Portola Discovery Site

 I like to explore different routes when riding my bike, and Chad had the great fortune (misfortune?) to be along for the ride when I wanted to remind myself of what the trail up to the Portola Discovery Site was like.

Steep.  Steep is what it was like.  This was back in the summer, so it was also hot.  There may have been some complaining, and some vague worry about the fact that we were planning to drop over to the coast, go over the dirt Planet of the Apes climb, and then climb back up through Purisima Creek Redwoods.

Complaining is de rigueur for any ride with multiple pitches that are in the 15-20% grade range.  Type 2 fun again.

We did eventually top out at the Portola Discovery Site, where there is a historical marker commemorating the Spanish "discovery" of the San Francisco Bay, and also a good view of Pacifica.

Fog at the coast.  It was hot enough that day that we looked forward to being in the fog.

The marker has been vandalized some, which does seem oddly fitting as it is sort of dumb to call the Portola  expdition's arrival in the area a "discovery" given the large population that was already living here at the time.  Chad and I had been reading the diaries of Father Juan Crespi, who was the person on the Portola expedition charged with documenting the trip.  It's actually a good read -- he is an accessible writer for a 17th-century priest -- and it was interesting to read his descriptions of what the area was like in that era.   A lot of population, culture, politics, and land management clearly predated the European arrival.

I was also amused at the thought that when members of the Portola expedition climbed this hill, they were really looking for an easy land route over to the other side of the Golden Gate.  "Maybe we can spot an easy river crossing inland if we climb the hill....  Oh s@#$#$@, there is a giant bay in the way!  Perhaps we will just build our mission on this side."

Back to the bike ride, the clever thing for us to do with tired legs at that point would have been to turn around, but we did press on to the coast as there's nothing like a 7 hour ride with 5000+ feet of climbing and multiple dirt segments on a hot day when one is out of shape...  It's good that I fed Chad a peanut butter and dried cherry sandwich after the first big climb, and good that Chad made me stop for a coffee and a pastry between the second and third big climbs!