Читать книгу Afoot and Afield: San Francisco Bay Area - David Weintraub - Страница 10

Preface

This book is the result of field work that began in 1996, when I started preparing my first book for Wilderness Press. Since then, I have logged countless miles, enjoying the beautiful Bay Area in every season, and traipsing from the Sonoma coast to Silicon Valley and beyond. The results of my wanderings appeared in three Wilderness Press trail guides, East Bay Trails, North Bay Trails, Top Trails San Francisco Bay Area, and also in Peninsula Tales and Trails, a history and guide commissioned by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. Wilderness Press offers two other trail guides covering regions in the Bay Area, Peninsula Trails and South Bay Trails. So this book is a compendium of trips in the East Bay, North Bay, South Bay, and on the Peninsula.

My goal has always been to be a good guide, to share my love of the outdoors, and to show the importance of protecting Bay Area parklands. After all, a good guidebook should do more than get you from A to B. Through these pages, some of my personal predilections will no doubt come through: climbing high, enjoying native plants, looking at birds, and learning about Bay Area history.

I hiked all the trips described in this book, many more than once. I recorded all my observations on tape, and I have tried to be as accurate and as thorough as possible in both my observations and my writing. Keep in mind, though, that nature—not to mention various federal, state, and local agencies—equals change. So your experience on the trail, affected by season, weather, time of day, etc., will very likely be different from mine. I have tried to indicate this by liberally using the word “may,” as in “Stow Lake is a favorite birding destination—from its shore you may spot great blue herons….” I hope you get to see the herons, but their appearance, like so many other things, is beyond my control.

If you have comments, corrections, and/or suggestions, please send them to mail@wildernesspress.com.

Ring Mountain: view northward from near the summit of Ring Mountain (chapter 1, trip 7).

Clockwise from top left: Joseph D. Grant County Park (chapter 7, trip 3).

Sonoma Valley Regional Park (chapter 2, trip 5).

Mt. Wittenberg (chapter 1, trip 17).

Russian Ridge OSP (chapter 10, trip 5).

Mt. Burdell OSP (chapter 1, trip 14).

Diablo Foothills Regional Park (chapter 4, trip 6).