Full moon or not, curfew to be in force
A showdown between hikers and park rangers looms Sunday night at the Bay Area’s Mission Peak Regional Preserve as rangers intend to write $300 tickets to anybody who breaks the park’s 10 p.m. curfew.
The trigger point is one of the brightest full moons of the year. It will rise at 8:01 p.m. Sunday in the Bay Area and emerge with full luminance at midnight, when hikers are supposed to be off the mountain.
That is when the trouble could start.
Mission Peak, with its high grassland slopes, is one of the best places in summer to see both a moonrise as well as the glow from a bright full moon across the surrounding landscape. The mountain rises 2,517 feet into the sky above Ohlone College and Fremont, flanked to the east by the Ohlone Wilderness and to the west by south San Francisco Bay.
With no trees on the Mission Peak slopes, the moonglow is often so bright that you do not need a flashlight (although you should always carry one) to see the trails. In addition, with cool evening temperatures after hot days, conditions can be ideal to hike up to the summit at dusk, have a picnic trail dinner, watch the full moon rise at the summit and then take in the setting as moonglow takes over the night landscape.
To climb and touch Mission Peak’s Summit Post has become a must-do rite of passage for many hikers in the Bay Area. The post, which rises from the summit crag, is an odd-looking stake with pipes running through it. The idea is you look through each pipe to ID sites around the Bay Area. But it has become more of a Bay Area symbol, where to touch it can feel like you’ve crossed a special threshold. More than 80,000 photos from the park have been posted on Instagram.
At the same time, the park has also become known for its issues, most caused by the unethical behavior of too many visitors (2,000 people visit on weekends and there are only about 50 parking spaces).
In the past month, as part of the initial crackdown, rangers have cited more than 250 people for hiking on trails after curfew, said Carol Johnson, assistant general manager for the East Bay Regional Park District.
Some groups have turned night hikes into parties, loud enough to keep residents who live in the adjacent neighborhood awake late into the night, according to reports by park rangers. On Stanford Avenue’s garbage pickup night, some visitors have moved garbage cans off the curbs to create parking space for themselves.
In my opinion, erosion damage from visitors cutting across switchbacks is worse on the slopes of Mission Peak than on any of the 275 other major recreation destinations in the Bay Area. Littering, which is nonexistent in other pristine areas where experienced hikers respect the land, reaches an outrageous level at Mission Peak, where it seems partying visitors have had no training in outdoor ethics as children.
Safety issues are a concern, too, Johnson said. From the trailhead at Stanford Avenue, it’s a 6.2-mile round trip with a climb of 2,000 feet to the Summit Post. Some hikers who didn’t bring enough water for the climb have had to be rescued, Johnson said. Others are not ready for the physical challenge.
Rangers respond to an average of 1,000 calls per year, according to park records. In three years, there have been 135 emergency calls when rangers have had to provide medical help, and in terrible ordeals, dogs have died because their owners did not bring water for them.
To diminish the issues, Johnson said the district is considering adding more parking and establishing entrance fees — and also ordering more rules enforcement and education panels.
I was told that several board members, in a private meeting, said none of that will work. “Build a 10-foot wall and I’ll show you people with an 11foot ladder,” was one response.
One reaction by hikers is that the public park has been in existence far longer than the homes built at the park’s boundary, and that the complaints are from the Not In My Back Yard club. In addition, the 10 p.m. curfew punishes all, the ethical as well as the unethical, and kills the chance to experience a world-class adventure instead of cleaning out the weeds. But there are a lot of weeds. During the last full moon, the night of July 12-13, rangers said they stopped 35 cars trying to enter the park from 3:30 to 4:30 a.m., and during those stops, 50 other people tried to get past them on foot. According to a ranger, a helicopter with a searchlight could be deployed Sunday night.
It seems the only thing for sure is that if you’re on the mountain after 10 p.m. for Sunday night’s full moon, you can get a $300 ticket.