I had to be in the Bay Area on Saturday afternoon for my daughter’s dance show. I had two choices for hiking: (1) I could leave early with Journey and hike in the Bay Area in the morning, then wait around all day until her dance show started. (boring), or (2) I could hike near home in the morning with Journey, leave her at home, and drive to the Bay Area in the afternoon. Option 2 seemed like the best idea at the time. I should have known better, especially as I drove to and back from Auburn and everyone seemed to be driving extraordinarily slowly. Very slowly. Well below the speed limit slowly. This was a bad omen for my drive to the Bay Area. I allowed 3 hours for the drive (twice as long as it normally takes), and I barely made it in time for her show. I had just a couple minutes to spare. Traffic was ridiculously bad. Oh I hate that drive. At least I made it.
Anyway, back to the hike. I hiked this trail 14 years ago with my dog Kaya. We saw a couple bears that day. I did not see any this time with Journey, although I did see fresh bear poop. Also, last time I parked at the ASRA headquarters (free parking). Well now they have removed all the public parking there so I had to park at the Robie Point trailhead (also free parking). This would be a longer hike now and I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to make it so Journey and I ran down the trail as much as we could (only on the non-muddy sections). We passed one girl whose bum was rather brown from slipping in the mud. (I hope that is what it was from anyway – just kidding). We made it to the waterfall with plenty of time to spare.
Black Hole of Calcutta Falls is 40 ft. high. It is a very gorgeous drop right alongside the trail. Journey was being very silly and was rubbing up against me and my tripod as I took photos. She was in a very funny mood. I love it but she also wouldn’t co-operate for me to take photos of her. So silly.
After this we continued hiking down to Tamaroo Bar along the river. There were a lot of people out on the trail: runners, hikers, dogs. It was a bit overwhelming, frankly. I prefer hiking when no one else is around. It is more peaceful. But Journey had a fabulous day. If you go down to Tamaroo Bar you will notice a bunch of big barrels strung out on a line above the trail. They seemed to extend halfway down the mountain. You will wonder what the heck they are there for. Well, the truth is they were put there by cavemen 100,000 years ago for their drinking water which they needed to store because it was a desert back then. Ha, well I am kidding obviously but my point is you should not believe everything you read or hear on the internet. Do your own research and verification. People will believe anything, it seems to me sometimes. Why would anyone believe birds evolved from huge dinosaurs when there is absolutely zero proof? (just a small example). In actual truth, the barrels are leftover from the old Auburn dam that failed in 1986. That was before my time here in California. We had a beautiful morning hike in Auburn State Recreation Area.
