Woodside council saddles up for trail ride Woodside council saddles up for trail ride (August 25, 2004)

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

There are two assets that are essential for council members to possess -- the ability to ruthlessly suppress eye-rolling and bored yawns, and a cast-iron keister for sitting through long meetings. I'm astride a big, strapping horse named Rio at one of the Woodside Town Council's more unusual gatherings, and I'm beginning to wish for a titanium tuchis of my own.

The backbone of Woodside's rural allure is a system of horse trails winding through town. Last week, five of the seven council members -- at the invitation of the Woodside Trails Committee -- took a two-hour ride along some of the town's newer trails.

Under state law, any time a majority of council members gather, it becomes a public meeting, which is why I'm along for the ride, casually clutching Rio's saddlehorn as the mighty beast picks its way down a steep creek bank.

Three of the council members are veteran equestrians who have brought their own mounts -- Sue Boynton, Carroll Ann Hodges and Joe Putnam. The other two, Deborah Gordon and Mayor Paul Goeld, are not, as they say in Woodside, horse people.

I've been on a horse maybe half a dozen times in my life, so I'm busy trying to memorize the running commentary provided by Mr. Putnam and trails committee member Don Pugh, gape at the lovely scenery and, most importantly, not fall off the horse. Plus, ducking the low-hanging tree branches and shrugging away from lush poison oak. Note-taking is out of the question.

Trails committee chair Mike Raynor and member Rebeka Whitter form the rear guard of our trail ride.

It is lovely along most of the trails. Woodside is a pretty town, and clearly, some of the best places to appreciate it are on the trails, which meander between properties, along fence lines, through redwood groves and across creeks. Some of the gated permissive trails, open to members of the trails club, wend through private property.

The town relies on an annual horse-owner fee to help pay for maintenance work on dedicated trails, and town officials are scrupulous about asking for new trail easements any time development or subdivisions are proposed for a piece of property. As a result, the Planning Commission and Town Council frequently are called on to deal with trail-related issues.

The ride is partly an introduction to Woodside's trails for the non-horsey council members, and partly a plug for the trail committee's hard work improving and maintaining trails.

Gaps in the trail network -- whether from mudslides, washed-out bridges or illegal fencing -- frustrate horse riders and force them to make dangerous detours onto the street.

Heading out from our starting point at the Mounted Patrol grounds along the new trail that skirts Tripp Road and connects to the Kings Mountain Road trail, we come upon several potential perils almost immediately. Cars parked along the road block the trail and force our group into the road to mingle with traffic.

Although it's clear how a trail ride can become a suburban obstacle course in short order, everyone we come across, from the two boys and their mom on bicycles to the guy with the leaf-blower, seems to be on his or her best behavior. Joggers cheerfully cede the trail to the horses, dogs decline to bark, cars stop to let us cross the street. Children wave. The motorcycles have working mufflers.

For the voyeuristic, a perch upon the back of a horse affords a view into some spectacular estates. For a reporter, it's a chance to see some of the places that have been written about over the years -- the Champagne Paddocks, the Bullocks' barn, the historic underground theater at the Markkula place. Mr. Putnam turned out to be a treasure trove of information about the provenance of the other properties we pass, ones not involved in bidding wars, lawsuits or historic preservation battles, but occupied by your average, quirky Woodsider.

We wave to a guy named Stu who is reclining by his pool as we pass by and it strikes me that the best way to describe ambling through Woodside on horseback is neighborly. It's not just the best way to see Woodside, it's one of the best ways to be seen in Woodside. Kids stare, neighbors shout greetings, little girls wistfully press their noses against back seat windows and formulate more effective pleas for a pony.

Urban planners often talk about the pedestrian scale of old world cities, so different from the sprawling, automobile-dependent layout of many California towns. It makes sense that Woodside, a community traversed by horses long before automobiles arrived, is built to an equestrian scale.

There's talk of making the Town Council trail ride a regular event, and despite a collection of sore muscles that are making me feel like a pinata after the party's over, I hope the idea catches on. Even horseless Woodsiders ought to have a chance to see their town the way it was meant to be seen.

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