on a clear day
On clear fall and winter days in the East Bay you can hike up the hills and see the Farallon Islands rising like stone giants over the Golden Gate bridge. The Farrallones are 27 miles off the coast and are usually shrouded in thick fog and marine layer. It's a reward, hiking up the steep East Bay hills through eucalyptus groves...and shadowed by flitting jays and juncos...to arrive, at last, at a view of the entire Bay. And there, just on the horizon, rise the stone pyramids of the Farallones in the Pacific..matching in shape Mt. Tamalpais, the Twin Peaks of San Francisco, or the human-made towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and the TransAmerica Pyramid. Site of the Egg War and shipwrecks and seal hunting, the Farallones, for as remote and pure as they seem, have only lately returned to their "quieter" natural state. They are home to pinnipeds, petrels, puffins, auklets and murres, not to mention a natural breeding grounds of the Great White Shark, and a waypoint for w