Yelling at the Clouds

Introduction

I haven’t bike-packed or toured much before, but like many I recently have consumed a ton of bike-packing propaganda on Youtube and wanted to give it a try. It isn’t something I’d normally take on – I’ve never been camping before, and though I like riding my bike a lot and being out in nature, I also really like a shower and a bed at the end of the day.

Nevertheless, I thought I’d give it a swing. To start, I did what any rational person would do and spent $600 on camping gear. Seriously though, for an activity that is all about “getting back to the basics,” they sure do push a ton of high-end and weird looking stuff on you and make you fearful if you don’t buy said high-end equipment. I don’t know how necessary all this stuff was, but it felt too expensive for all the plastic that it was.

For those curious, this is the bike I was riding (unloaded left, loaded right). It’s a Crust Romanceur that I acquired in a trade and then modified extensively with the help of Box Dog Bikes and Scenic Routes Community Bike Shop. It rode super well, though this set up is definitely an “alt cyclist’s first bike packing set-up’. Basics I brought were a tent, sleeping pad, blankets, food, a book and electrical accessories.

My goal was to reach Portola State Redwood Forest. This is a small redwood preserve south of Palo Alto, just off Skyline Boulevard. For those that don’t know, Portola and some other state parks/beaches feature hiker/biker campsites. These are campsites you don’t need to reserve, cost a few bucks when you get there and are only available for those on “primitive transportation,” like foot or bicycle. Don’t ask me if e-bikes count, though I do support your transition to a car-free lifestyle, friend! The plan was to start by taking Caltrain from San Francisco to Palo Alto, then riding to Portola from there.

Getting to the riding

After a physical therapy appointment in the morning and a quick breakfast I made it to the Caltrain station at 10:10AM, just barely catching the 10:14AM express. I rushed to get my bike on the train and situated in the train car before we started moving. But before I could find a seat, the train suddenly stopped. We hadn’t even left the platform at 4th & King yet. The conductor informed us that there was a system-wide glitch with the signaling system in San Jose and that no trains could move.

I got off the train, and headed into the main concourse, waiting with everyone else. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving – I could see many people with bags and luggage, all probably just trying to get home before the holidays. Tension built on the platform as more people arrived at the station for later trains and realized the trains were going nowhere for quite some time. The Caltrain employee informing everyone was saying that there was no telling how long the delay could be.

Signaling glitches like this one are fairly rare (from what I could find, about once or twice a year), but ground the entire system and can take several hours to restore. The short explanation is that without the signaling/dispatch system in place, Caltrain dispatchers don’t know exactly where every train is, increasing the possibility for a collision on the tracks.            

I had been there to witness what was happening from the beginning, so as people arrived, I would tell them what was happening so everyone didn’t crowd the one Caltrain employee on the platform. One of the people I met in this process was Nathaniel. He is a Bay Area local and we bonded over our hatred of car dependence, the insanity of SF politics and other social issues we care about. Talking with him made the time go by much faster. We must have talked for at least 2 hours as we waited for the train. If I was waiting there myself, I would probably have blown my brains out.

After some mixed signals from @CaltrainAlerts, which included the system being restored, then down 30 minutes later, then restored another 30 minutes later, we finally pushed off from 4th & King at 1:18PM, a little over 3 hours later than expected. To the dismay of everyone who waited out the glitches, the train we were on was a local, not the express it should have been. I think most people who waited the glitches out were going pretty far south on the peninsula, otherwise they would have taken the BART or an Uber.

Riding against time

I arrived at Palo Alto at 2:15PM, and immediately headed for the mountains. Portola Redwoods SP was a 2.5-hour ride away according to Google Maps, and sunset was at 4:54PM that day. I figured if I got to the site before sundown, I could set my tent up in the light of dusk and fall asleep.

I started going down Sand Hill Road until I hit Portola Valley, where I stopped for water and a bathroom break. It was running late, and I was hungry, so I needed to start pushing to get to the campsite on time. Portola SP is located just off Skyline Boulevard. Normally I would have taken Page Mill up the mountain. Page Mill, combined with Skyline, used to be routes I would race my Miata and motorcycle on. But Google was telling me that going up Alpine would be ~30 min faster and hoping to avoid my boy racer past, I took it.

Alpine was the start of the heavy climbing, and it was a beautiful road in its own right. I almost would say the journey up to that point was worth it for that climb. Alpine is essentially a traffic-calmed mountain road – traffic calmed because it connects to a trail and is not a through-fare to Skyline (which I didn’t know at the time). It also traverses Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, Los Trancos Woods, and Coal Creek Open Space Preserve. As part of this journey, I saw the transition from countryside in Portola Valley to arid shrub/grassland areas in Windy Hill, to humid Redwoods in Los Trancos, back to arid shrub/grassland in Coal Creek. It was intoxicating to move through these different environments while on a bicycle. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was too busy soaking it in.

When I hit the end of Alpine, it was around 4:00PM. As I was going up, I ran into a few mountain bikers and I saw why – Alpine ended and connected to Crazy Pete’s Trail, which I didn’t know until I hit the trailhead. There were two people sitting at the entrance, and I asked how to get up Skyline. They said I could take the trail up but were a little worried after seeing me arrive with a loaded up bike that had no suspension. At this point I just wanted to get up the mountain and didn’t want to turn back, so I pushed on.

The trail started with some nice, smooth gravel. This was the first time I was going off road with a loaded bike, so it was nice to start with a chill section. It quickly disappeared though, and I hit some chunky single track that was too steep to pedal up. I had to hike my bike about half a mile up rooted pathways, occasionally slipping because of the grade and the weight of the bike. I continued this process of biking a mile, then hiking half or a quarter of a mile about 3-4 times. 

