Ages ago, when I wanted to take a long walk, I used the "keep walking south" rule to pick my route. This was a good rule: I didn't have to think about it very hard. This was a not-so-good rule: depending on how it played out, I'd find myself on top of San Bruno mountain with no further-south place to aim for. Trail maps showed some trails heading down; it wasn't so easy to spot those trails when actually up there.
A while back (a couple of years ago?) I tried walking down a fire road; it got pretty steep at a couple of points. To get down without fallng, I scrambled around on all fours for a bit. It was kind of scary. Maybe someone with better balance than mine could have made it down with no worries… but I am a bit tall and gangly. I didn't really want to do that again.
In my time off, I've been taking some long-ish walks. For a couple of those walks, I tried hiking up San Bruno mountain from the south, to figure out where its down-trails started. One of those was the trail I'd already tried. But the other one was new, and seemed less steep; though it got kind of undefined where it hit a fence around a water tank. But BUT it was a new trail to try walking down.
So today, I tried walking down that trail. It was less steep than the other, but still steep enough to get me down on all fours at a couple of points; and at another point, I still slipped and fell on my butt.
So it was a bit of a tumble, but also a bit of a triumph: now I'll stop wondering if I've been overlooking some easy way to head south from there.
Thus this morning, I triumphantly walked the streets of South San Francisco, tapping at my phone to update Swarm: I'd survived falling down.
And then I walked into a signpost because I was looking at my phone instead of where I was going. Served me right.
