Ohlone Wilderness

Just wanted to draw attention to Mark Tanaka's post about Dirty Dare, Catra Corbett's race in the Ohlone Wilderness. Fun race apparently and great pics of the route, of course. This is one of my favorite places to run in the Bay Area. A couple weeks after this race I went up and down the Big Burn, which is best described as starting off sucking really bad, and then getting worse. In the Ohlone 50k the Burn starts around mile 26 but at least you're going down.

Until this point (16 November) Livermore had received less rain in 2013 than Death Valley (yes, really), and you can tell by looking at Del Valle Reservoir. What is this, the Aral Sea?





No bobcats this time, but at least the other critters were kind enough to come down to the picnic area so I didn't have to wait to see them further out.



Always loads of turkeys on the lower trails here, and they get loud. One time, when meeting some hashers at Del Valle, I thought I'd found them but came around a corner to find a particular vocal flock of turkeys. I explained to them later that it's understandable to confuse the sound of filthy mindless animals, with the gobbling of turkeys.

And then the moon rose. Boy, did it ever. Not revealed by my phone camera in proper glory, but you get the idea.