A rattler in the bramble flashes its patented glare in Mt. Diablo’s Back Creek Canyon.

Unfazed by the fangs

The man, outward bound, reached for the gate at the Round Valley trailhead. Then he paused and said, “I hear there are rattlesnakes out here. Is it safe to hike?”

Inward bound, I said, “Yep. I’ve taken a couple hundred hikes out here and spotted precisely two rattlers. Besides, It’s not easy to get bitten by a rattler. It’s possible – but you’ve got to work at it.”

As the solstice approaches, and summer’s sizzles sets in, I’m struck by the number of folks singing the following tune: “Oh, I’d like to go hiking, but hey, there are rattlesnakes are out there. I’ll take a pass.”

While no one can be blamed for spurning the opportunity to get snakebit, my experience with rattlers cuts the other way. My problem with rattlesnakes: they slither away before I can get a good snapshot.

Trust me, rattlesnake bites come in only two flavors: carelessness and foolhardiness. The careless hiker thinks “Ah, that looks like a comfortable boulder … with some sort of, hmmm, squiggly thing on it” and proceeds to take a seat right beside Mr. Rattler. The foolhardy hiker thinks, “I’d like to get a tight photo of Mr. Rattler. I wonder how close he’ll let me get.”

Popular mythology puts the Northern Pacific rattlesnake on the ornery quotient somewhere between Attila the Hun and Chef Gordon Ramsay. The reality is more prosaic. Sure, the rattler wields intimidating incisors, but it’ll use them on a human only if it senses a threat and only at close range. The overriding principles in dealing with a rattlesnake: be aware and remain calm. And by all means, do not attempt to pet it.

A non-venomous gopher snake hisses a warning at Los Vaqueros Watershed.

First you need to spot the critter and identify it as a rattler. A rattler’s cunning camouflage makes it hard to spot even at close range. As you round a bend or crest a hill, make a visual sweep of the trail ahead before diverting your attention to scenic splendor. When rock climbing, don’t grab a handhold till you’re certain what’s up there. And watch where you sit. You might have company.

Chances are you’ll run across a different slithering creature out on the trail, a creature that’s paid a heavy price for its resemblance to the rattler: the non-venomous gopher snake. The key to distinguishing it from the rattler lies in the head and tail. The rattlesnake’s head is a large, triangular wedge, and its tail ends in the rattle. The gopher snake’s head is smaller and more rounded than a rattler's, and its tail is pointed.

One of the gopher snake’s stratagems for warding off large creatures is to impersonate a rattlesnake. When a gopher snake feels cornered, it’ll hiss, flatten its head and shake its tail in the grass like a maraca player in a rumba band. It’s a clever but sometimes counterproductive adaptation. When the large creature in question is a human bent on killing a rattler, the gopher snake can be its own worst enemy.

Should you find a snake commandeering your picnic area or campsite, keep your cool and get the creature’s ID. If it’s a rattlesnake, don’t chase it off. It might return. And don’t try to kill it. You’re putting yourself in danger – and breaking the law. Notify park staffers; they have the expertise to remove it.

Let’s say you get unlucky and run afoul of the fangs. Again, don’t panic; call 911. If you’re in a cell phone dead zone, send someone for help and sit down, keeping the bitten area below heart level. If you’re on a solo hike, you should walk – not run – back to civilization. The puncture marks of a rattlesnake bite will feel like they’re burning. No burning sensation suggests that a different snake has bitten you, or that the rattler (as sometimes happens) didn’t inject any venom.

A coiling rattler eyes me with suspicion on Black Diamond Mines’ Corcoran Mine Trail.

There are two misconceptions about rattler bites. The first is that a snakebite kit will save you. Don’t count on it. Applying tourniquets, cutting around the puncture marks and sucking out the venom – these can cause more harm (such as nasty infections) than the venom itself. A rattler will rarely inject a human with a large enough dose of venom to cause death. It’s a skilled hunter. It knows it can’t swallow you, so it doesn’t waste precious venom warding you off. At least 25 percent of poisonous snake bites involve no release of venom.

