It’s Fall. Harry is Here.

[This post has no spider photos, but it does have an optional soundtrack.]

My default road rides take me through downtown San Jose toward Alum Rock Park and the hillsides beneath Mount Hamilton. For a girl who loves to climb–on a bike, on rocks, you name it–it’s a much better route than the default loop from our old house in Santa Clara near the university. We lived in faculty housing near the old town center, and the best default 20-miler my husband cooked up was a bike path loop that skirts the airport via the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail and the Guadalupe River Trail with roads as needed. We named it the “Myla Loop,” after my first cat, an adoring and spunky tortie with an orange-tipped tail who died in 2018. Naturally, I took this even further by decreeing that every Monday is “Myla Monday,” since she passed on a Monday, so we ride Myla Loops on Myla Mondays (and additional days). And on Monday nights we do a shot, or a thimble, of whiskey in Myla’s honor. I digress. The point is that I love the new hillier Myla loop from our San Jose house.

The first few miles go through the city to access the hills. Around the bottom of Alum Rock Park, one has choices: there are steeper climbs and mellower grades, depending on what the legs are saying that day. And if I have loads of time and want some type-2 fun, I can just keep climbing all the way up to Lick Observatory (top of Mount Hamilton) for 18 more miles and 4k+ of elevation. There’s a Coke machine up there, and it works.

Look at the photo on the left, where I was earlier this week on my bike. Now, imagine being on your new favorite home loop on an early evening post-work ride. The early fall weather is perfect, no vest needed. You finish the shorter climb, check in with the horses and deer, gaze at the hills in the distance before sunset, and head toward the descent. Then, you see it:

A tarantula on the road.

Not small.

On the left side, walking toward you.

Slowly.

Black, legs lifting in that uncanny tarantula order.

I did not stop to take a photo, nor did I pull one from the web and put it in this post. You don’t need to see that, and I am trying to write about tarantulas without losing my reader. Just typing the word makes me uneasy.

I then started talking to myself out loud on my bike: they’re here. You prepared yourself for this moment, and here it is. You’re totally fine, Leuner. But I rode more tensely, alert and with my eyes peeled for more. I did not see another one — however, I did see a number of evening walkers out and I thought about warning them “there’s a giant tarantula on the road ahead!” I also guessed that if they were walking in the east Bay hills in September they, like me, already knew what we were in for: the annual northern California tarantula migration. Male tarantulas wander the hillsides looking for love and die shortly after mating.

After a few unexpected and unpleasant encounters last year, I had a hunch that my new home loops were going to be trouble in the fall, so I started preparing myself in August. I considered buying myself a tarantula stuffed animal, but decided that was too much too soon. I eased in by watching educational videos like this one (click at your own risk). I imagined what an encounter on the road or trail would be like. I recalled my first completely unexpected encounter with a tarantula while gravel riding with my husband in Sunol, a sunset date ride in October a year ago. We crested a gorgeous hill and on the descent, I saw this huge black spider walking slowly across the sandy fire road. It was the first time I saw a tarantula in the wild. I recall a shot of adrenaline that made my body stop feeling itself and seem to float above itself, looking down; I said out loud “stay on your bike, stay on your bike, stay on your bike.” In tears, I rolled down the hill fully focused on the gravel road because if there is one, there are more. I was right. We cut the ride short, and I was in rough shape when we got back to the parking lot. In late November we thought we might be in the clear for a spider-free gravel day in Henry Coe. After the first sighting, I refused to stop for rest breaks because that meant getting off my bike. I blamed my husband for them being there (I’m so sorry), and we survived another rough emotional day.

I was very arachnophobic as a kid. I disliked floral sheets because in the dark who knows what those little flowers are. If I found a spider in my bedroom, Dad had to kill it and flush it down the toilet with me watching so that I was certain it was dead and in the plumbing. Spider encounters at sleep-away camp and in college haunted me, and I have a great story about a huge wolf spider that appeared one night in my apartment in Vermont. I killed it with ant spray while wearing ski pants, ski jacket, gloves, goggles, and a helmet and holding a broom.

Knowing my fears, the twins I nannied during my PhD challenged me to hold Rosie the tarantula at the Butterfly Pavilion in Golden, CO. I could barely even walk toward the handler, a man wearing khakis who sat in a chair with a humongous spider on his knee that one could spot from the adjacent room. The twins ran toward the tarantula. They got in line behind other kids who had probably also skipped toward it. When it was their turn, smiling and excited, the twins knew exactly what to do because they had done this before and enjoyed it. One at a time, they sat down on a stool next to the handler and put out their hand, palm up. The handler picked Rosie up off of his knee and put his hand next to the twin’s. Rosie crawled from his hand onto the kid’s hand and then immediately did a calm u-turn and went back to the handler. Out of twins, I was next. The handler took one look at me and said: You’re clearly scared, why don’t you try and just sit down on the stool near me (he meant: next to me and the tarantula on my knee). I managed this. He was ready for people like me, arachnophobe adults egged on by well-meaning kids who’d had a better education in bugs. He suggested placing a model spider made of pipe cleaners in my hand, because, he said, this is exactly what Rosie feels like. She looks big and heavy, but she is feathery and light and has pretty colors, just like pipe cleaners. We did the pipe cleaner thing. He asked if I wanted to continue. (The twins said yes.)

The handler explained that Rosie was very old, 20 years old in fact, and very fragile. If I put my hand out, flinched, and dropped her, it could harm her or even kill her. Strangely, I didn’t want Rosie to get hurt, though I pay people to exterminate the spiders in our yard. I bravely held my hand out and tried to be still and ready, but I flinched. The handler gently pulled Rosie back. He said I only get 1 flinch. (The twins said okay.) One of the twins put her hand underneath mine to steady me, it was sweet and reassuring, and it made me a tiny bit braver. I wanted to do this, I wanted the “I held Rosie” sticker that both twins already had. I had also been sitting next to the spider for several minutes now, and there was no longer a line behind us, make of that what you will. I held my breath. We put our hands out, with the twin’s under mine, the hand-sized tarantula walked onto my hand and then turned around and walked back to the handler. Rosie did feel like pipe cleaners, her tickle and lightness did not match the heft and darkness of her appearance and shape. I was also lightheaded and had a feeling of bodily disconnection and rising above myself, the same feeling I had on the fire road on my bike years later, watching a giant spider walk onto my hand and back off of it. I got the sticker. We celebrated in the pavilion garden with butterflies landing on our pink and purple shirts.

This past week’s encounter was different. It was the first time I had a tarantula sighting on my own, with no twin and no husband to lean on. The tarantula was farther away from me, but close enough. I was not happy, but I did not separate from myself and float above my body, like a balloon. I was proud of myself for not panicking or crying and remaining connected. Harry did not ruin my ride. When I got home, I poured myself a drink and said to my husband, describing my ride to him: they’re here.

If you’re into tarantulas, good for you, enjoy the east Bay hillsides in the fall. If you’re trying to avoid tarantulas altogether, I recommend avoiding the parks on the east side of San Jose and Oakland from August through December. These include but are not limited to:

• Mount Diablo (I picture this as a crowded tarantula Ikea.)
• Mission Peak
• Henry W. Coe
• Sunol
• Joseph D. Grant

If you wonder about the likelihood of encountering Harries on your adventures, call the park rangers before you make your route (I have done this). They won’t tell you lies.

This fall, I am going to try not to let my phobia limit my riding, especially on my home roads near Alum Rock Park and Mount Hamilton. Harries will be there. That said, I feel a whole lot safer, happier, and anxiety-free on the trails in Santa Cruz this time of year.