--it was 22 miles of largely uncharted territory, plus The Man was out of town. In the end, only Russell and your humble author showed up. That's too bad, because this was an awesome hike encompassing nine (count 'em, nine!) parks and open space preserves.

The hike is almost the entire contents of the "South Skyline Region" map published by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, hitting all the best peaks and sites along the way. A detailed mile-by-mile hike map was prepared ahead of time, but it goes something like this:

The hike starts in Los Trancos OSP, descends into Monte Bello OSP, side tracks to the top of Black Mountain in Rancho San Antonio OSP, drops back into Monte Bello all the way down to Upper Stevens Creek County Park, climbs up to Table Mountain, kisses the edge of Saratoga Gap OSP, heads back into Steven's Creek, crosses Skyline Boulevard into Long Ridge OSP, loops around until crossing into Skyline Ridge OSP, traverses through Russian Ridge OSP (where it ascends Borel Hill), crosses Skyline again into Coal Creek OSP, pops over Page Mill road back into Monte Bello OSP, and finally dumps one back to the start.

We met some fun people along the way, but besides the distance, most of the highlights have been touched in other write-ups (or were forgotten due to hike-related brain depletion). We can definitely say that the climb from Table Mountain (where we lunched with some mountain bikers) to Page Mill Road was the hardest part of the hike. Fortunately it did not come near the end, where even the slackest hills were seeming rather challenging.

Like every other day of the week, Russ and I jaw-jacked about women and stocks the first two thirds of the trip, but by the last third, Russ's skipping of the last few hikes (and typical avoidance of the really long ones) started to show and we spread apart. But he had to press on, for this was his 100^th INCH hike; the forest icon would be his, and this hike would make it all the sweeter!

We were happily reunited at the car, where we quickly headed off to the nearest 7-Eleven to top off a most Slurpee-worthy hike.

Milestones:
Russ's 1^st forest