UPDATE: Please allow me to preface the following post by stating that prior to my writing it, I was not aware that the lone hiker that I describe below had pulled a hoax on authorities; he was not attacked by a mountain lion. Despite this galling evidence, the following post is still pertinent to hiking in mountain lion country. 

Last Saturday a local hiker was attacked by a mountain lion in Palo Alto’s Foothills Park. The hiker was hiking alone. Yesterday, in response to the incident, a number of area parks and preserves were temporarily shut down and an animal tracker was hired by Palo Alto city officials to hunt the mountain lion down and kill it. I vehemently disagree with this knee-jerk tactic.

Late this morning, a fellow hiker posted the names of the closed parks on a local bulletin board, mentioning that the Midpeninsula Open Space District is working closely with Foothills Park staff and that the California Department of Fish and Game will reopen these preserves and facilities as soon as it is safe.

The posting was meant well. To me, however, it was only half the story. I felt compelled to tell the other half, so I contributed a post of my own:

The reason that these local parks and preserves are temporarily closed is so an “animal tracker” (read: “hunter”) can kill the mountain lion without interference. It’s a shame that our first instinct, as a society, is to kill a big cat rather than trap it humanely and release it in a more remote area. We have to get used to the fact that wilderness isn’t wilderness if we keep killing what’s wild in it.

My fellow hiker wrote me directly:

In receiving my volunteer trail crew training, it was explained to us that, more often than not, when the animals responsible for the attacks on humans are caught, they are found to be injured or demented. This drives them into behavior patterns they normally wouldn’t have…like attacking humans. In these cases, they typically prefer to put the animal down. Some of the other cases, where the animal has been killed and no attacks were involved, I would agree, seems a bit excessive.

A-ha! “When the animals…are caught….[we] typically prefer to put the animal down.” Hence my argument.

Let’s face it: oftentimes the explanations we hear and read are biased only toward humans, not toward the animal. When you’re truly hungry - as a top-of-the-food-chain predator might be in times of drought - you’ll do what is necessary to eat. That’s just true nature at work.

A non-rescuscible injured cat I can understand euthanizing. Maybe. But pronouncing an animal to be demented is, I feel, a subjective, narrow-minded, human-centric, and therefore wholly inappropriate judgment that merely serves to perpetuate our human fear of nature rather and our unwarranted desire to control it - i.e., sanitize the outdoor experience - rather than embrace it. It is issues like this that regularly remind me that it’s we humans who need to reconsider our own behavior patterns.

I said as much in response to my fellow hiker’s email, and received the following response:

Demented animals are determined to be so by the results of lab tests and autopsy, not arbitrary pronouncements. Each case has to be assessed individually.

I felt as if my argument had fallen overboard into The Sea of Missed Points. So I hoisted it back aboard:

Therefore, it would seem that to be pronounced demented, the cougar is likely killed first. That scenario smacks of being a typical application of misguided human-centric “shoot first and ask questions later” logic rather than a consideration of the life and needs of the animal itself. Typical human behavior, yet still wholly inappropriate.

I’d sure like to learn of a cougar who attacked a human but whose life was spared.

We have to remember that we humans are visitors in the cougar’s habitat; it is not the other way around. Soon, I suppose - perhaps by the hour of this posting - there will be one less local cougar merely because we as a society have chosen to react with extreme prejudice to its choice of menu. I’m sure the accosted hiker knows how lucky he was despite his decision to hike alone in an area where mountain lion warnings are clearly posted. But, sadly, it is the mountain lion’s demise that will be exchanged for this hiker’s lucky break.

I haven’t even begun to mention what happens to a local ecosystem when you remove its top predator. But an increase in highway fatalities due to excessive deer populations springs to mind.

So why do we even choose to capture these big cats? They are not demented; they do not run afoul of natural law. But we humans do it without regard.

We seem to continue, as a society, to act as sociopaths against Nature. We jump to conclusions based on our own point of view. We gun down what we don’t understand. We often say “live and let live”; why don’t we mean it?

