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| Heading down Mt. Tamalpais' Old Mine Trail, with Mt. Diablo on the horizon. |
We woke up to a mostly clear sky with a fogbank looming above Twin Peaks to the east, but as the sun rose above Sutro Forest it seemed to suck the fog in from the ocean. By the time we left home for Mt. Tam the fog had pretty much covered the whole city, although the Golden Gate Bridge was still clear and beautifully lit by the morning sun.
We began our hike a little after 8 a.m. under ideal conditions, sunny and cool. The loop was Rock Spring to Old Mine Trail, to Matt Davis Trail, to Coastal Trail, to Willow Camp Fire Road up and over West Ridgecrest Road to pick up the Cataract Trail back to the car.
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| The longest day of the year begins with the sun rising above San Francisco's Sutro Forest. |
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| View from the mountain to the sea. |
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| A rider on an electric mountain bike heads out the Old Mine Trail. |
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| Acorn woodpecker. |
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| A painted lady butterfly feeds on a cobwebby thistle, with an earwig also burrowing into the purple perianth. |
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| Mt. Diablo view over Richardson Bay. |
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| View of East Peak from Old Mine Trail. |
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| Forest-floor fruiting of fog-drip fungus. |
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| Resting fly. |
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| Dappled light on the Matt Davis Trail. |
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| One of several squirrels we saw along the Matt Davis Trail. |
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| A common wood-nymph butterfly rests on a stalk of grass. |
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| The grass was quite tall along parts of the trail. I picked up my second tick of the season somewhere along here, not noticing it until it began to burrow into the back of my thigh. |
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| Hike to the Sky |
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| Foxgloves in a meadow along the Cataract Trail. |
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| A chipmunk appeared to be gathering seeds in the sedge along the side of the trail. |
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| Bright-red canyon larkspur and yellow madia stand out on a sun-dappled, summer-green hillside along Cataract Creek. |
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