03/28/15: Briones Regional Park

holy crap it was hot out yesterday! i think it hit 80 °F and the whole hike was pretty much exposed. there was some shade at russell peak though!

after eating a chicken wing on russell peak, with my face covered in salt

hike description

from the East Bay Trails Challenge 2015!

route

    

it's a balloon

-> lafayette ridge trail

-> right at buckeye ranch trail (see below for alt)

-> right at springhill trail

-> left back onto lafayette ridge trail

if you want to go to russell peak

-> don't turn right on buckeye ranch trail and stay on lafayette ridge trail a smidge longer

-> turn left up a skinny trail when you hit briones crest trail

-> when you come back down, remember to turn right onto lafayette ridge trail instead of taking briones crest trail, like we did

-> left at buckeye ranch trail

elevation and distance

start = 372 ft; max = 1263 ft; gain = 1482 ft

took us 4 hours and 45 minutes, mostly because i needed to take a ton of breaks b/c of all of the hills. mapmyrun showed it being under 1500 ft of total gain but the description says over 4000 ft! it definitely felt A LOT harder than 1500 ft so i'm going to bet that the description had it right. we also ended up walking more b/c we added a little to go up russell peak and we walked the wrong way a little.

our experience

we invited two of our buddies to join us on the hike this time! it was the first time elbert and joe met. they both don't usually hike but came to hang out with us.

elbert, me, may, joe at russell peak

we saw some butterflies and lizards running around, both which are difficult to take pics of with my phone. plus, i was too busy downing bottles of water to take that many pictures this hike.

lots of wildflowers, california poppies and not sure what the purple guys are

my calves are pretty sore today. i was definitely using the wrong muscles. gotta remember to let the big guys AKA the quads do more of the work on all of these hills. and follow may's advice of BUTT OUT on the downhills.

rolling hills

may, after she ran up one of the earlier hills

crazy steep dusty downhill

i love this one b/c you can see the trails on all of the hills  

we took advantage of any shade we could find on this hike since there wasn't much

#strugglecity

we saw lots of poop on the hike (cows? horses? dogs? hopefully not human?) and finally saw some cows near the end!

may & elbert w cow

the white one looks fuzzy!

the best view of the hike!

so happy to see the parking lot again

this was our first challenging trail that we've done from an East Bay Trails Challenge. it was seriously no joke. there isn't really any point of the hike where you can really relax. and without much shade, it's definitely rough to do on a hot day. bring lots of water! may made it through 2L so i would recommend at least that much.

03/14/15: Windy Hill

we spent the whole way up trying to figure out if it was win-dy or wine-dy. there were a ton of switchbacks on the way up and no breeze at all so i was leaning towards wine-dy but when we got to the top, it was definitely win-dy.

why did we start the hike at 2pm, the hottest time of the day?!?!

hike description

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/whsrhg.html

route

it's a loop

-> spring ridge trail
-> hamms gulch loop
-> lost trail
-> anniversary trail
-> spring ridge trail
-> betsy crowder trail

elevation and distance

start = 565 ft; max = 1891 ft; gain = 1464 ft  

the hike was about 7.4 miles and may ended the hike early by accident so the elevation drops more at the end. it took us just a little under four hours.

our experience

there were a ton of different wildflowers on the hike and also poison oak! i think that's why this trail only allows dogs on leash only. also saw lots of bikers.

poison oak! three leaves together and they look like pillowy clouds

haha i thought i saw some marijuana plants but they were pretty close to the trail so probably not? though this sign shows that it's obviously a problem

yeeeeeeaaaaaah, starting the hike at 2 pm during the hottest time of the day on like the hottest day of march since the bay area started keeping track was a bad idea. at least the way we went up was mostly covered? but still dying the whole way

creek, where it was a little cooler

we passed a ton of entrances into the preserve along the way, which was nice b/c there was a bathroom where we started and another one near the top! and that means lots of options for starting points if you want to do something a little different.

someone we passed said they had seen a rattlesnake which totally freaked us out. not really sure what you're supposed to do if you see one but i figured we would just slowly back away and then walk the way we came. luckily we didn't see one but we did see this guy! may stepped over it and didn't even notice! wasn't able to get a clearer picture before it slithered off the trail.

little snake we saw. no idea what kind

i also saw this guy and screamed when i saw it b/c i thought it was a snake. may got excited but was disappointed that it was only a lizard.

benches! we sat here to enjoy the view and to eat our snack

we didn't see signs for the actual hill but luckily we doubled back in time? there was another side trail that we missed. i think the one we took (circled in red below) is actually windy hill, since it seemed higher up than the other one.

from here: http://www.openspace.org/preserves/maps/pr_windy_hill.pdf

the view of the other hill

the view of highway 35

picture at the top!

no panorama of the view this time since my phone kept crapping out while it was trying to save it and we forgot to charge the battery for the real camera.

pretty flowers!

i loved this one in the middle of the trail

this one had interesting leaves and we liked the color of the flowers