Let's hike all of the great parks and open space preserves in the bay area. I love to hike in the early mornings when it's cool and maybe even foggy. And to get back and have the whole rest of the day ahead of me. I've looked for like-minded people who want to challenge themselves in the early mornings everywhere and am hoping that I will finally find them with this group. I plan to organize two hikes every week, one on Sunday and one on a weekday.
We will focus on the south bay and the peninsula. For example, I have recently hiked Rancho San Antonio, Fremont Older Open Space Preserve, and Windy Hill. But we will also venture out to Point Reyes National Seashore, Mount Tamalpais, and other incredible hiking opportunities within a reasonable distance. Ideally the hikes will be 2 - 3 hours long, including significant elevation gain. Ideally at least 1200'+, and be 5-8 miles long. We will start between 6:00 - 7:00 AM, depending on the location. As for the fast part, I am nowhere near as fast as I wish that I were. I push myself to get up the hills faster and am working hard at the gym to get into great shape for hiking.
Please join if you like to challenge yourself on hikes and can handle the distance and hills. This group will initially be solely for hiking; however, I am very motivated to get back to backpacking. Once we have a group of people who know each other better and if there is interest, we will start doing backpacking trips. There are so many incredible wilderness areas and parks within a reasonable driving distance from the bay area. I want to hike them all!
I have felt the need to establish some policies for the group as the result of questions from members and to make sure that the hikes are enjoyable for everybody, so here they are:
10-person limit on hikes:
All hikes will be limited to 10 people both because I like hiking in smaller groups and because there is less impact on the trails (there may be some exceptions, but for now this is working very well). There are always different hiking speeds and the group naturally splits up into smaller groups.
Hiking pace:
Since the stated purpose of this group is to hike “fast” and to challenge ourselves, this will mean different speeds for different people, we will follow the policy of not waiting for everybody. Waiting for everybody will necessarily mean that the only people that will be challenged on hikes will be the slowest people. I have looked at many different hiking groups on meetup.com and have seen that most of them specifically state that they will hike at a leisurely pace and will wait for everybody. Since other hiking groups are already meeting the needs of slower hikers, we will allow everybody to challenge themselves by hiking at the speed they chose. This may mean that some people are left behind. Also, many of us need to get to work after the hike and will need to keep up a good pace in order to get a good workout, complete the hike, and be able to get to work on time afterwards. Please take this into consideration when deciding whether you want to sign up for a hike. This said, we do tend to meet up along the way on the hikes.
No-shows and Last-minute cancellations:
Since there is a limit on the number of people signing up for a hike and there are always a lot of people on the waiting list for hikes, no-shows and last-minute-cancellations (<48 hours notice) prevent people from attending the hike. I understand that things come up at the last minute that are out of our control, so I will wait until a member has 3 no-shows and/or last-minute-cancellations before they are removed from the group. Emergencies and sickness will not count toward this policy, so please add a comment when you change your rsvp status so that I will know that this is the case. People with repeated emergencies/sicknesses will be contacted to determine whether they should stop rsvp'ing for a period of time.
Waiting List:
The waiting lists for hikes will be manually controlled from now on, so that no one will have to worry about getting added to a hike that they had given up on attending only to become a No-show or Last-minute-cancellation. When someone drops off a hike, regulars on the waiting list will be contacted first to determine whether they can attend. Newer members will be contacted subsequently to determine whether they are still interested in attending.
Please do not rsvp “no” for hikes:
Please do not rsvp “no” for hikes. There are over 80 people in this group, so I know that most of the members will not be able to make it. I will assume that you will not be able to make it until you rsvp “yes”. Of course it is fine to change your rsvp to “no” from “yes” if your schedule changes. This will greatly reduce the number of emails that I receive for this meetup group.
