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I had no weekend plans except cleaning & projects, and I knew that I'd go stir crazy only doing projects & not leaving my house, so I asked some friends if they wanted to go for a hike, and mrmouse said sure. When it snowed again on Friday, I suggested maybe we could try driving up to Mt Hamilton to see if we could get close to the snow instead of a hike, so we tried...


Snow on Mt Hamilton as seen from the closest streetlight to my house





We did get to park quickly by a gate & walk through to get these photos...lucky we were there when we were, since on our way back the other cars were getting tickets for the no parking zone! :-o


mrmouse's photo of snow on Mt Hamilton from as close as we got - nice closeup of the observatory!


I liked the crooked path up to the old barn with the snow behind...

Since the snow plan was foiled since the road was closed just over the first set of hills, and we mean closed as in CHP standing there next to his cruiser, we went to the opposite side of the valley back to the original plan to hike in Rancho San Antonio Park. We did the now-standard Wildcat Loop Trail, just stopping at the first open spot for the nice view, but along the way up, we noticed we could actually not only see San Francisco, but the Marin hills behind! It's never that clear!


On A Clear Day You Can See Forever


(Yeah, my zoom couldn't show what my eyes could see... ;)

mrmouse's photos are of course miles better than mine, since he not only has a polarizing filter (I should have bought one a LONG time ago for my camera! That was one reason I got the camera I did, because of lens attachments & filters - argh!) to cut through the haze for the long-distance landscape shots, but also has the gigantic crazy-long zoom lens that I still would never want to carry around, especially up mountains like he did with Ben Nevis. ;) So, he suffers with the heavy camera bag, but by far gets the better zoom photos in the end...like this one...


mrmouse's photo of San Francisco from Rancho San Antonio Park (halfway up Black Mountain)

(You can laugh at my sad camera & drool over his by viewing the gallery that contains both our albums.)


Pretty funny I thought to see such stellar views of the Santa Clara Valley from both ends in the same day... ;)


From Mt Hamilton Road looking northwest


From Rancho San Antonio Park looking southeast back at Mt Hamilton



Of course, I insisted on documentation that WE were there vs. just our postcard photos of the wonderful views... ;)


Britta & Ben in Rancho San Antonio park, with Lick Mill Observatory on Mt Hamilton in the distance

We were HUNGRY after our 3.5 hr hike, so we had fresh sourdough bread I made, butternut squash soup, some salad, a bit of protein, and continued with his Classic Trek education by watching Amok Time, The Changeling, Mirror Mirror, Devil in the Dark, and Journey to Babel...whew!

All in all a good day...we need to do things like that more often... :)