Twin Sisters (North) - Do not repeat this hike or you might end up in jail!

I actually wanted to do another ski tour on this day, but the weather forecast predicted snow fall for the Sierra Nevada over night and cloudy skies until noon. Therefore, I decided to do something in a coastal mountain range instead, where the weather was supposed to be very sunny. I didn't have much time to prepare a hike and don't really have a todo list for the coastal mountains (yet) which I could fall back to. For some inspiration I consulted Bob Burd's site and saw that he hiked to the Twin Sisters North Peak a few days ago. He doesn't didn't have the story about his hike written yet, but published a few pictures and a gps track. So I downloaded his track and printed it together with the US topo map. All I did as preparation was a quick "sanity check" to make sure it wasn't too crazy of a hike for me (=too long or too difficult). I also quickly searched the www for some other reports to the Twin Sisters North Peak, but couldn't find anything (which should at least have made me a little suspicious). I didn't worry too much about it, but drove to Lake Madigan early in the morning and was eager to start my hike.

There are a few "parking spots" close to a big gate there and that's where I left my car. But wait, there are a lot of signs telling me that I'm not supposed to go any further from here. "Private Road", "No trespassing", "Property of the city of Vallejo", "no hiking, no fishing, no hunting" etc.

Now what? I usually respect the 'no trespassing signs' and don't like to do 'illegal hikes' at all and wouldn't have considered it knowing it is not legal. But here I am, early in the morning with no other plan for a hike than this one in my pocket. As far as I can tell it is not the property of a private person but the city of Vallejo. What's so bad about hiking a little bit on city land? In Switzerland this would be perfectly legal and ... nobody seems to be around at these wee hours. After pondering for quite a while, I decide to take the risk and face the consequences if caught (not really knowing what they would be though).

I hike along the paved road next to Lake Madigan for a while. After the small bridge over the river connecting Lake Madigan and Lake Frey, I leave the road and turn left, uphill towards P. 2137. I encounter some minor bushwhack near a small drainage there, but get through it without too much pain, first the left side of this drainage is less dense then the right side. After the bushes end, I take the direct way up the grass slope to shortly before the top of P.2137, where I find and follow an old dirt road to the top of this point which has some sort of a telecommunication installation.

In order to get to the Twin Sisters North Peak I then walk down to the Green Valley in northeastern direction and back up to the north ridge of the Twin Sisters via a clear use trail. From here I then follow the left side of the ridge for a while and eventually get to the ridge itself. There I find an obvious (old) path which leads to the top. First the path is easy to follow, the closer I get to the summit the more Manzanita bushes I have to fight. It is worth fighting all the way to the very top of the peak where I can enjoy a very nice view to the Bay, the Delta, San Francisco, Sacramento and in particular "the luxury villa" on top of Twin Sisters South Peak, known as "The house above the morning clouds".

After a rather long break I fight my way back through the Manzanita thicket, only to notice that the back pocket of my pants (where I usually carry my wallet in) was turned inside out and empty. Even though I have little hope to find my wallet in this terrain, I fight the way through the ticket to the summit and back two more times only to find out that for some unknown reason, I had put my wallet into my backpack before the hike today... Oh well, Manzanita Bushwhaks are almost as much fun as "Legföhren-Fights";-)

I then retrace my steps back to the car. After getting back onto the road near Lake Madigan it happens. I get caught by an employee of the city of Vallejo, who clearly tells me in a stern voice what I know: "You are trespassing". I don't pretend to not know but admit my wrong doing and apologize. He doesn't want to hear "my story why", had already noticed my car in front of the gate, written down my license plate, knew how long I was here and probably has been looking for me for quite a while. I'm not trying to argue with him and I'm glad he tells me that he doesn't want me to go to jail. I have to promise that I will never come back again. After escorting me out of the city property he then also requested "Tell all your hiking friends that this hike is illegal and that I will call the Sheriff on hiker for trespassing". With this report, I guess I fulfilled this request. Anyway, thanks for not putting me into jail..