Summer 2010
Jean Rusmore: Why Trails Matter
Jean Rusmore on the trail
- The urge to reach the sea is as old as the sea itself. Even for people like Jean Rusmore, who has
walked and re-walked every trail between San Francisco and the San Benito County line, including miles of trail on the east side of the bay,
the possibility of walking from Skyline Ridge to the sea is exciting.
- Jean is the lead author of three
popular trail guides—Peninsula
Trails: Hiking & Biking Trails on the
San Francisco Peninsula; South Bay
Trails: Outdoor Adventures in &
Around Santa Clara Valley; and Bay
Area Ridge Trail: The Official Guide for
Hikers, Mountain Bikers, and Equestrians.
- Jean and her co-authors—the late
Frances Spangle, the late Betsy
Crowder and her current collaborator,
Sue LaTourrette, began describing
the region’s trails in the late 1970s.
Since 1982, when the first edition of
Peninsula Trails was published, they
have stayed busy editing new editions.
“If I could choose to add a trail
segment anywhere, I would add the link between Purisima Creek
Redwoods Open Space Preserve and
the Cowell Ranch on the coast,” she
says. “From Skyline you can see the
ocean shimmering in the distance,
inviting you to try to get there.
Besides, it is downhill all the way!”
- At 90, Jean’s enthusiasm for
getting out on the land is undiminished. She walks every day and
learned to love the outdoors early
in life. “I grew up in Anaheim,
California, before Disneyland, when
orange groves hemmed in the city,”
she says.
- Today, Jean writes about trails
to help people feel the joy of being
outdoors. “I want to make it easy
for people to get out on the land,” she
says. “Trails help people get connected
to the land, to each other, to the
region. Such experience motivates
them to protect our expanses of open
space. It is the green space that
distinguishes the Bay Area from every
other metropolis, and there’s no better
way to see it than on a trail.”
Trails to the Sea. . .
