Guides and Trips
Trips
This is a 7 mile round trip loop trail. It begins at parking area 12 (the north dam parking lot of the Rancho Seco Recreational Area). When you enter the park from CA-104/Twin Cities Road you'll drive very near by the cooling towers of the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear plant. Then you'll turn left and there will be a pay station. Our book said it would be $5, but it was $10....
A very nice hike with beautiful rolling hills typical of many East Bay hikes with great views of the Almaden and Santa Clara Valleys. This one is a little south of San Jose.To get to the Pueblo Day Use Area take US 101 or Highway 85 to Bernal Road. Be sure to turn left once you enter the Park or you'll end up at the guarded entrance to the IBM complex and will...
This 430 acre wildlife sanctuary is maintained by volunteers of the Sacramento Audubon Society. It was donated to National Audubon in 1975 by Bob & Elaine Crandall.It was easy to get there. From Sacramento we took I-5 N, then the Hwy 70/99 exit and then 99 N. A few miles after 99 crosses the Feather River is Laurel Ave. Turn right on Laurel and in a short distance you'll reach an...
This was a nice hike. We hadn't hiked in a few months, so thought this 5 mile hike would be a good one to get back into it. It was overcast with some fog in the Bay Area, but that made for some cool views of the City and the Golden Gate Bridge.We didn't know there was parking at the trailhead, so we parked in the Steam Train overflow parking. When you...
This is a nice and scenic 4 mile hike. It has enough hills to make it challenging at times. We drove through the little town of Martinez and took a right on Talbart Street. Then just past the 2 cemeteries the Nejedly Staging Area parking lot is on the left.
We started out on Hulet Hornbeck trail, which was very steep in some sections. But eventually you get to some great views of...
It goes without saying, this was a beautiful hike, but it was also very grueling. We got up at about 4:30 AM at Yosemite Cedar Lodge in El Portal. After the 3 of us took turns using the single bathroom to get ready, it was about 5:40. Then we had a 35 minute drive in the dark into Yosemite to the parking area at Curry Village. From here it was about 0.4 miles...
Another beautiful hike. We had been doing a lot of East Bay hikes, but since the weather is hotter now, we decided it was time to go back to the Sierra Nevada area.We chose to hike the Rubicon Trail from Vikingsholm to Calawee Cove.We drove to the parking lot at Vikingsholm and paid the $10.00 entrance fee. Even after 10:00 there were still a few parking spaces open.From here a paved road...
Cataract Trail - Mount Tamalpais Watershed
Stinson Beach, California, United States
Hiking | 7.4 miles
Hiking | 7.4 miles
This was a beautiful hike. A lot of shade with lush ferns and waterfalls. On June 30, 2012 it was still lush, but the water levels were kind of low. It will be a good one to do in the early spring or after a few rains.There is a lot of climbing, but we just finished hiking the Inca Trail a month ago, so we can't really complain about about few hills....
Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve - Wildcat Canyon Loop
The Highlands, California, United States
Hiking | 7.5 miles
Hiking | 7.5 miles
We were going to be in the Palo Alto/Cuppertino area, so we looked for nearby hikes. There are some Open Space Preserves in the area (we had hiked in the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve in October 2011), so this time we tried the Rancho San Antonio OSP. It was a nice hike. It was very crowded at first and hard to find a parking space, but there are 3 or 4 parking...
Truthfully, we weren't too impressed with this hike, but that might have had to do with the circumstances of the day. It was hot with no clouds in sight, and virtually no shade, except for a couple of small groves of oak trees. We had our dog Flora with us and she was wanting to stop to rest at every small shady spot she could find. The trail was a fire road...
We started going on hikes in July 2011 (and discovered EveryTrail) to get in shape for a trip to Peru including a 4 day hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. 40 hikes later we finally did it!I tracked each day with my Garmin 450 and then merged the 4 gpx tracks into this one. I forgot to change the time zone setting on my camera so those pictures were 2...
Montara - Gray Whale Cove Trail to North Peak
Montara, California, United States
Hiking | 10.1 miles
Hiking | 10.1 miles
This was our 3rd time hiking Montara - McNee Ranch State Park, but our first time to North Peak. There are shorter routes to North Peak (check out Trailspotting's Guide), but we like following the coastline from Grey Whale Cove Trail, so this route is around 10 miles total. The parking lot at Grey Whale Cove is large and so far we've been able to find a spot each time. We took Grey Whale...
This was the first time we hiked in the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). You have to get a permit, but they have them online and you can get one for $10 that lasts a year, or $20 for 3 years, or $30 for 5 years. I got the 1 year permit. When we got there we parked at the Valle Vista staging area. We had to sign in and list...
A nice hike to the summit of Mount Tamalpais from the parking area across from Mountain Home Inn (801 Panaromic Highway, Mill Valley). We basically followed Vaudesir's "Swimming to the top of Mount Tamalpais" route, but excluded the small hairpin loop they did near the beginning on the lower part of Hoo Koo E Koo Trail. We got to the parking area around 10AM and just missed the last open space. So we...
This was a beautiful hike. A little muddy in places and a little steep in other places, but several nice waterfalls to see and all the beauty of Mount Diablo. There are several creek crossings to make and with the water high, we had to be careful (I got my feet wet at one crossing). The hike starts in Clayton at the Regency Gate entrance. There's no fee, but you have to...
There were a lot of visitors to Las Trampas today, but with 4636 acres of wilderness and an extensive trail system, we didn't encounter many of them and still had a feeling of privacy. Part of the reason may also be because we chose some pretty strenuous trails. We parked at the Staging Area at the end of Bollinger Canyon Road. We took Elderberry Trail as far south as it goes. This trail...
Hidden Falls Regional Park only has about 7 miles of trails, but that's just about right for us. It opened in 2006, but still looks brand new. There are signs (see photo) at every major junction with maps and an indicator showing "You Are Here". The sign posts are also numbered and the numbers are shown on the maps. I would say the trails are easy to moderate (there weren't any real...
After the some pretty heavy downpours during the previous week, we thought water levels would be up and we could see some nice waterfalls. We were right. There's a guide and several trips on EveryTrail for the Waterfall Loop at Uvas Canyon County Park. I usually search for another hiker's trip that I like, and then download their gpx file to follow. But for this hike was better to just get a...
Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve is another great EBRPD hike filled with history. It was California's largest coal (= black diamonds) mining operation in the late 1800's - early 1900's and continued with sand mining through WWII. There's supposed to be over 200 miles of tunnels in the park. We followed a western loop starting at the trailhead at the end of Somersville Road. From here we walked down the road to Nortonville Trail, stopping at...
We really enjoyed this hike. You'll need a permit to park on Welch Creek Road at or near the trailhead. There's a Lower and an Upper Maguire Peaks trailhead. We chose the upper because it was a little longer, but the lower (being lower) probably has more elevation gain.To get the permit, from I-680 take Calaveras Road past Welch Creek Road and turn left on Geary Road. Take Geary to the main...