This relates to our second misconception, that a young rattlesnake packs more potent venom than its elder. It doesn’t. But it can be more dangerous precisely because it’s young. Lacking expertise as a hunter, the young rattler will prolong the injection of venom into its victim. A small rattler looks less menacing than a large one, but don’t be fooled; don’t get cute and try to pick it up. If it sinks its fangs into you, you could get a full dose.

And don’t let these dire scenarios deter you from getting out onto the trail. Every single rattler I’ve run across in my wanderings has left me alone. That’s because I left it alone. Armed with knowledge, aware of your surroundings, relax and enjoy your hike. You’re out there for the scenery, right? You’re out there to look for things. Well, now you have one more thing to look for.

Constellation Arrowhead – connecting the dots

A fleeting vision in our night sky: the constellation Arrowhead. Graphic by Ger Erickson.

Beneath a night sky of diamonds scattered across the black velvet of space, our earliest ancestors looked up and saw patterns. They connected the dots: a group of stars became the diagram of a lion or bear, a queen or a hunter and his dogs. Those patterns were permanent. From millenium to millenium, the position of the stars never strayed, the diagram was never distorted.

But some heavenly objects did stray. The astronomers of ancient Greece named those objects planetai, wanderers. The planets. The star constellations are set in stone, but the planets wander into formations of their own that, like star patterns, remind us of familiar images. One of these temporary constellations is visible now. Let’s call it Arrowhead.

Step outside at 10 p.m. Pacific Time and look south. Across the horizon hangs the constellation known to the Babylonians as Mul Gir-tab, the creature with the burning sting. We call it Scorpius, the scorpion. Some civilizations have juggled two metaphors: the star pattern reminded the Indonesian Javanese people of both a swan (Banyakangrem) and a leaning coconut tree (Kalapa Doyong).

But in July of 2016, people of all cultures can savor the sight of a new, though fleeting, constellation. The planets Mars and Saturn plus the star Antares trace the pattern of an Arrowhead. The point of the arrow is Mars. The arrow’s lower barb is Antares; its upper barb, Saturn.

Scorpius and its current retinue of planets plus permanent retinue of star clusters. Graphic by Ger Erickson.

Arrowhead or no Arrowhead, the southern night sky of 2016 is rich in delights to the eye and imagination. Mars sweeps past Antares every two years but stargazers have linked the two reddish objects for millenia. “Mars” is the name the Romans gave the red planet, but the ancient Greek word for Mars is “Ares.” The Greeks considered the reddish star in Scorpius to be Ares’ rival: thus the name “Antares” – anti-Ares. The god of war, Ares, and the heart of the scorpion, Antares: a clash of formidable and forbidding powers in the heavens. 

Mars “sweeps past Antares” in only a visual sense. The light of Mars that strikes your retina takes 4½ minutes to make its current 50-million-mile journey to Earth. The light of Antares takes 550 years. How can a star so distant shine so brightly? It’s easy – when your radius is 883 times greater than the Sun’s and you shine 12,000 times brighter than the Sun. Were Antares to replace the Sun at the center of our solar system, it would engulf Earth and Mars.

Mars and Antares share a reddish hue, but the hue springs from a radically different source. Stars generate their own light; planets reflect the light of their parent star. Antares’ reddish light is the fire of an enormous thermonuclear furnace burning at a cool 6,500 F. The red of Mars is sunlight bounced off a few million square miles of iron-rich minerals – a big desert.

Got binoculars or a small telescope? Swivel over to Scorpius and you’ll be treated to the vision of some of the finest star clusters in our local cosmos – the M7 cluster and the Northern Jewel Box in particular.

The planet Saturn. Photo by 3quarks/iStock/Getty Images.