Not wanting to check the map, I always thought each section was the last. I would push and push, thinking I just had to make it over this section, and I’d be at Skyline. It was the only way to keep me going up this trail without turning back. I stopped a few times to scarf down some dates and nuts, but otherwise slogged my way up the mountain as fast as I could. It kept getting darker and darker, but I refused to check the time – checking would add to me wanting to turn around. After the trail turned into Crazy Pete’s Road, I knew I had made it to the end, and finally reached Skyline.

Riding for my life

It was 5:10PM now. Sun had set, and it was starting to get dark. I checked the map to see how far I was from Portola SP – 58min still. I clearly got the timing super wrong, probably because of all the hiking instead of biking, and knew I wasn’t going to make it in time. I decided it was best to turn around and try my luck next time. My options were to bike south on Skyline a bit and take Page Mill down, or bike North and take La Honda down. Page Mill’s decent was a longer decent than La Honda’s decent, so I figured it would be better to bike to La Honda and go that way.

Biking along Skyline at dusk was an exhilarating, beautiful and terrifying experience. For those that don’t know, Skyline runs along the top of the mountains that give Mountain View its name. It is windy, with sections that are completely enveloped in tree cover that then break to give near panoramic views of the bay to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West. Despite this, it is a road that has a 60MPH speed limit and features cars, motorcycles, and sometimes pick-up trucks constantly above that speed, using this road as a racetrack (which many were that night). When traveling in a car, you don’t notice how absurd having quiet, pristine wilderness next to fast moving cars is, and so people drive like absolute manics up there.

While I was on a bicycle, however, I really felt this. The road would alternate between extremely calm and peaceful, like how it felt biking along Alpine, to the equivalent of standing next to a freeway as cars and pick-ups zoomed past. I was constantly afraid that a car would not see me as I biked along the blind corners, so I would wave my left hand frantically when I saw headlights behind me, trying to draw attention to myself. Sometimes I even pulled off if I didn’t think I was visible enough. Despite the terror, it was beautiful up there. I managed to nab a picture:

Once I got through the section of Skyline, there was still the matter of getting down the mountain. At this point it was completely dark outside and Skylonda (intersection of Skyline & La Honda) was busy with car-traffic. La Honda going down is pretty steep and I didn’t want to get run off the road, so I decided to find someone who would help me go down the mountain. My thought was to have someone trail me at a safe distance, offering me a bit of protection from other automobiles.

This was a process that was harder than it probably should have been. Plenty of people were headed down the mountain. Instead of jumping in front of someone, I wanted to let them know my intentions of having them trail me so I knew they were comfortable with it and would keep a safe distance. I stood at the busy intersection and tried to get people’s attention.

The vehicles came in waves, like how they did when I was biking down Skyline, alternating between peaceful and chaotic. Many people just would not stop in the first place. It was dark and I was off to the side of the road, so some might not have even seen me. Many, however, looked me directly in the eye and zoomed off. I even went up to two cars that were parked, about to head down. They told me they didn’t want to trail me and zoomed off. Standing at this intersection, I felt alone, unprotected and like a second-class citizen.

One woman stopped after making her way up the mountain. She saw me trying to wave people down and asked if I was okay. I told her my plans and she said that she needed to drop something off at her place first. I told her not to worry about it, and that I would probably be able to get someone else to do it, but she insisted she would come back.

A Subaru missed the turn they needed to take to head down the mountain, so they had to reverse and go back for the turn. This was my opportunity. As they were reversing, I yelled and waved my arms, asking them to stop. Inside was a what appeared to be a teenager and his father. I told them about how I wanted some protection, and they were glad to offer it. “That’s all you want?” the teenager said, “Go down, I’ll watch your back!”. And we were off.

Descending La Honda with only my dynamo lighting the way was nerve racking to say the least, but at least I knew I was covered in the rear. The road was steep and windy, so I made sure to take every turn carefully, especially given this was my first decent on a loaded bike. I was so focused on negotiating every turn and being aware of what was coming next that I couldn’t stop and appreciate the beauty of La Honda. Bummer. We made our way down, probably not slowing traffic too much until we reached Portola Road, which was my turn off to connect to Sand Hill. As I waved my saviors by, they yelled, “Stay safe dude!” This was the first time I felt like I was actually going to make it back.

The rest of the journey was fairly straight-forward; Portola to Sandhill, back to the Caltrain station. Sand Hill had enough of a shoulder for me to feel comfortable on, so I tucked in and tried to get back to Caltrain station as fast as possible. I made sure to stay as far from the road as possible and stopped paying attention to let headlights of oncoming traffic in my rear. Worrying about the lights was just going to slow me down and wouldn’t change any outcomes if things went south.

As I biked down Sand Hill in the dark, the contrast between country and city was even more apparent than it had been in the daytime. Aside from the noise, which got progressively louder as we approached Palo Alto and the freeway, the stars gave the biggest clue. Sand Hill at the base of La Honda had such dazzling stars, a real treat for a city boy like me. As we approached Palo Alto, the light pollution grew, and the stars faded to the bare sky I was familiar with.

I managed to catch the 6:56 express to San Francisco. It was relieving to be back on the Caltrain, out of the car dominated world of South Bay. Though it doomed my trip in the beginning, Caltrain was my chariot taking me home. The only annoying bit was the stairs that I had to carry the bike up to get on and off the train. Really puts into perspective how important level boarding is for those with disabilities (which even the new trains do not have, go figure).

When I got back to the city, I pedaled as fast as I could, and treated myself to a deluxe sushi dinner and a yam potato dessert at Eiji, a sushi/tofu place close by. It was delicious.