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.