And let’s not space out on that golden planet way out in the solar suburbs, the farthest planet visible to the naked eye: Saturn, which completes one orbit of the Sun in 29 Earth years. Saturn is a prime example of the strangeness of the cosmos. The ringed planet is large enough, minus its rings, to fit nine Earths across its diameter like pearls on a string. Yet as a “gas giant,” Saturn is so light it would float on water. And as telescope owners are well aware, Saturn’s ring system is approaching its maximum tilt toward Earth. Late 2016-early 2017 is prime time to view one the wonders of our local universe: the golden rings of the golden globe we call Saturn.

Stargazing is more than an aesthetic pleasure. From the beginning of our species’ days on Earth, the ability to make the connection between patterns in the physical world and the world of the imagination has helped us survive and flourish. When we gaze into the night sky of A.D. 2016 and see a scorpion – or an arrowhead – we’re re-enacting an ancient and impactful feat. May you enjoy keeping that tradition alive this special summer by stepping out beneath the stars and connecting the dots.

Make the pilgrimage with Annie

Donner Creek, Mt. Diablo.

When winter rains turn hiking trails into rivers of mud, we trekkers get our revenge by taking it inside: we grab a steaming beverage and nestle into our favorite chair with a good book. When we need a ride out of Cabin Fever City, there’s no better form of transport than our very own author-ignited imagination.

What to read? If you’ve ever felt the sun on your face in spring and been engulfed by a wave of awe and gratitude, or if you’ve ever witnessed up close the suffering of a loved one and shuddered at the hideous side of our existence; if you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the world’s beauty or suffocated by its horror and wanted to put a name to it, pick up a copy of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard.

“Pilgrim” is a book about the world of water and sky, trees and insects; broad in scope and painstaking in detail. It’s a book about the author’s inner landscape, an intimate and confessional diary. And it’s a book about the Why of the world’s joy and misery, an attempt not only to describe, but understand.

After a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia in 1971, Dillard retreated to the solitude of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and banks of Tinker Creek, where she found healing and inspiration. The result, in addition to her recuperation, was the book for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1975.

What makes the reading of “Pilgrim” so rewarding is Dillard’s dilated point of view. Her senses, her mind and her heart are fully open to the world’s phenomena – and their implications. She sees profundity in the simple and splendor in the ordinary. “It is dire poverty indeed,” she writes, “when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.”

Morning on Mt. Tamalpais.

“Pilgrim” is charged with an ecstatic tone but Dillard’s portrayal of the natural world is unsentimental. She not only concedes that nature is red in tooth and claw; she gives us the gory details. Her account of a frog’s skull being collapsed by a water bug sucking it dry from beneath the creek’s surface is a tour de force of ghastly description. Later, Dillard expresses bewilderment at the fact that 10 percent of the world’s species are parasitic insects, which suggests a disturbing possibility about the Creator: “What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harassing, disfiguring or totally destroying the other ninety percent?”

Dillard is a Christian, yet she draws from the wisdom of traditions as diverse as Buddism, Sufism, Eskimo lore and Hasidic Judaism. She embraces the paradox that existence is a blessing and a curse; that in our universe, creation and destruction are mysteriously intertwined. And yet she doesn’t let God off the hook for bringing it all into being. What Dillard concludes about the nature of God is consoling and disturbing, blatant and subtle.

“Pilgrim” urges us to step out and experience the moment. In a twist on the standard meaning of a familiar phrase, Dillard exhorts us to spend the afternoon: “You can’t take it with you.” For her, God’s grace imparted through the world of Tinker Creek is available at any moment. The least we can do is be present when the moment arrives. “The secret of seeing,” she writes, “is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the nearest puff.”

As a form of transport, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” is more like soaring than slogging. It’s a pilgrimage worth making.

Moss Beach – low tide, high visibility

Moss Beach marvels, clockwise from upper left: a purple-colored ochre star lounges in a tide pool; a visitor follows a squadron of pelicans above Seal Cove; giant green anemones flaunt their tentacles; and stalked barnacles cling to a rock face.

Sun and moon tug on our ocean and its waters recede. Earth twirls on its axis and the blue sky dissolves to black. These eternal rhythms do more than inspire awe – they unmask marvels. When the sun sets, we see stars. When the tide rolls out, we see starfish.

