Articles by Ron Erskine

About Ron Erskine
Ron Erskine is a local outdoors columnist and avid hiker.

Three seaside settings

Outdoor photographer and mountaineer, Galen Rowell, wrote that a landscape is most alluring at the edges; where the mountains rise above the plains or a stream divides a lush meadow. But no scenic boundary has stirred humankind’s imagination through the ages more than the [...]

Devil’s Dance Floor

Hell for Sure Pass. Gorge of Despair. Lake Lola Montez. Wonderful place names are scattered across Sierra Nevada maps colorfully depicting the difficulty of passage or honoring everything from the Devil to wayward Gold Rush dance hall girls. When a friend sent me a list of [...]

Brokeoff Mountain

Where did it go? Didn’t we just uncork some bubbly and toast the arrival of 2017? And now, another new year is at hand. Whether you make New Year’s resolutions or not, the beginning of the year is a good time to reflect. We know we should be doing a little more of this or a [...]
The pink hues of sunset illuminate the snow of the Emigrant Wilderness

Requiem for a backpacker

Early October 2017. 9,500 feet. Emigrant Meadow Lake. Emigrant Wilderness. It is late afternoon. I lay tucked in my sleeping bag staring at the ceiling of my small one-person tent. Every two or three minutes, I slap the rainfly to remove snow collecting there. Six inches are on [...]
Hikers visit the newly-opened, iconic radar tower atop Mt. Um.

Stunning Summit

Most beloved landmarks have an air of aesthetic elegance that endears them to us. Most, but not all. The massive radar tower atop Mt. Umunhum that has looked out over the Santa Clara Valley since 1957 gets no style points, but this sterile concrete obelisk is loved nonetheless. [...]
beachy skies in the Marin Headlands

Between sand and sky

There are few places on earth where the handiwork of nature and mankind meld so beautifully as at the entrance to the Golden Gate. I challenge any world traveler to cite a scene grander than the view of the San Francisco skyline beyond the Golden Gate Bridge from any number of [...]
solar eclipse transitions

Eclipse Exodus

“Sometime in your life, be sure you see a total solar eclipse.” I received this advice years ago from a couple who regularly traveled to exotic corners of the globe—places like Turkey and Mongolia—to witness solar eclipses. It was earnest advice, and I never forgot it. [...]

Nature Pathway

From high on the Arrowhead Loop Trail at the Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve, the scene below is bucolic and still. Coyote Creek, lined with cottonwoods and sycamores, meanders north toward the bay; orchards and hayfields rustle in the prevailing northwest wind; remnant [...]

Horsetail Falls

Homeward bound on US Highway 50, around a bend just a fistful of miles west of Echo Summit, Horsetail Falls appeared through my windshield with sudden grandeur. At that very corner, the narrow conifer-clad landscape widened into a sweep of bright granite carved millennia ago by [...]

Sweeping Views

Every January 1, we begin the year by making a resolution with an eye toward self-improvement. Each of us could do a little less of this or a bit more of that, but we rarely stick with it. Several weeks into the new year, we revert to our old ways. Last January, a group of [...]
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