Some days you feed The Bull, some days The Bull feeds you

I’ve been wanting to write a post about an April 5th collaborative effort undertaken by five South Bay Area hiking bloggers, yours truly being among them. I’d heard about a local fourteener that was only climbable one day out of every year. I’d certainly never climbed it.

“A fourteener?” I had asked, making no attempt to conceal my mocking incredulity. “A fourteener, in Santa Clara County, California?”

I’d begun, suddenly, to wonder who put what in my oatmeal. After all, I have climbed a handful of fourteeners in my life – real mountains with summits actually measured to be at least 14,000 feet high. This notion of a peak in my own home county being a fourteener was beginning to smell like odeur d’ bull to me.

And bull it is! Well, sort of: the height of this peak is only fourteen hundred feet and change, and its name is, quite properly, El Toro. It’s a pyramid-shaped chert-and-limestone mountain – or, more appropriately, hill – that juts up prominently from the valley floor on the west side of Morgan Hill, and a landmark easily seen by anyone passing along Highway 101 in south Santa Clara County.

Morgan Hill’s pyramid-shaped El Toro Peak juts up prominently from the valley floor on the west side of town.

Being that the peak is on private land, but being that the Morgan Hill Historical Society has a relationship with the landowner, the peak is opened to public hiking access every first Saturday of April. To admire the view from atop El Toro’s commanding summit – a view that is only gained by huffing it up its steep, rough, and ornery eastern slope, one must necessarily have a little patience. With only about three miles total distance from the town’s public library to the 1,423-foot summit and back, one rubs shoulders with about 1200 or so people. People of every age, every size, and every walk, but people united by one simple fact: we’re here today because it’s there.

A lone oak greets a handful of hikers, the first of many to ascend El Toro’s lower slope.

It was only moments into this hike that we blogging hiker types were comparing the scene to that of Yosemite’s Half Dome, which regularly draws 5000 or so summiteers every summer weekend.

On the ascent: a line of early hikers climb along stair-steps carved into the steep dirt path.

So far, this climb has been easy for most people. But while it’s been cool and overcast, folks are shedding a layer or two.

Turning around for a moment – ostensibly to see the view over whence I’ve come – I spy Rebecca, who’s smiling contentedly and in her element.

Indeed, getting together with my local hiking literati was, truly, a very fun thing to do. I’ve always believed in a sentiment which suggests that we should use our computers to get away from them. But I must admit that while hiking El Toro’s steep and poison oak-strewn slopes – and especially while descending them – it was mildly amusing to us veterans how unprepared most people were for El Toro’s rough and slippery terrain. Oh, the footwear faux pas we saw!

But at least everybody was out there pursuing a lively and engaging once-a-year experience…

It didn’t matter that people had never met each other – the camaraderie was there, on the surface.

…and the views weren’t bad, either.

A lichen-covered outcropping of chert lends color, form, and contrast to this Spring morning vista.

Mule’s Ears bloom on El Toro’s western slope, just below the summit.

That’s what it’s all about: getting out there, seeing what there is to see, and coming back to tell about it, whether the destination be near or far.

Oh, what I’d give – if I had it – for just a chance to own a Syrah vineyard down there.

A lot of happy people did just that. And now I’ve added yet another fourteener to my life list. Well, sort of.

Another peak experience in a life only half full of them.

And speaking of happy people, if you’re into hiking – or even if you’re not – the following blog posts and photosets are highly recommended. I especially recommend you read Tom Mangan’s “The Fourteener of Morgan Hill,” which, to me, is simply divinely-inspired hilarity – though I’ve known Tom to be bovinely-inspired more often than not.

Check ‘em out:

• Rebecca of Calipidder’s El Toro in Morgan Hill – that Peak that beckons from 101, and her excellent photoset.
• David of Random Curiosity’s Return to El Toro and his fine photostream.
• Ann L.’s El Toro Hike on Yelp.com and her slideshow.
• Tom of Two Heel Drive’s photoessay, The Fourteener of Morgan Hill and his follow-up thoughts, Morgan Hill El Toro Hike of ’08, what I really think.

~winehiker

Related posts:

• A blustery night’s Mission
• The trails, they are a-callin’
• A Thanksgiving Day assault

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.