Upper Windy Hill Hike: Lost Trail (6-30-2013)

Upper Windy Hill Open Space Preserve
San Mateo County, California

Lost Trail Hike
Sunday, June 30, 2013

By Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Preface: On Sunday June 30, 2013, my friend took me hiking at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve. We started out at the WH01 entrance gate on Skyline Boulevard at 2:12 pm. Took photos of a giant gnarly oak tree at the entrance and a hawk flying over the parking lot. There was a vista view on Northern Lost Trail with a "Platonic Λ" Douglas Fir Tree. After a 7-minutes walk, my friend decided to turn back. There was no shady path ahead, and due to the record-breaking temperatures in the Bay Area, it was wiser not to be baked while hiking. My friend drove down Skyline Boulevard to the WH03 gate, where the trails provided more shade. We came here on September 4, 2011 and hiked mostly on the Razorback Ridge Trail. Today, we walked along the Lost Trail and passed the water trough for horses seen the last time. My 8 GB Patriot SDHC Card (LX Series) was full, so I inserted a Kingston 4GB SDHC card in my Canon PowerShot A590 Camera. However, I couldn't take any photos, since the camera noted "No Memory Card". There were some giant Douglas Fir trees along the Lost Trail which we didn't encounter last time. The flowers seen today include orange columbines, pink hedge nettles, stinging nettles, white trail plants, light blue forget-me-nots, white ocean sprays, trillium, small plant with purple flowers (near footbridge), white thimbleberry flower, cow parsnip, horsetail grass, and white 6-star soap plant. Unfortunately, no photos were taken due to the faulty camera chip. Some older photos of these flowers taken from previous hikes (dates listed) were found and are shown below.