And we see them in full glory at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach. When winter rains make a mudfest of conventional hiking trails, what better venue for an adventure than a sandy beach?

The organisms that roam the coast are as bizarre as the monsters of sci-fi. The hermit crab wears a snail shell like an oversized turban while scavenging for decayed plant and animal matter. The starfish known as the sea bat feeds by projecting its stomach through its mouth into its victim’s shell opening, discharging digestive enzymes, sucking its liquefied prey like some ghastly slurpee and retracting its stomach back into its body.

South of San Francisco and north of Half Moon Bay, the Fitzgerald reserve’s 3-mile stretch of shoreline and rocky reefs displays an impressive quantity and diversity of marine life, from delicate coralline alga to giant green anemones, from stalked barnacles to gray whales. Bird lovers can trace the graceful glide of pelicans low over the sea or watch herons wade in the shallows looking for lunch while harbor seals cool their heels on the sand.

For the record, you’ll find scant moss at Moss Beach. In the late 1800s, a German immigrant named Jürgen Wienke bought the seaside property and, according to legend, dubbed an odd form of alga growing there “moss.” Wienke’s misnomer eventually spread to include the entire beach. The moss you will find here is well above the beach – delicate tendrils flowing from a throng of Monterey cypresses standing sentinel on the reserve’s tall bluffs. The Bluff Trail affords not only a bird’s-eye view of the beach; from it you can commandeer a vista both intimate and breathtaking. Sunset on the Pacific doesn’t get any finer.

Harbor seals enjoy a snooze on a blustery afternoon.

Head south on the cliff trail and in a few minutes you’ll pop out onto a street leading to the historic Moss Beach Distillery, founded in the rum-running Prohibition era. You can mosey over to a patio anchored on bluffs overlooking the ocean and, libation in hand, sit down to an excellent seafood dinner. The distillery even boasts a resident ghost, the Blue Lady, responsible for weird cameo appearances on premises.

To catch the optimal exposure of Fitzgerald’s reserve’s reefs and terraces, visit at low tide. Log on to www.fitzgeraldreserve.org/newffmrsite/lowtides. The site gives you a detailed table of tides for a given date and time of day. You’ll find that this Saturday and Sunday, January 9 and 10, low tides in the afternoon will unveil the wonders beneath the water.

Surf’s down!

Epic effort? Hey, no problem

Photo by Chris Ryan/OJO Images/Getty Images

The host led Leia and me to our table. We took our seats. I said “thanks.” The host said “no problem.” I was tempted to tell the host “I’m mighty relieved to hear that leading us to our table was no problem” but I knew Leia would shoot me a glance that could melt iridium.

Leia ordered wine; I ordered beer. The server delivered them. Leia said “thanks.” The server said “no problem.” I was tempted to tell the server “that’s fascinating; it never occurred to me that delivering our beverages would be a problem” but I knew my reply would be interrupted by an eyeball-rattling pain to my shin delivered by the point of Leia’s shoe. 

By the time dinner was done and we breezed through the restaurant’s exit, we’d been treated to an unofficial count of nine “no problem”s. I imagined thanking a Good Samaritan for yanking my car out of the ditch in a sub-zero blizzard. For my sake he missed his once-in-lifetime job interview, subluxated every vertebra in his spine and probably needed several fingers amputated due to frostbite. And I wanted him to know I appreciated it.

“No problem,” he replied.

It’s official: to paraphrase Nietzsche, “you’re welcome” is dead.

Is it unreasonable to demand that everyone be aware of the literal meaning of the words they use? Probably. I knew a guy who always greeted me with “hey, baby, what are you doing?!” I’ll never forget his facial expression when, after weeks of replying with “hi,” I gave him a play-by-play account of what I was doing. He looked at me as if I were radioactive.

It’s tempting as customers to view service providers’ “no problem” as dismissive and self-centered. “No problem” directs attention to the thanked person, the service person. “You’re welcome” directs it to the thanker, the customer. My personal preference, “my pleasure,” also directs attention to the thankee, but in a genial way: “I take pleasure in doing this for you” (that a problem might be involved is irrelevant and off the table).