So when a mountain lion attacks, why do we shoot first and ask questions later? I am hereby asking, people. 

We need cougars in our local hills. Let Nature take its course. Take pictures, not lives. And don’t hike alone.

Related post: Cougar!

~winehiker

Yesterday, after learning about one of my favorite wines garnering a Double Gold from the San Francisco International Wine Competition, I decided to pop a bottle and cook up a delicious dinner to go with it. Ever since dining at Slow Club in San Francisco last Thursday night, I’d been in the mood to see if I could conjure up my own version of braised chicken breast, and I felt that the 2006 Torcido from Twisted Oak Winery, with its ripe, meaty flavors, would pair well.

So I poured a glass of Torcido, honed my chef’s knife, and went to work. Later, confident that I was satisfactorily smelling up the neighborhood, I tweeted what I was up to:

Braising chicken breast in marsala, onions, garlic, garden-grown thyme, organic chicken broth, and essence. S/B !! w/ that luscious Torcido. 

My Twitter feed displays on my Facebook page, where fellow winehiker Thais Li spied it this morning. She promptly asked me for my recipe!

I was profoundly flattered. I was also bereft of a recipe, since I’d concocted the whole shebang out of my head. You know, as long as I’ve got tongs or a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of vino in the other, I’m cookin’. I’m usually happy with the results. Last night was no different! And the wine made for a purty darn good pairing, too.

To wit, my recipe for CHICKEN MARSALA, WINEHIKER STYLE:

3-4 boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Emeril’s essence (or substitute 1/2 tsp. cayenne powder, 1/4 tsp. cumin and 1/4 tsp. black pepper)
1 onion, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, smashed
8 oz. crimini mushrooms, sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup marsala wine
2 cups chicken broth
Olive oil
Pat of butter
Salt & pepper to taste

Wash the chicken breasts, pat them dry, then start a skillet over medium heat, with just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the skillet. In a brown paper bag, add the flour, salt, and essence. Close the bag and shake to combine these dry ingredients, then add the chicken breasts and shake well to coat them.

When the oil is smoking hot, remove the chicken breasts from the paper bag with tongs, and place them into the skillet. Brown the breasts on both sides for 5-7 minutes each, being careful not to scorch them. When the breasts are done, remove them from the skillet, place them onto a plate, then cover them with foil to keep them warm.

Add the butter and the onions to the skillet, stirring occasionally until they are almost soft. Add the crimini mushrooms and the thyme and cook until the mushrooms have released and evaporated their water content. Add the garlic and cook one additional minute. Then, place the cooked chicken breasts back into the skillet.

Pour in the wine and let come to a boil, then add enough chicken broth to cover the chicken breasts. Turn the heat down to Low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Before serving, remove the sprig of thyme, and garnish with fresh chopped Italian parsley. Oh, and pour a generous glassful of Torcido! After smelling up the neighborhood something fierce, you deserve to celebrate what you just accomplished.

Cheers!
~winehiker

The Flamingo Resort, Santa Rosa, circa 1959: it was the place to stay north of the bay within two years of its opening, a posh retreat for the Hollywood Jet Set. One could find the likes of Jayne Mansfield, dramatic and daring in her then-scandalous two-piece swimsuit, soaking up the sun poolside and presumably posing for the local paparazzo.

I remember our family trips to see my nana in Kenwood. We would motor up Highway 101 from Santa Clara all the way to the Highway 12 exit into downtown Santa Rosa, and would always drive past the Flamingo before turning south toward Kenwood and the Sonoma Valley. I profess a fondness for art deco and googie architecture, and even as a young kid was struck by the way the resort’s iconic tower - with flamingo perched atop - evoked all things exotic to me. It was the epitome of cool before I knew what cool really was. I knew the good life must be happening, right there in Santa Rosa. Little did I know at the time that I would someday return as part of a new revolution.

