The ephemeral quake was much shorter; the tear was 26 miles but much deeper, 11 miles deep. This gave the two tectonic plates sliding past each other a vertical component, as if for 20 seconds Mother Earth was lifting her butt to realign her sitting bones. As we are experiencing from climate change , when Mom is uncomfortable, all hell breaks loose. So, why hike to the Loma Prieta earthquake epicenter?
When the congenial geologist Dwight Harbaugh said he would join our group on a walking and seismic-talking tour up the Loma Prieta Trail, word of the hike spread through my hiking group as if by underground rumbling.
The geologist can hold a sandstone rock and mesmerize you for 15 minutes with the story of how that rock got there. I over-worry the traffic on Highway 1 and arrive a half hour early. I walk through New Leaf to marvel with sticker-shock at all the boutique, organic food.
They sound like a to-do list for the first week of January. I tell the cashier that I heard of a woman who opened a fitness club called Resolutions. There is no bar called Resolutions. I walk outside at 9 and of course geologist Dwight Harbaugh is precisely on time; time is his game, albeit a very long game. Boy, is his face red. His shoes as well. Thom unrolls his panel on the New Leaf sidewalk and we ooo and aah as Dwight points to where the fault lines run that combined to create the earthquake of Sleepy John is concerned about being able to make the full hike, and my left knee is speaking to me about the distance as well.
There are those of you who leisurely do 20 miles in six hours and throw in some rock climbing to crack a sweat, but our hikes are easy-to-moderate day hikes. We do like to throw the ball farther than we can walk to catch it, and the farther Sleepy John and I walk in the damp, overcast morning, the warmer our stiff joints get.