So what’s the problem with “no problem? Are those who use the phrase being deliberately dismissive and self-centered? No, the problem is: they’re not being anything – but using words that convey meaning anyhow. The possibility that their effort on your behalf might have been a problem is not a thought that fires in their synapses. To them, “no problem” isn’t an attempt at precise communication; it’s an attempt to fill the moment with a social noise. “No problem” could mean “you’re welcome,” “my pleasure,” “no worries,” “whatevs” or “indubitably.” Its true meaning, I suspect, is far less genial. It means “I heard you thank me.” Nothing more.

And that’s the problem: We talk like we think. Unexamined language exposes unexamined thought. How many folks who use the phrase “I could care less” (instead of the original and correct “I couldn’t care less”) realize they’re expressing the exact opposite of their intended meaning? How many who use “it’s all downhill from here” as a negative term realize they’re flip-flopping the meaning of the original and correct metaphor (“after a hard slog uphill we get to coast downhill; it’s all good from here”)? Again: the exact opposite of their intended meaning.

In a world in which we’re bombarded from every point of the compass by those bent on persuading us to do their bidding – from politicians to advertisers – it’s never unwise to examine the meaning of words.

Some social critiques are attempts at promoting change. My riff on “no problem” has no such ambition. Let’s not fool ourselves: the situation’s hopeless. I’m not offended by “no problem” – just disappointed. But it’s only a matter of time before I lose patience and chasten a bewildered restaurant employee with my “no problem” tirade. How to avoid the unavoidable?

I should quit dining out.

East Bay park pros: stars behind the scenery

Eddie Willis explains Native American cosmology at Vasco Caves Regional Park.

It was late August but I wasn't late for dawn. By 6:35 the Round Valley summit was flooded by the light of a burnt-red sun flaring through a gap in the sawtooth silhouette of the Sierra. Atop that highest hill in the park – my treasured sanctuary – stood a blue oak I call Old One – my treasured tree.

As I approached Old One to pay my respects a strange object came into focus – dozens of strange objects. Throughout the tree's mesh of twigs and leaves hung tiny red … thingys … as if a swarm of miniature sea urchins had blown through and latched on.

I snapped photos of the little buggers, hurried home and knocked off an e-note to Denise Defreese, who at the time supervised Round Valley for the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). The gist of the note: what the heck are these red thingys? Are they hazardous to the tree's health?

I hit “send” and moseyed downstairs to brew a cup of coffee and get down to the serious business of writer's procrastination.

When I returned to my inbox 30 minutes later I found that 10 minutes earlier Denise had written back, explaining that the thingys in question were “urchin galls” laid by gall wasps. No danger to the tree. She dialed me in to Ron Russo's excellent “Call of the Galls, The Lively Universe of an Ancient Oak,” published on Bay Nature's website.

Who says you can't get good service nowadays?

In 2014 the EBRPD, the largest urban park district in the nation, celebrated its 80th birthday, replete with art, harvest and wildflower festivals, concerts, a health program, outdoor movies, a gala dinner at the Claremont – you name it. But amid the well-deserved hoopla, the district did what it does year in and year out: provided access to the world of nature that lies just outside our doorstep; access to the awe that world inspires, the healing it offers.

I've been blessed. I've traced with my fingertip a bobcat's track embossed on the caked mud; felt the spring wind sifted through a thousand Coulter pine needles; heard the crazy chorus of a coyote pack assembling for the evening hunt.

Roger Epperson Ridge, Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. The inscription reads “In memory of Roger Epperson (1954-2008) in recognition of his significant and lasting contributions to the East Bay Regional Park District and the landscapes he loved.”

Mike Moran leads a Raptor Baseline expedition at Big Break Regional Shoreline.

I've been blessed. So I bless the rangers and docents and supervisors who help me understand what I'm touching and feeling and hearing. I bless those who negotiate with landowners and buy the properties; those who design the trails, build the bridges – heck, maintain the outhouses – at those havens of natural beauty. I bless those who do the dirty work of ripping out poison oak and yellow star thistle, and those who do the clean but hard work that takes place in offices and meeting rooms.

