A NEW YEAR

Rex Burress

The dawning of 2018 appeared much like the entire month of December 2017—dry and calm for Oroville, CA! But elsewhere in the East a winter ice-storm convened.

For years it became my ritual to climb to Lone Tree in the Las Trampas Wilderness Park across the valley from Mt. Diablo on New Years Day. My family and I lived at and maintained Westminister Retreat at the base of those “Corduroy Hills” near Alamo, CA, which made access handy, and the large, lone live oak was a landmark and objective.

Attaining a hilltop is always a satisfying goal, as was reaching the top of Las Trampas peak, huffing and puffing in whatever kind of winter air January 1 offered. I think reaching the top is symbolic of a good start with clarified seeing, and indeed the inspiring view over the trees and hills is a 'mountain high.'

My naturalist-writer friend Gary Bogue, author of “It's a Wildlife,” popularized the yearly Lone Tree event, and I joined in with as much family as I could gather during the six years we were at the retreat. Nothing quite compares with such a trek, encountering the wildlife, and being inspired by the lofty view. Most of the San Ramon Valley newspaper columns I wrote in the 1970's, “Signs of the Seasons,” was garnered from those hills.

An additional motive to go the Lone-Tree-route-to-the-top was the profusion of marine fossils infusing the highest peaks. Those slanted slabs of sandstone with seashells was a wonder, being on the top of the ridge, much like the mystery of mountaintop seashells in the 1500-era of Europe that generated fanciful theories about how they got there. Finally, Leonardo deVinci logically proposed that they had been thrust upward from the sea floor by earth movement. The critics scoffed at the idea.

I knew every niche on the east side of Las Trampas ridge, including where the Mary Smith Madrone Grove was located, and where to find the buried treasure in Wildrun Canyon, where the wild Trilliums and Indian Warriors grew, and how to reach Eagle Peak [1720-foot elevation] and its fossil ridge, quite near Las Trampas Peak [1827 feet], the goal of the New Year Day hike.

It is interesting that the elevation of North Butte peak in the Sutter Buttes is nearly the same at 1865 elevation as Las Trampas Peak, and that both sites suffice for a New Year Day hike though a hundred miles apart. A nice group of 20 made the North Butte January first hike this year on a sunny day.

I have been on the summit of North Butte. It was the spring of 1965, and I wanted to see the mountain, mostly because John Muir had left his Snaghopper boat in the Sacramento River in 1877 and 'sauntered' over to see the geology involved in the “Marysville Buttes,” so called at that time. I just took out across a pasture and went directly to the top, a trek that's much more involved these days with organized guided trips by the Middle Mountain Foundation, gates, and intense entry restrictions.

Another place I have climbed on New Year's Day is flat topped North Table Mountain near Oroville. At 1,565 foot elevation, it is nearly the level of the Sutter Butte peaks, except climbing a thousand feet is not involved since you can drive right over the top! Nevertheless, it's a grand New Year view of neighboring Sutter Buttes, even without the flowers of spring. Some things just never get old!

Even though there is a high point in my hometown Grundy County, Missouri—Half Rock, that is 1,010 elevation—the winters in that region are not conductive to New Year hikes! It was below zero there this year on January one! The high point in all of Missouri is Taum Sank Mountain at 1,772 feet!

The Queen of Oroville hikers, who has hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney 39 times, and tried again last year at age 79 but was blocked by snow, is in good shape to do a New Year day ascent, but perhaps not on that tallest peak in California, that can conjure some fierce deterrents.

For those who can, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, nature's peace will flow into you like sunshine into the trees. The wind will blow its freshness into you, and the storms their energy, and cares will fall away like autumn leaves.”--John Muir