Picture of Mt. Tamalpais on warmer days, by Carol Satriani.
Some Saturdays when living in a city you just wanna escape it all. Well, today was one of those Saturdays for me. The San Francisco weather was wet and cold with a wind chill making it feel like Chicago-West. Thoughts of staying indoors and watching NBA All-Star activities and College Basketball almost won me over, but a call from a fun lady friend was inviting enough to weather the outdoor conditions.
After a wakeup coffee and bagel at Noah's, it was while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge that I started having second thoughts. The tourists walking the bridge were looking like frost bitten Eskimos in their down coats and fur lined gloves. If you've never seen a family of four, their shoulders hunched to their ears as they walk packed together as tightly as a pair of snowdogs at a pitstop, then you haven't felt the pity of witnessing that cold westerly wind whipping off the Pacific ocean and smacking humans silly. I shuddered with the thought of the car breaking down and having to walk the bridge in such conditions. Fortunately, my fate was tied into what lay ahead on this journey to conquer a mountain.
Through winding roads and rolling fog we made our way up Mt. Tamalpais. Nearing the top we began seeing many travelers along the road enjoying the wet roadside snow. We dogdged our vehicle through the crossfire of a group snow fight and found a parking spot, destination reached. The Outside temperature had dropped as low as 38 degrees, cold for California Bay Area.
Reaching our mountain top destination and getting out of the car was a spiritual experience. The cool cold and crisp mountain air fills your lungs like a succulent mentholated cough drop as you inhale. You feel a bit lightheaded from the high altitude as you sway while looking up at the falling snow flurries. The smell is a mixture of pine and wet wood. You feel at one with the mountain and all it's environment. The patches of blue sky that peak through the silver fog make you feel as if God is peaking down through a microscope at you personally. The shining bronze of the winter stripped trees give a romantic look to the setting. One area was full of trees covered in a limy moss green as if astroturf were sprayed over it creating a green monster resembled effect.
Once out of the car you take a few steps before your body begs to retreat back to the warmth of your vehicle. But the beauty of the mountain and the peace of its silence keeps you immobile and breathless. I've never been much of a hiker or outdoorsman as in Grizzly Addams type outdoorsman, but I know the pull that the beauty of nature can have on a person and it had us both in its grasp.
The beauty of Mt. Tamalpais, no matter how cold and wet, brings out the warmth of those human beings that can appreciate Gods World. You realize your just another animal given the privilege of enjoying such a wonder that is Earth. Mt. Tamalpais has a personality all its own and it welcomes travelers to come and break bread with it anytime. The mountain understands that those escaping from the lowlands are in search or in need of something special and it doesn't disappoint. I suppose mountaineers who climb mountains as a hobby are driven by that special thing, that special pull that a mountain has on their soul.
We stayed awhile, took pictures and took in the forest-like surroundings feeling welcome and warm inside though our faces and fingers were numb to the bone. Thinking back I now understand why those tourists walking across the cold and windy Golden Gate Bridge chose to brave the conditions and make the walk; they wanted to see something that God made and take that feeling home in their hearts with them. Man makes roads, bridges and structures not so much for traveling on them and praising their construction, but for transporting us to a place where we can view God's creation unimpeded by our daily distractions.
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