On Monday August 30, 2010,  Dave and I took the Tiburon Ferry over to Angel Island. From Ayala Cove, it took an hour and a half of uphill hiking along the dusty North Ridge Trail to finally reach the top.  The cool shade and brilliant light along the switchback trail that meanders through the old trees and vine choked hillsides, is so reminiscent of the luminous dappled light one sees in the paintings of French Impressionism, particularly paintings by Manet, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir.  At the top, called Mt. Livermore, one has a breathtaking 360º view of the San Francisco Bay region. We reached the top at noon and spent an hour photographing. Our descent was along the Sunset Trail which winds down the south and western slopes of the island. We passed through the vast burned area from 2008.  Beautiful to behold, but too fast to photograph, was the surprised antlered buck deer who wildly leaped and fled our presence, through the blackened charred forested slope that overlooked the distant Golden Gate Bridge. In this expansive burned area of Angel Island, the groundcover has come back in full-strength. It’s now a riot of tall grass and delicate colorful wild flowers.  The purple thistle that is everywhere and in the peak of its bloom, was being worked on by industrious bees like there was no tomorrow. Halfway down from the top, the summer fog was rapidly coming in. When we left the island on the ferry back to Tiburon at 4pm, we looked up to the summit where we had been just 2 hours before, but it was gone, lost in the fog.  

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