Where Should I Go Hiking?

      THE HIKES IN this book range from supremely easy to incredibly difficult, and you should be able to find a hike that fulfills your personal sense of adventure in the region you wish to visit. For an overview of the difficulty-rating system, please see “Difficulty”. For those looking for a specific trail feature, the hikes are summarized in chart and organized by theme. Read on for a summary of the regions covered in this book, their weather, the best times of year to hike, and the agencies that govern the lands encompassed by these hikes.

      California Dreaming

      For the purposes of this book, Northern California can be divided into four regions:

      The Central Coast, Bay Area, and Coast Ranges (Hikes 1–42)

      The North Coast and Klamath Mountains (Hikes 43–58)

      Shasta and the Modoc Plateau (Hikes 59–70)

      The Sierra Nevada (Hikes 71–101)

      Each region is described briefly in the introduction to its respective section.

      Northern California Weather

      The overall weather in California is closely linked to the sun’s relative position with the Earth. As the sun’s rays strike more directly north of the equator in spring, the air it warms in the tropics rises into the upper atmosphere and moves north over the Pacific Ocean. Cooled as it travels, the air sinks back down to the surface to form an area of high pressure over the north Pacific known as the Pacific High. As the summer progresses, the high becomes increasingly stable and prevents low-pressure storm fronts in the Gulf of Alaska from reaching Northern California.

      As a consequence, summers are almost entirely devoid of rain. Localized thunderstorms do occur—especially in the high mountains—but generally the entire state basks in never-ending blue skies and sunshine. Summers on the coast are remarkably different, however: The same Pacific High that keeps storms away also creates northwest winds that almost continually buffet the shoreline. Warm, moisture-laden summer air condenses into fog over the cold Pacific waters, which is then pushed onshore by wind and the land–sea temperature differential. Summer on the coast can seem a lot like winter.

      As the sun begins to strike north of the equator more obliquely in October, the entrenched Pacific High keeps storms away for most of the month while the decreasing temperatures greatly reduce the incidence of fog. It is California’s choicest month of weather. Storms return by November, striking the North Coast first and then gradually reaching farther south as the Pacific High deteriorates. By January, storm after storm is hitting the state, inundating it with heavy rainfall and deep snow. Sunny breaks do occur between storms, but they are generally short-lived. February is the wettest month, and storms can continue well into April, although sunny spring days usually begin to occur in March. As a more direct angle of sunlight hits the north once again, the cycle repeats itself.