I had been wanting to go on a hiking/backpacking trip organized by Nicolas Smith for several years. I never really had the motivation to go despite always having the desire to make more friends and to find new people for Dave and me to hike and backpack with. (Nicolas leads small group hiking trips throughout the Bay Area for gay men). When I saw on Facebook last week week that Nicolas was leading a full moon hike in Marin on Wednesday after work, I decided to jump on the opportunity. This seemed liked a great post-Lifecycle chance to get outside, continue meeting new people (gay men, specifically) and savor the Bay Area beauty that I try so hard to not take for granted.
So I told Brian G. that I made plans for us to join the hike (I knew I would be more comfortable with a wingman) and he agreed to join. We left after work, met the group of guys that had signed up and then carpooled over to Marin as the sun slowly began to set.
While the hike itself up to the top of Hill 88 was beautiful, with some fun exploration of old military bunkers along the way, those details aren’t the most important. What made the experience special was the people… the awesome 10 strangers that we met and got to know for 5 hours on a random Wednesday night.
Yes, watching the full moon rise over the city was spectacular but meeting Johan, Javier, Ben, Braden and others was what I was really there to do, to meet new, interesting people.
I won’t go as far to say I made any new friends just yet, but I’m trying to capitalize on the opportunity to get to know some of these guys more.
My photos on Flickr here, and some of my favorite photos from Nicolas’s collection below:
Heading up Hill 88
The Mighty Pacific (photo credit: Nicolas Smith)
Me and Brian (photo credit: Nicolas Smith)
Making trouble (photo credit: Nicolas Smith)
The full moon rising over the Bay (photo credit: Nicolas Smith)
Full moon over the Bay (photo credit: Nicolas Smith)
