Mt Tamalpias (2008.12.14)

Out at Mt Tam this past weekend with Adam and Erika. We were hoping for snow on saturday night, but ended up getting a crystal clear night that allowed us to see some of the big shooting stars from the geminid meteorite shower. The burn-out space travelers were competing in the night sky with a really bright full moon, so I think we were lucky to see anything. I've never been so cold in california, especially coastal california. I had 6 layers of clothes on over my core. After eating tons of shiskababs that Adam had prepared we all bundled up into our tents and then woke in the morning to some light rain, which by the time we made it to the summit was a mix of rain and hail. From the Summitt we were lucky to see the bushes around us, clouds danced for us; they would come rushing from the right then stop twirl and decide to change direction. The absence of view was replaced by the mystical liveliness of the visible moisture around us.

Kind of damp and on our way to being sopping wet, we went down the mountain to cataract falls, which wasn't really going full bore yet, but after playing around a little bit there we could actually see the water level increase as the precipitation from above fed all the little streams. Maple leaves were dusted around the dark and green parts of the forest like buckets of organe and yellow paint that someone had viscously thrown around.

Found some really cool mushrooms, I think some were edible after listening to some of the lectures at the fungus festival....but I decided to just play it safe for my liver and just let them be. There were a bunch of huckleberries on the creek's edge. It took a bit of convincing, but eventually Erika and then Adam were up for sticking the small black berries in their mouth and tasting their blue-berry-ish pulp and of course having their mouths stained purple by the skins.

Below are a few images from the trip:


Tasty? I don't know, but it made a great discus