Mount Tamalpais (english version)

As a promise, here is an English message on my blog. It will be quite different from the French one, as I don't remember exactly what I said, and it is very boring to translate.
I think that my regular readers need some explanation. I now have some English-speakers on my blog. That's why I would like to make them able to follow a bit my stories. Therefore my further message will probably be in both English and French.

Now the main purpose. The Mount Tamalpais hike.
We where initially supposed to be 7 or 8. But unfortunately, because of deadlines, we were finally only 4... The forecast said the weather should have been rainy (probability: 80%), and the temperature quite cold (18°C / 64°F). But we had two English people in our team who are waterproof ! So, the rain wasn't a problem. And it really wasn't a problem as the forecast was wrong, and the weather was only cloudy. It was really nice for the hike, as it was not too sunny, and not too hot. Only a little cold during the pauses...

The San Francisco region is very strange. The vegetation may be really different in two places separated from only a few kilometers. For example, we have a Mediterranean vegetation, with lots of pines down here in Menlo Park. But while the Golden Gate is crossed, we can meet some kinds of tropical trees which denotes an humid climate, and as soon as we begin to climb the mountains, we can see some characteristic vegetation of... mountain. This is surely the influence of the Pacific Ocean, but this isn't less interesting.

The region by itself is strange too. During the hike, we were sometimes under the vegetation, without any sight. But some other times, we had a very large view. We were hiking on a little trail, on the middle of nowhere, but finally we were very close from numerous villas bought in the middle of the hills. This is a really strange impress. Contrary to France, the mountains are very "urbanized". But it is still very nice to hike. And it was a real pleasure to hike with my 3 colleagues. I hope that the next time, we will be a little more.


Here is an american photo viewed from France. Is that what you wanted JLM ?