Most of the week, I ride a road bike, but on Sundays, I've started mountain biking. This week, I went up Tam via Railroad Grade. The first time I went up Tam off-road a few weeks ago, I went up Eldridge Grade, which proved to be pretty challenging for a novice mountain-biker. Railroad was much easier, with a very gentle grade and a very smooth surface the whole way up.
Still, I was pretty hot and tired by the time I hit the West Point Inn, where a half dozen or so other cyclists were taking a break in the shade and enjoying a bite to eat. I thought about stopping there but decided I would just keep going to the top and get something to eat/drink at the snack shack at the East Peak visitor center. Unfortunately, when I finally made it there, the shack was closed. And the soda machine outside it was out of order. So it was just more lukewarm water from my Camelbak for me, until I made it back to Sausalito, where I stopped for a Coke before heading back to SF.
Typically, I've been seeing a lot of wildlife on these rides on the trails in the Headlands and Mt. Tam (a bobcat, a fox, a couple snakes, countless deer and rabbits) but this time, just a few lizards. I guess the bigger creatures, like the snack shop man, were taking the day off.