Day 30: Mud Slough to Tasman Station

Near the Mouth of Coyote Creek

Day 30: Mud Slough to Tasman Station
(Fremont to San Jose) 

Circle The Bay Part 3

December 6th 2018

8.8 miles in 1 hrs 15 mins

(Total:  323.4 miles in 73 hrs 26 mins)

This ride was for the most part along the last stretch of Coyote Creek (which should be called Coyote River) before its mouth at the southeast end of the bay.  There is a serious amount of flood engineering along this corridor, because the creek drains most everything south of it to Morgan Hill.  Unlike the creeks of eastern and western bayshore, it has many more miles of drainage due to arrangement of the north/south mountain ridges between which the bay occupies the drowned valley between them.

I circumnavigated the South Bay today and it was fun.  Caltrain to the city, bike the Embarcadero to BART, BART all the way to the new Warm Springs terminus, and then bike the gap in transit to the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority light rail.  Which takes me back to Caltrain...

Found the metric allen wrenches to adjust my bike seat

Bay Trail Parking Lot by Mud Slough

Development always underway

Coyote Creek Flood Mitigation Embankment, Upstream View

Coyote Creek Flood Mitigation Embankment, Downstream View

Alternate Bay Trail Route for Cyclists

Day 29: Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge to Mud Slough

Mud Slough

Day 29: Don Edwards
San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge to Mud Slough
(Newark to Fremont) 

Circle The Bay Part 3

December 1st 2018

8.9 miles in 1 hrs 2 mins

(Total:  314.6 miles in 72 hrs 11 mins)

I had a friend who worked for Cargill as a software developer, at one time the largest private corporation in the USA.  They still own and manage a lot of the bay's wetlands, but they did work out a deal with the federal government to restore a lot of their previous evaporation ponds as well.

He's probably retired by now.  His work for Cargill was very process driven business software development, the kind I got a minor in (systems analysis), but then avoided completely by the scientific programming career I bootstrapped at Honeywell.

It's not that I don't like business, I do.  I even like doing my own double-entry bookkeeping in a spreadsheet of my own design.  I guess the difference is that if I'm programming for someone else I'd rather do the science and engineering part of making money.  If I'm programming to count the money I'd rather it be my own money.

My mind is turning to Silicon Valley as I approach the southern end of the bay.   This section ended right on the bayshore side of I-880, right across the freeway from the huge Tesla factory.  I will try to keep my eye on the wonder of the bay and not get too distracted by the castles built on silicon off to my left.

Undeveloped Boat Landing at Don Edwards

Tracks everywhere through Newark and Fremont

View of the bay and its towers

View of Cargill Salt Evaporation Ponds

Cargill Salt

Condo Construction on bayside flatlands

Keeping warm

More Cars!

Tilt-up Construction on bayside flatlands

Tilt-Up Construction

More Tilt-up Construction with Cows

Hint of green in Fremont Hills

Day 28: Coyote Hills to Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Day 28: Coyote Hills to Don Edwards
San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge
(Fremont to Newark) 

Circle The Bay Part 3

November 8th 2018

8.0 miles in 2 hrs 0 mins

(Total:  305.7 miles in 70 hrs 9 mins)

I better get back on the trail if I'm going to finish this circumnavigation in 2018.  This segment was largely about biking around the Newark Slough, a 5 mile circular route out into the bay starting at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.  These are still active salt evaporation ponds in this area, owned by Cargill.  But since these are feeder ponds to the more salinated collection ponds to the south, they are still welcoming to all kinds of birds.

And now I have to write one more paragraph to accomplish my minimum acceptable blog entry to go along with these pictures.  But you could just look at the pictures.  Part of the delay was the ironically named Camp Fire in Northern California that made the air in the Bay Area hazardous to any kind of outdoor exercise.  But once it started raining the air cleaned up, the fire got put out, and everyone was happy to see the rain -- for a while.  Now I wish it would stop so I could get back out there.

Orange for (still) owned by Cargill

Shadow of Bike on Roof Rack over Dumbarton Bridge

Coyote Hills Park 

Coyote Hills Park

Bayside Trail at Coyote Hills Park

Quarry Reconstruction at Coyote Hills Park

Don Edwards SF Bay NWR

Don Edwards Nursery

Don Edwards Classroom Laboratory

Don Edwards

Dredging Platform on the Newark Slough

Newark Slough

Western Sandpipers

Blowup of Western Sandpiper

Western Sandpiper Murmuration #1

Western Sandpiper Murmuration #2

Western Sandpiper Murmuration #3

Day 27: Alameda Creek to Coyote Hills

Day 27: Alameda Creek to Coyote Hills
(Union City to Fremont) 

Circle The Bay Part 3

November 4th 2018

11.9 miles in 2 hrs 0 mins

(Total:  297.7 miles in 68 hrs 27 mins)

Finally got back on the bike to finish off this year's clock-wise bay trek. It's been almost 4 months since my last day on the trail.  Seems I was waiting until I got that bicycle cartop carrier so my wife could join me on this ride.  It ended at Coyote Hills Regional Park, a ridge of natural hills at the edge of the bay, unique in that they are not the kind created by dumping garbage.

The hills seem to be the other end of the San Bruno Mountain and Coyote Point ridges on the other side of the bay.  They were used for ceremonial purposes by the natives.  The miles of wetland between the hills and the open water were converted into salt evaporation ponds.  Now these ponds have been somewhat restored with natural water and left to the birds.  Thousands of birds, especially little hard-to-identify shorebirds that were loving the mudflats that seem at the moment safe from invasive cordgrass.  

We watched them endlessly scurry on the mud searching for food, and periodically jump into the air as a flock and fly to new flats to look for more food.  Except there were so many of these flocks there were sometimes mid-air "collisions" of these murmurations.

We "ended" at the parking lot for the park, but still had to bike back to our car.  Next time I'm gonna take a Lyft back.

Yakima Roof Racks for two bicycles

Alamade Creek Flood Diversion Channel

Murmuration of shorebirds

Salt pond levees breaking down

Hard to Identify Shorebirds

View of Coyote Hills from a mile out in the bay

Unafraid Heron

White Pelican

Selfie with Heron

Mudflats with shorebirds

Long ride back to shore

Coyote Hills Regional Park