Windy Hill offers sweeping views on the San Francisco Bay from its steep trails. The difference in elevation between its highest and lowest points is about 400 m (1300 ft). Windy Hill's 3 main trails that run roughly in parallel provide equally attractive routes to ascent or descent the park. From this trail network visitors can create various options for loops or out-and-backs: Spring Ridge Trail, mostly straight up through meadows with great views, and Hamms Gulch Trail and Razorback Ridge Trail with both lots of switchbacks mostly through dense forest. At the top of the park these trails are connected by the Bay Area Ridge Trail, and at the bottom by Eagles Trail, connecting to Sequoias Trail and Ridge Trail.The park is a local favorite for hiking, trail running, mountain biking and horse back riding (about 65% of the trails are multi-use).
Trails
Summary
Difficulty
Distance
Windy Hill South Loop
A nice quick escape for Peninsula hikers in need of a fix and a good workout.
A nice quick escape for Peninsula hikers in need of a fix and a good workout.
Moderate
8.0 mi/
12.9 km
12.9 km
Guides
A nice quick escape for Peninsula hikers in need of a fix and a good workout.
Community Trips
This is a good hike to knock out if you're short on time and don't want to waste time driving. You still get great scenery, some wildlife, weather, and more and yet you can launch just outside of Portola Valley. But on the flip-side you'll see a lot of people and hear some road noise once you near Skyline.Last time I hiked Windy Hill it was pushing 90 degrees and sunny and...
Normally I do this trail as a loop, but because it was such a clear beautiful day, I decided to go up and down the ridge in order to get as much sunshine as possible.The top of Windy Hill offers some amazing views of the Peninsula, from San Jose to San Francisco, as well as down to the Pacific Ocean.When I got to the top, there were three hand gliders preparing to...
Another segment in the long quest to complete the BART trail. We had planned to make this a quick out and back from Who1 to Who3 and back again but Joe needed a cache quite a ways down the Spring Hill Trail so once down there we decided to loop. It ended up being not very windy at all in Windy Hill and turned into a mini buttkicker hike for us with...
Skyline Blvd Parking - Lost - Hamms Gulch - Eagle - Razorback - Lost - Anniversary - back to start. An amazing walk through lush forests dominated by majestic Douglas firs. Lost trail at its best in either rain or shine. Below 1200 elevation, hardwoods dominate in relatively dry micro-climate. Anniversary trail loop was added for extra credits at the end. A short walk through coastal shrubs/chaparral was in stark contrast to the earlier part of...
Note to self: when it's hot, hit the coast, not the inland trails. Second note to self, climb up in the shade, then down the exposed grasslands. This was a nice little loop. But the temp hit the high 90s on this particular day, so a word to the wise on slogging it up hot spots. I meant to head up the nice shaded switchbacks of Hamm's Gulch and then lollygag down the...
This was one of the most spectacular hike that we did recently as we prepare for our Half Dome hike in September, 2009. The fog was gushing in from the Pacific drenching the trees with abundance of moisture that was dripping down on the tail making it a live rain forest!
Reviews