Fast-forward nearly fifty years: the Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa has undergone a recent major refurbishing, and the City of Santa Rosa has declared it a historic landmark. It is still the place to see and be seen, and it is, as was announced today, a place where wine bloggers from all over the U.S., possibly even the world, will convene October 24-26 for the North American Wine Bloggers Conference, the first event of its kind.

It purports to be a classic mix of yesterday’s hip, today’s hype, and tomorrow’s vinotechnolust. Sessions over the three-day conference will include speakers Alice Feiring and Gary Vaynerchuk as well as tasting competitions and a handful of Sonoma County vineyard walks. Of course, being that the greater bulk of us wine bloggers have only met online, the opportunities for glass-to-glass networking will be lively and legion. The big fun, I suspect, will be the Blind Tasting Challenge, which will have us testing our skills at identifying grape varietals and regions within each of the twelve Sonoma County appellations.

I’m going to be there. In late October, you can probably expect to see more than one report from me about the experience here on Winehiker Witiculture, and I’m sure they will be interesting. In the meantime, to get a full sense of the event, today’s press release follows. It’s interesting all by itself. 

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Changing World of Wine Journalism Focus of 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference

Wine Bloggers From Across America to Converge in Wine Country October 24-26

SONOMA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–America’s new wine media will gather in Sonoma County, California on October 24-26 for the first annual Wine Bloggers Conference. As the number and influence of wine bloggers grows, the Sonoma gathering will bring together hundreds of online wine scribes to discuss their impact, how to better impart information to wine lovers across the globe, and how to stake their claim as the next generation of wine media.

Organized by the OpenWine Consortium and Zephyr Wine Adventures, the three-day conference will take place at the Flamingo Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa, California. Wine Bloggers and other attendees will be treated to a series of seminars, vineyard walks, wine dinners, tasting competitions, and an exposition of mass wine blogging.

WINE BLOGGING CHANGING WINE JOURNALISM

“Wine blogging in America has exploded in terms of the number of people maintaining wine blogs as well as their impact on how wine lovers and the industry get their news,” said Joel Vincent, an organizer of the conference. “The wine blogging community has always been close-knit but never had an event of its own or opportunity to all come together to discuss the state of their efforts.”

In addition to wine bloggers, the conference is open to wine industry participants and media professionals that want to learn more about the wine blogging community and how it is changing the way wine information and news is communicated.

Among the speakers at the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference will be Alice Feiring, an award-winning writer and author who also maintains her own wine blog, and Gary Vaynerchuk, author, wine retailer and proprietor of the wildly popular Wine Library TV videoblog.

WINE BLOGGERS WIELDING INCREASED CLOUT

The sponsors of this year’s conference indicate the importance and growing influence of wine bloggers. Among those sponsoring the conference are Sebastiani Vineyards, the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau, Inertia Beverage Group, the Sonoma County Vintners Association, and the Sonoma Winegrape Commission.

“For decades wine writing and popular wine education has been dominated by a few visible critics and wine publications, yet the emergence of hundreds of wine blogs and their millions of readers is changing that old model,” explained Vincent. “Technology is changing the way the wine industry is covered and explored, and blogging has a broader and more democratic character. The bloggers attending this year’s conference are responsible for implementing these changes.”

More information on the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference can be found at: http://www.winebloggersconference.com/.

OpenWine Consortium is a global, non-profit wine industry association featuring the newest generation of emerging companies, wineries, publishers, services and a motivated community dedicated to changing the world of wine. Zephyr Wine Adventures is the leading provider of active hiking, biking, and multisport wine vacations in locations throughout the world.

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For an additional perspective on the upcoming conference, I invite you to read today’s post from Tom Wark’s Fermentation, titled The Wine Bloggers Conference is Here!

