By Madeline Salocks, Lafayette
Photography by Madeline Salocks and Thomas Smith
I’ve walked here for decades, in different seasons, different times of the day, and in every kind of weather. Sometimes I’ve had the place to myself, but usually I meet at least one or two others, often accompanied by their charming and enthusiastic dogs.
Will it be boring or old hat this time? Not a chance.
As I ascend the wide dirt trail on a clear-skied late afternoon, the air is fresh and birds are singing a multiplicity of melodies. The familiar hill is blanketed in bright green grass, and amid the grass, particularly in the shadier areas, are clusters of miner’s lettuce.
Looking closely, I appreciate the curve of the soft succulent leaves and the tiny delicate white flowers in their centers. Further up the trail are several patches of mustard beginning to bloom. A few weeks from now those patches will have grown into a magnificent, wild yellow garden.
Just after I pass through the stand of eucalyptus trees that frame the path near the top of the hill, I spot a few orange poppies beginning to bud. There is no more beautiful orange than the California poppy.
As I walk along the part of the trail that flattens out, I recall a summer day when I encountered two king snakes coiled around each other right here, squarely in the middle of the path. They were presumably males wrestling for dominance to win a nearby female, and they paid no attention to me as I quietly crept by, giving them plenty of clearance.
Then I recall the time when, at this same spot, I was suddenly hit with the invisible but particularly powerful airborne evidence of a skunk. The skunk was just being a skunk, just part of our wonderful natural world, yet I felt the abrupt desire to abort my walk, and even the couple seconds of exposure would be enough for the pungency to remain with me for hours!
Another time, also at this spot, I was met by two wiggly, bouncy, brown and white dogs with floppy ears who looked like identical twins, but freely bounding around with no owner in sight. Fortunately, they had tags with a phone number, and I was able to reach a grateful pet parent.
Today, someone approaches me from behind on a bicycle–surprisingly, a first in the countless times I’ve been here. The rider is an older gentleman who politely gives me clearance as he passes, and I give a cheerful hello. I admire his grit in tackling the steepness of this trail.
My destination and turnaround point for this short out and back is, as usual, the crest of the second hill, with its wide unobstructed view of the mountain that is the centerpiece of the region, Mount Diablo, and the surrounding valley.
Once, I met a group of people up here who had travelled all the way from Oregon to see the historic, now graffiti-covered, large cement arrows on this hilltop that used to be used for aircraft navigation in the 1920s. Today, a nine or ten-year-old boy and his father are sitting on the bench perched on top of one of the arrows, together working out how to make a video with a smartphone.
The father seems to have a touch of whimsy with his multi-colored polka dotted socks. Gazing out at the grand, spring-green mountain warmly front-lit by the remaining glow of the afternoon sun, I think about how I wish that, in the past, I’d had videography so easily at hand for some of the peak moments, literally and figuratively, of my life.
On my way back, less than a half hour since I started, the temperature has already dropped considerably, and the now-setting sun casts long shadows and creates a play of sparkles through the leaves of the eucalyptus leaves. I exchange waves with a couple on their way up the trail, walking their dog and taking advantage of the last minutes of daylight.
Then, back at the trailhead, I’m reminded once again that this place is always as special as the first time I saw it, and there’s always something new.
By Madeline Salocks, Lafayette
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