“What is it about the people in the district – in our DNA – that makes us responsive?” said EBRPD GM Robert Doyle. “We were small. We're big now, but we were small. It's still a family of caring. All our park supervisors care about their parks. They know it's pretty special to work out in this stuff – and that the public's who they work for. They're professional and very committed to their mission. And that's personal – as much as anything in the institution. I'm extremely proud of the staff here.”

The EBRPD heroes who over the years have graced me with their time and assistance are too numerous to recount, but include Carol Alderdice, Rex Caufield, Jim Cooper, Defreese, Doyle, Emily Hopkins, Carol Johnson, Isa Polt-Jones, John McKana, Patrick McIntyre, Mike Moran, Traci Parent and Eddie Willis.

Navigating this juggernaut through the turbulent waters of national and regional economics is no small task. For those unfamiliar with the scale of this enterprise, the EBRPD manages 65 parks (including shorelines, preserves, wildernesses, recreation areas, inter-park trails and land-bank areas) comprising more than 1,250 miles of trails laid out on more than 119,000 acres. And let's not overlook the 235 family campsites plus 42 youth camping areas; 10 interpretive and education centers; 11 freshwater swimming areas, boating and/or stocked fishing lakes and lagoons plus a disabled-accessible swimming pool; 40 fishing docks and three bay fishing piers. And when when 5,000 state park employees lost their jobs during the recent recession, not a single EBRPD person was laid off.

Where the district goes from here will be watched with interest by its constituency: the campers, cyclists and runners; the chirpy families, solo hikers and cyclist convoys who pay these facilities around 25 million annual visits.

One way the district must go is to adapt to the constituency's changing face. “Everybody knows that when you go hiking, you're enjoying it but you're also doing it for your health,” said Doyle. “It's part of your stress release and exercise. But the park agencies were never overt about it. It was, 'Go enjoy the beautiful scenery and the wildlife and the environment.' And we're trying to be more direct. We have a national crisis of obesity with kids, and heart attack with seniors.”

To that end, the district has become a partner in Healthy Parks, Healthy People, a worldwide effort to promote fitness by getting folks off their duffs and into the world of nature. Among the slew of activities offered by the EBRPD are bike rides, kayaking, birdwatching, wildflower discovery, a host of programs tailored to kids, and the Trails Challenge, the district's longstanding self-guided hiking program.

Spying on raptors at Vasco Caves.

The district must also contend with one of the culprits in our current health crisis: the popularity of social media and its power to keep kids indoors and indolent. Doyle's generation “would be out climbing trees, getting dirty, looking under rocks,” he said. “Now kids go 'Eewww. I'd rather get on my social network.' And for us, the environment was social. We were always with a gang of friends – with our girlfriends, with friend-friends, in groups camping out. It was very social. But social now is 'social media.' So how do we build the next generation of park supporters?

“The generation who raised me are all gone now. They were all environmentalists. They were the people who established Save Mt. Diablo, Save the Bay, the state park system. They're gone. The people I got connected with in high school are in their 50s. Where's that next group of kids who wants to come charging up the road?"

That road is more than metaphorical. “We shouldn't say, 'Don't go off the road; this is a fragile environment,'" said Doyle. "This is a tough-as-nails environment. What ruins an environment is dozing off the hilltop and putting a building on top of it. If a bicycle or a horse or a group of kids get off trail, yes, they can cause some damage. So does a big pond-filler of a storm. My biggest worry isn't the economy or public support for the park district in general. It's: where do we get the next generation of men, women, Hispanics, Asians interested in representing the state and taking care of the parks?”

How we answer that question will cast a glaring light on the priorities of our heart. As Terry Tempest Williams put it in “Testimony,” “If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.”

Next time you cross paths with a park service worker, the star of the show – from whichever generation – grooming a trail or cleaning an outhouse, don't forget to thank that person. For us all.