Out and about: An excuse to walk
From Montara to the south end of Half Moon Bay, our Coastside neighborhoods are isolated from each other, strung like the parts of a mobile along either side of Highway 1. We drive everywhere to do our business, schlep the kids about, see our friends, go to events, or just get out of the house. The rigors of commuting, job and family demands, and being available when needed makes leisure time a precious commodity, which our vehicles aid and abet. Driving is necessary, but it has become too much of a habit. Because we drive from here to there, it’s easy to take the in-between spaces for granted, and there is a lot more to this in-between than we credit.
Meet the Neighbors
Biologists tell us we are bipedal (walk on two feet) and upright for a bunch of reasons, but the net effect is that we are designed to walk and we don’t do it enough. Stressful events happen too often nowadays, but something as simple as a walk around the neighborhood can take the edge off, if not knock it out entirely.
Fortunately for us, the air quality on the coast is one of our best local features, almost as delicious as a drink of tasty spring water. A walk around the neighborhood and a “drink” of fresh air may be just the thing to restore our good nature and adjust our perspective about what is important in life.
Several things can happen on a local walk depending on the time of day. One is seeing some of our neighbors and saying hello. Familiar faces are reassuring – we do live in a neighborhood! If we stop and talk with someone we haven’t spoken with in a while, we usually learn something that we didn’t know: that’s the positive nature of gossip. Or we may meet someone new, perhaps walking a Corgi or pushing a stroller.
Neighborhood walks are a great time to observe what people have been doing to their yards, perhaps spotting attractive plants that will motivate us to creatively render our own yards.
Downright Inspiring
However, if we are really lucky, we’ll be alone with our own thoughts, pouring fresh air on them. There are work situations to brood about, problems needing resolution, maybe an apology needing to be made to smooth a situation: how best to deal with these things?
Inspiration comes on such walks, and it’s not an accident, because the word, inspire, derives from the Latin word for breath (the word, spiritual, also derives from the same Latin word). For those who practice forms of yoga, “breath work” is at its core, and restoring balance and harmony is the goal. So breathing and exercise are intimately tied to restoring not just our physical health, but the mental too. It is commonplace to have good ideas and be able to resolve perplexing issues while out walking. And by the time we return home, we feel better.
An advantage of walking around our neighborhood in an age of expensive gasoline is that walking is free. But if we’ve walked around enough that it seems boring, there isn’t far to go to find other stimulating walks--there’s all that in-between!
Two Coastside Gems
The single most convenient walk available to us in the Half Moon Bay to El Granada stretch is the stunning Coastal Trail, which currently consists of four miles of paved trail from the Seymore Bridge south of Poplar to the street in front of the Miramar Restaurant. The trail is accessible from the south at Poplar, and then almost any westbound-street north of there along Highway 1 to Princeton. The Coastal Trail may be more famous to visitors than to many locals who have dismissed it because they weren’t into walking. Weekends usually bring a surge of visitors, and it is common to overhear Russian, German, Japanese and many other languages from passersby who tread our scenic bluffs and drink in our quality air.
Another noteworthy walking area is at Montara Mountain, but this comes closer to hiking since the steepness of the slope demands physical exertion.
The spectacular views at increasingly higher distances make this worth doing at least once a year, if not more often. It is an arduous three and a half miles to the top, but the reward for reaching it is a spectacular 360 degree view where a huge swath of coastline, as well as the Marin Headlands, Mount Talmalpais, the whole southern part of San Francisco Bay, and Mount Diablo beyond the East Bay are easily seen.
Country Roads
Another strategy for maintaining interest in walking is to park in any other neighborhood and explore it on foot – this is a great way to sample the character of other neighborhoods while expanding local geographic knowledge. However, since the Coastside’s advantage is ample open space, there is much to be said for humming John Denver’s famous song while striking out to explore the gorgeous country roads south of Half Moon Bay – their beauty rivals Marin County’s better known, but distant, terrain. Here are a few closer ones worth considering for walks or bike hikes.
1. Higgins Canyon Road at the south end of Main Street and Hwy 1 runs east through a beautiful canyon and is popular with joggers, bikers, and some walkers. About a mile and a half up Higgins from Main Street is Burleigh Murry State Park on the left with a small, unpaved parking lot, and a two-mile long dirt road paralleling a scenic creek and unspoiled hills. There are a couple of picnic tables about a mile in.
2. Continuing up Higgins another mile the road splits. You can park there at the bottom of the hill and walk up the road to the right over the hill and down to Purisima Open Space Preserve (two miles), and then back (four total). Gorgeous views and good cardio exercise!
3. Or you can drive over the hill and down crossing the little bridge where there is parking for Purisima Open Space Preserve. A trailhead with a posted map is one hundred yards east of the parking lot. Trails fan into the Santa Cruz Mountains with most leading up to Skyline Blvd. Myriad Redwoods, Western Maples, Douglas Firs and Tanoaks allow this to vie with Muir Woods and Butano for natural beauty.
4. Verde Road is worth knowing about because it plays an odd role as entrance to Purisima Road, but veers off from its initial easterly direction, running south and parallel with Highway 1, where it intersects twice more with Highway 1 for a total of three Verde Road and Highway 1 intersections. Park at any one of these and walk in whatever direction inspires you — they’re all worthwhile.
5. If Verde interests you, perhaps you will be able to locate Lobitos Creek Road; if so, hike it! The rustic aspects of this walk are unique even for the Coastside. There is an eight-mile walk if you take the loop from Lobitos to Tunitas Creek Road to Lobitos Creek Cutoff and back to Verde.