The buzz around comet c/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS hasn’t been as big as 2020’s Neowise, or 2023’s ZTE and I almost missed it. Luckily, I made it out on Oct 18th and after only 1 hour shortly after sunset managed to grab my best comet photos so far despite a full moon. It should continue to be visible till Oct 26th, 2024. For tips on seeing it, try space.com.

Compare those photos to previous comet photos, taken from the San Francisco East Bay hills.

Fast Follow on to comet c/2023 A3?

There’s might be another comet visible in the northern hemisphere, c/2024 S1 coming up at the end of Oct/Early November. Its path brings it extremely close to the sun and is danger of breaking up. But if it does survive, it might also put on a great show! Read more at starwalk.com.

Related

Interested in astronomy? Check out the Robert Ferguson Observatory in Sugarloaf State park for lectures and peeks through their telescopes.

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Sunol Hiking Trails

• Eagle View Trail
• Little Yosemite
• Flag Hill Trail

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It’s not a large garden and the grounds can be covered in about 30 minutes depending on what sort of contemplative mood you’re in. Still, it’s free and open from 8:30am – 4:00pm every day except Christmas.

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The hills rise just above the town, providing fine views of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and San Francisco Bay.

Crockett Hills Essential Info

Length: 3.2 miles
Time: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation Gain: 788 ft
Web Page: http://www.ebparks.org/parks/crockett_hills/
Hours: 8:00am-5:00pm (later in spring/summer)
Dogs OK

Getting There

The Crockett Hills are located south of the town of Crockett which is just below the Carquinez Bridge. The hills are bisected by the Cummings Skyway (and some nav systems will erroneously direct you to an address off of this road) but the main entrance is off the much smaller Crockett Blvd.

Depending where in the Bay Area you’re coming from, you can either take 680 or 80.

From 680

To get there via 680, take 680N to Highway 4W. Exit at Cummings Skyway. Take Cummings Skyway for about 2 miles and turn right onto Crockett Blvd. After approx 2 miles turn left into the Crockett Hills main parking lot.

From 80

Take 80W and take the Pomona Street exit located right before the Carquinez Bridge.

Turn left onto Pomona Street towards Crockett. Turn right onto Crockett Blvd and after only a couple hundred feet, turn right again into the Crockett Hills main parking lot.

The Trail

Starting out from the parking lot, you’ll pass an old barn and apiary on the way to the trailhead. Take the Crockett Ranch Trail and ascend up the hillside.

Checkpoint: Tunnel Underpass

From the underpass, stay on the right side where the Soaring Eagle Trail will fork off.

After traversing the hillside and passing by numerous westward vantage points, the trail will eventually intersect the Sky Trail.

Turn left on the Sky Trail to return to the underpass.

Once you go back through the underpass, turn right onto the Edwards Loop Trail which will ascend for a few feet before descending down to the Edwards Creek Trail and returning to the parking lot.

Nearby Alternates

Looking for more? Try out these close by areas:

• Rush Ranch Open Space
• Waterbird Regional Preserve

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It’s hard to beat the portability and versatility of an iPhone. Not only do I use it to take pictures, but it also uses GPS to track my hikes, recording location, elevation, and distance traveled.  I can then use the GPS data to tag the pictures take from my 80D which lacks automated geo-tagging.

Specs

Of course, a camera phone still has a long ways to compete with the huge and heavy 100-400mm zoom lens (on an crop sensor and with a 1.4X extender too!) I use for most wildlife closeups. But what about landscape photos?

iPhone X

• Images shot using Photo mode
• Shot in HEIF and subsequently converted to JPEG

Canon 5D mk 4

• 24mm f/2.8 IS USM
• Shot in A+ mode (Auto exposure and Auto Area focus mode)
• Shot in RAW and converted to JPEG after processing in Lightroom

All photos downsampled to 1000px horizontally. 667px vert for Canon, 750px for iPhone.

The Photos!

Fern Lake

Ancient Redwood

Vineyard

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Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge is a huge area consisting mostly of wetlands lining the south eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay. These and other restored wetlands (like Rush Ranch) harken back to pre-euro settlement days when the bulk of the bay was surrounded by similar areas.

There’s an education center at the southern end of the bay at Alviso, and a visitor’s center in Fremont. For this trip, we visited the Fremont side. The Fremont location also sits adjacent to the Coyote Hills Regional Park which can be used to extend a day hike.

At this time, marsh road is undergoing restoration of one of its land bridges along Marshland road. Expect 20 min delays.

The visitor’s center is located just beyond the construction. It’s a good place to start if you arrive mid morning, as it opens at 10 am on weekends and 9 am on weekdays.

Just beyond on the left hand side are the administrative offices with a large parking. Just beyond the office turnoff is a smaller parking lot, also on the left hand side, with less hilly access to the learning center and trails.

The levees along the sloughs are flat and are an easy hike.

Unfortunately, the day didn’t bring the expected onslaught of migratory birds; down at the southern end of the refuge at this time of year last year we experienced a deluge of pelicans, egrets, and various other waterfowl. However, we did manage to spot this American kestrel by the Tidelands trail.

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I was out at Brushy Peak this weekend for a quick 4.5 mi hike around the main peak loop.  After parking, I noticed the SUV right next to me had its window smashed.

Don’t leave bags visible!

A long time ago a friend of mine had her car window smashed, even though it was parked in the driveway of my parent’s house in Danville. As told to me by the police at the time, the common theme was thieves smashing windows and grabbing almost any kind of bag  in plain view.

So always remember, never leave any bags in plain sight in your unattended vehicle! Backpacks, purses, lunch bags, gym bags, etc.

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Made a quick visit to Sunol Regional Wilderness this past Sunday to hike the Eagle View trail. We took the Welch Creek Road entrance and didn’t encounter a single car on the way up or down.

It was a windy Sunday: No doubt a precursor to the winds that fanned the smoke and flames the following day in Napa and Sonoma. Overrun with fallen branches, the trail was  difficult to follow at times.

Encounter on the trail

This young gopher snake was sunning itself on the trail while traversing the ridge.

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September at Brushy Peak brings golden hills and a rush of trail runners taking advantage of the dry trails and cool mornings of the Livermore valley.

Our quick 3.0 mile hike on the Brushy Peak -Tamcan – Laughlin Ranch Loop trail encountered red-tailed hawks, coyotes, dog walkers, and many, many trainers.  Tough Mudder enthusiasts occupied the wide inclines of the Laughlin Loop trail carrying grimace inducing rocks, buckets, and sand bags.

Raptor activity Saturday morning was low, but we did find an accommodating red-tailed hawk on the Laughlin Ranch Loop trail.

Getting ready to leave, a stealthy coyote emerged from the grassy area just south of the parking lot.

Have you been to Brushy Peak this season? Do you have any favorite trails or areas? We’d like to hear your stories!

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We escaped the heat the weekend by visiting the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve located north of Half Moon Bay. This is an excellent place for tide pooling. Check the tide tables and get there on time!

The reserve entrance is located in the middle of a residential community only a minute off of Highway 1. From there, it’s a minimal hike down to the beach.

Right at the entrance, we stumbled across a red-tailed hawk soaking its feet in the San Vicente Creek.

Down on the beach, we scrambled across the rocks, trying to beat the incoming tide.

Bluff Trail

You can also take the Bluff Trail south towards Seal Cove. Take the fork that rides the coast through century year old Monterey cypresses. From there, descend down to the beach along the Seal Cove trail. Located on the north end of the beach are additional rocky outcrops for tide-pooling ; we had these all to ourselves during Saturday morning.

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