turns out the other side of the mountain was a solid cloud of fog. somewhere below that was the sea.

last saturday we finally managed a hike i’ve been wanting to do for almost three years now, the full dipsea trail that goes from mill valley over the ridge (two ridges, actually) and down to the ocean at stinson beach. it’s only seven-ish miles, but it took us nearly three hours, which made more sense once i looked at the vertical feet and realized that the average grade hovered around 10%. the major difficulty in hiking the dipsea is that if you only want to go one way, you end up at stinson beach without a ride home. the second major difficulty is that most winters the trail is washed out by winter rains for several months. the first challenge was answered my a visit from my parents, who were kind enough to take a lunch trip to stinson and picked us up. the second challenge was made moot by the lack of rainfall this winter.

the trail starts from downtown mill valley with three flights of stairs (671 in all), and actually ends with about that many stairs as well. i frequently hoof it up the stairs once or twice as a way to work off work stress during lunch or at the end of the day. it’s like 15 or 20 intense minutes on the stairmaster, but with much better scenery.

the dipsea foundation runs a very old and famous trail race that i have been trying to get into for three years (race slots are limited to 1500 and entry is highly competitive). the race is a crazy, single track, trail race free-for-all in which shortcuts are allowed but attempted at a runner’s own risk, skinned knees are de rigueur, and, thanks to the unique head start system, anyone can win. including an 8 year old girl.