~winehiker

When Spring sprang in March, I didn’t figure on it affecting my appliances. But within a period of a few days in late May, three different clocks in my house just decided to stop working - fresh batteries notwithstanding. Could there have been unusual solar activity, causing an indefensible energy spike? Extremely high signal-jamming pulses emanating from the nearby Blue Cube? Could it be that the dust which had settled on my clocks over the winter was simply too much for their sweep second hands?

There’s no telling, but I’ve since managed to fix my clocks, and for now, it would seem, I’ve got more time.

So I think it’s about time that I blogged a little, even though this post that you’re reading now isn’t about time, per se. Instead, today’s post is a smattering of what’s going on in and around the wine and hiking communities. Pour a glass of something flavorful, sit back and savor the following brief read:

Fleming-Jenkins Vineyard & Winery has recently announced the Grand Opening of a new tasting room. Former Olympic figure-skating gold medalist Peggy Fleming and her husband Dr. Greg Jenkins have steadily been producing some very fine wines under their Fleming-Jenkins label, and now they’re ready for ribbon-cutting ceremonies at their brand-new Los Gatos tasting room this Thursday, June 12th at 5:30 p.m. I highly recommend the Fleming-Jenkins Victories Rosé, a wine from the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation made in a dry style and created, according to the website, to raise funds for breast cancer research and awareness. For those of you who may not have been aware, Ms. Fleming was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998. $2 from every bottle sold will be donated to charities that support the cause. For more information, please contact the winery at info@flemingjenkins.com or (408) 358-4949.

Sister Crow is the trail name of a long-distance hiker who recently embarked on an assault of the Pacific Crest Trail. While many thru-hikers have attempted the arduous hike through the deserts and mountains that span the distance between Mexico and Canada, relatively few have walked every mile. Fewer still are those who have maintained a blog about their adventure. Sister Crow is actually tweeting from the trail! Follow her at twitter.com/sistercrow, where you’ll find a fascinating ongoing account of her epic 2,650-mile hike.

It is the fate of all man-made dams, sooner or later, to cause the reservoirs behind them to silt in and become anaerobic. The news from jacklondonlake.org by way of Bill Myers of Dave and Bill Hikes is no different:

Nearly 100 years ago Jack London built a small dam at the foot of Sonoma Mountain, creating an idyllic respite for hikers, swimmers, and horseback riders. Today, the dam is in imminent danger of collapse, the lake has shrunk to one quarter of its original size, and the surface is covered in algae.

The mission of the Jack London Lake Alliance is to fully restore Jack’s Lake, dam, dock, and surrounding landscape to the refreshing oasis it once was. According to the Alliance, which is a special project of the Valley of the Moon Natural History Association, an estimated one million dollars may be needed to accomplish their mission. The Alliance is raising funds through private donation and through state and federal grants and has raised $150,000 to date to fund an engineering study, site survey, and a CEQA assessment, all of which are now completed. For more information, or to donate to the cause, check out jacklondonlake.org.

From sonomaopenspace.org:

Construction of a 4.25-mile trail for hikers, equestrians, and bicyclists may begin this summer. The new trail will not only link 500 acres of protected open space on the north slope of Sonoma Mountain, but it will be an addition to the Bay Area Ridge Trail, a planned ridgetop trail encircling San Francisco Bay.

That’s just darn good news. Someday, if I ever retire, I’ll strap on the backpack and walk all 500 miles of it.

From Juicy Tales blogger Jo Diaz:

On June 3, 2008, David P. Jones of Wine Works quietly passed away in his sleep from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

Shocking news to this winehiker. I had met David in the summer of 2006 when attending a wine soiree in San Francisco and had immediately found him knowledgeable, engaging, and very patient, quickly changing gears as needed to respond to my ad hoc circle’s differing understandings about wine. David was too damned young to die. I still have his business card.

