Alice Eastwood & the Cross Country Boys Club
by Laurie Thompson
Famed botanist Alice Eastwood was a frequent visitor to the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais. Her hiking prowess gained her entry into an exclusive hiking group known as the Cross Country Boys Club. She was one of the few women ever admitted to this club.
Eastwood biographer Carol Green Wilson, recounts one outing to Cataract Gulch with that club in late March of 1902:
On another day, she and John Franklin Forbes were the only two who dared the storm. Alice shared his thought that it would be a great day for Cataract Gulch. When they reached it, the water was so high that it was impossible to cross on the usual trail. There was a narrow place, however, where they could step across on mossy rocks while the whole force of the current rushed between. Alice was ahead, stepping bravely onto the wet moss. Her foot slipped. Before Forbes could reach for her, the raging torrent carried her into the pool below.
With strong strokes she swam to the edge, just in time to escape being carried over the more dangerous lower falls where she would have been impaled on sharp rocks.
Laughing off her bruises and her wet, clinging skirts, she caught up with Forbes, and walked the seven miles back to the station, uncomplaining but disgusted with her lack of balance….
To her dismay, the story was copied in papers throughout the country. Her mail was filled with letters from admirers -even from people trying to establish relationship! But she was unconcerned with that sort of “fame.”
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
