West Peak, Middle Peak, and the East Peak of Mount Tam in Marin County, all above a very good place to look for wind and fog and general cloudiness:
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Posts Tagged ‘tam’
Iconic Bay Area: Alcatraz, The Slot, Mount Tamalpais
Thursday, June 26th, 2014Remembering When You Could Regularly See Russian Acrobatic “Yak” Aircraft in the Skies of the Bay Area
Tuesday, June 17th, 2014This Russian-made Yak-50 acrobatic airplane used to be seen all over the skies of the San Francisco Bay Area – buzzing Mount Tam in Marin County, checking out anti-abortion rallies along San Francisco’s waterfront, that kind of thing.
But here’s your take-away: These things had a working life of just 50 hours back in Mother Russia, as the stress of all them 9G loop de loops and whatnot led to bad things, such as “main spar collapse.” Ouch.
Anyway, looks like fun:
Circa 2005, Marin County, Canon 300mm 2.8L IS + 2x extender
Know Your Two-Seat, Russian, Yakovlev Yak-52 Acrobatic-Training Aircraft Above San Francisco
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011Remember that Yak-50 what used to buzz about the bay area? Good times. (See below for some shots taken from the East Peak of Mt. Tam.)
Well this is better, this one’s a Yak-52 (Як-52). Hurray!
(It probably killed fewer pilots per hour than the single-seat Yak-50, so that’s nice.)
As seen from Land’s End:
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(In Soviet Russia, plane kill you!)
What kind of crazy airplanes will Mother Russia send over next?
“This Russian-made Yak-50 acrobatic airplane used to be seen all over the skies of the San Francisco Bay Area – buzzing Mount Tam in Marin County, checking out anti-abortion rallies along San Francisco’s waterfront, that kind of thing.
But here’s your take-away, babe: These things had a working life of just 50 hours back in Mother Russia, as the stress of all them 9G loop de loops and whatnot led to bad things, such as “main spar collapse.” Ouch.
Anyway, looks like fun:
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Canon 1D Mark II with 300mm 2.8 IS I and 2x extender – ISO 400 and lots of digital zoom:
Happy trails.”
Know Better Your Marin County: Nuclear-Capable Hill 88 Plus the West, Middle, and East Peaks of Mount Tamalpais
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011How many hills do you know of what come with their own Yelp entry?
You ought to get on up there sometime to check it out:
“Hill 88 is a wild ghost town in the sky, hidden way up high in the Marin Headlands. It’s on Wolf Ridge, between Fort Cronkhite/Rodeo Beach and Tennessee Valley. You can barely see it from below, and it’s nothing like most of the old little rusty lifeless bunker sites. This is a crazy Cold War mega-complex teeming with tons of crows dancing in the whipping wind above huge expanses of the bay and SF. It’s part of the old Nike Missile program, officially SF-88C. Was apparently the radar and control center (aka the IFC, or Integrated Fire Control area) of the Nike Missile launch site that’s further down the hill to the east.”
So, those are some of the remnants of Project Nike on top of now-flattened Hill 88 in the foreground along with the three peaks of Mount Tam (with the West Peak also flattened by the Air Force) in the background.
As seen from San Francisco:
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Now, you Know Better Your Marin County.
The Bay Area’s Military History Shown in a Photo – Not Much Going on in Marin County at Hill 88 and Mt. Tam
Thursday, June 9th, 2011Well, here’s an update to this old post from 2008. The big change since then has been the arrival of the Presidio Landmark apartments. Enjoy:
In the foreground we see the Presidio’s now-abandoned Public Health Service Hospital (PHSH), site of the old U.S. Marine Hospital and Defense Language Institute.
On the left further back in Marin is Hill 88, former site of Integrated Fire Control facility SF-88C Wolf Ridge that used to house W31 nuclear warheads and Nike Ajax / Nike Hercules defensive missiles
And on the right up high is the West Peak of Mount Tamalpais, former home of Mill Valley Air Force Station.
Not much going on at these places these days.
The Sister Villages of Sausalito and San Francisco: A View That Hasn’t Changed Much in 80 Years
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011This atypical view of San Francisico with Sausalito in the background makes the 415 look a little like a village – evidence of Manhattanization is all to the left, so all you see is basically the same as what you would have seen in the 1930′s.
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Know Your Russian Acrobatic Yak Aircraft Above San Francisco
Monday, January 4th, 2010This Russian-made Yak-50 acrobatic airplane used to be seen all over the skies of the San Francisco Bay Area – buzzing Mount Tam in Marin County, checking out anti-abortion rallies along San Francisco’s waterfront, that kind of thing.
But here’s your take-away, babe: These things had a working life of just 50 hours back in Mother Russia, as the stress of all them 9G loop de loops and whatnot led to bad things, such as “main spar collapse.” Ouch.
Anyway, looks like fun:
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Happy trails
Is That What You All Call Snow, Bay Area? Nothing Beats the Winter of Ought-Two for Snow
Monday, December 7th, 2009If it’s colder than normal this AM and there’s some white stuff on the ground, well then I guess you could say it snowed in the San Francisco Bay Area. But back before the global warming the climate change, back in 2002, we had SNOW, baby.
As here, in ought-two up in Marin County on Mount Tamalpais, when I was out prospecting for gold with my donkey and/or on my Trek 8000 mountain bike (born 1991, Waterloo Wisconsin, died 2006, Civic Center, San Francisco). This is what it looked like in the afternoon ’til the rain melted everything.
Click to expand, why not? Heading to the East Peak with the Richmond San Rafael Bridge below:
Now that was snow, the most we’ve had since 1976.
So, nothing after 1976 has beaten 2002 for snow in the bay area. (I think.)
Stay warm!
San Francisco is a Shining City Behind a Hill, When Seen from Marin County
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009As seen from Mount Tam.
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Why are all the buildings on that side of the Golden Gate and not this one?