About.com, in their Wine Page post titled Top 10 Ways to Tour Napa Valley and Sonoma County, features two companies that offer a way to tour the wine country “By Foot”. These companies are Zephyr Adventures and my own company, California Wine Hikes. Yes, Zephyr Adventures is a competitor. But I prefer to think of them as a future collaborator. And I look forward to meeting Zephyr Adventures principals Reno Walsh and Allan Wright in October at the 1st Annual Wine Bloggers Conference in Sonoma.* Meanwhile, it’s mighty sweet of author Stacy Slinkard to make mention.

Clairdee is a local jazz singer whose vocal style and artful arrangements of the jazz classics are worth a listen. She’s also a very warm and engaging person. I attended one of her shows in the summer of 2006 and bought her CD, Music Moves, which she was happy to autograph for me. I also joined her mailing list. But it was through LinkedIn.com that Clairdee contacted me to ask if I would allow her to list California Wine Hikes on her Discoveries page during the month of June. Naturally, I was happy to oblige.

~winehiker

*The 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference will be featured in an upcoming post.

The Woodland Star (Lithophragma glabrum), is a member of the Saxifrage family. There aren’t terribly many of these dainty delights relative to other wildflower species, but perhaps that’s due to their lurking in shady little hideaways where mere mortals choose not to tread. Sometimes, however, they appear before us at trailside, white elfin gowns shimmering as if by the winsome whisperings of a mystic muse.

The Woodland Star blooms from February through June in forests along the California Coast. My camera may capture them just so every once in a while, but the Woodland Star captures my heart every time.

~winehiker

Bradley Cooper lives in Canada’s Okanagan Valley, an immense winemaking region of British Columbia. It’s where he produces small lots of Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, and a whole host of white wines for Township 7 Vineyards. Now that he’s finished bottling his latest batch of Rosés, he and his wife, Audralee, are going to visit California for their first real vacation since their honeymoon nine years ago.

Bradley’s my kind of guy. Sure, his winemaking efforts attract my interest, and so does his blog, Wine & Vine BC, but so does his love of jazz and baseball. What’s more, he and Audralee, who together also consult for Daum-Cooper Winery Services, are ready to engage in some winehiking.

We’re getting together on Saturday, May 31st, for a five-mile tour of the redwood forests at El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, followed by a picnic and wine tasting at Saratoga’s Savannah-Chanelle Winery.

And Bradley and I invite you to join us!

Walk with Bradley, Audralee and The Winehiker in the redwoods of California. Then let’s do some wine tasting! 

This event is essentially free but for the cost of your own transportation, lunch (shared potluck), and tasting fees at the winery (credited to any purchase of their fine syrahs and pinots). If you plan to join us, just add a comment to this post, and I will follow up with the details.

~winehiker

When I’ve walked the paths through the stately giants of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, about 30 miles from my hometown, I’ve always been awed by the majesty of those timeless trees. Equally timeless, it seems, is the far-off whistle of the historic Roaring Camp steam locomotive that runs daily from its mountain home in the town of Felton to its terminus at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Hearing that lonesome whistle blast always makes me yearn to transport myself to faraway places, and so it is a welcome sound in my ears as I meander along the banks of the San Lorenzo River.

There’s something about being outdoors and getting a concurrent dose of history. There’s also something to be said for adding fine wine to that equation.

This Sunday, May 18th, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., the Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Growers Association (SCMWA) will sponsor its inaugural Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Railway and Auction, to be held at the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Railroad Museum in Felton, California. Guests will be able to enjoy wines from over 50 SCMWA-member wineries - which is to say, nearly all of them - plus get an opportunity to ride the venerable Roaring Camp train through the redwood forests of this mountain appellation.

From the SCMWA website:

Wines tasting will be accompanied by delectable appetizers, as well as, a silent and live auction. Auction items include rare wines, large format bottles, getaways to world class resorts, and trips, unique private winemakers’ dinners and much more.

Tickets are $55 in advance, $65 at the door, and $20 for children; leashed dogs are allowed. For reservations, or for more information, contact the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association at (831) 685-VINE (8463) or send them an email at info@scmwa.com.

~winehiker