The Aftermath

All sensors green, the air throughout the Bay Area was clean! A day, finally, for the ride I'd hoped would be the finale of my Best Buddies 2020 Challenge: Mt. Hamilton. The ride I'd planned before the Fires.

I was anxious to survey the post-fire landscape. Lick Observatory, I knew, had been successfully defended.

The first sighting of scorched terrain was at the edge of the foothills, approaching Grant Ranch Park. The demarcation line was clear: the pinkish stain left by the fire retardant separated the blackened earth from the golden grasses.

At the Twin Gates trailhead, the hillside had burned right down to the parking lot. The next stark containment line emerged at Smith Creek, past the CalFire station. To the right, uphill: burned. To the left, a field: spared. A few wild turkeys poked around in the brush.

Where they had not been totally incinerated, charred stubs of wooden fence posts hung suspended in the barbed wire. There were wide-open vistas that I don't recall.

The heat had been enough to melt at least one metal marker.

I was mystified by the occasional tangle of white material that looked almost like the hide of some unfortunate animal. That made no sense, fur would have burned . . . Then it came to me: Fiberglass. The flat, plastic reflector posts that line the edge of the road are made (in part) of fiberglass. When the rest was vaporized, the fiberglass was left behind.

Nearly all the pines that once dropped their enormous cones onto the roadway were gone. The cleanup has been underway for some time. Many of the dead trees have been removed, the sides of the road now dotted with their stumps.

The fire had burned the top of the mountain, encircling the observatory. Exposed animal trails criss-cross the slopes. 

I'd heard that one (unused) building had been lost, but didn't expect to see it. 

On my last visit, I had (uncharacteristically) continued a short distance on San Antonio Road to admire the vista. What a lucky choice that was, to have taken it in just a couple of months before the backcountry burned right up to the summit.

That was then.

This is now.

Then . . .

. . . now.

Despite all my lollygagging, I covered the 39 miles and climbed 4,890 feet at a faster pace (8.7 mph) than in June (7.9 mph).

Winter rains will bring mudslides and green grasses. But it will take decades, for the trees.