Chilling on the California Coast
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Wānaka tree. Framed by New Zealand’s snow-capped Southern Alps, the sparse yet expressive willow bows to one side in the frigid shallows of Lake Wānaka. Modest tourist interest ticked higher in 2014 thanks to an award-winning photograph of the tree swaddled in winter fog. Today, you can review the tree’s many moods on Instagram and other social media. Search for #thatwanakatree.
Multiple brochures and blogs – even our tour company – describes the hike up New Zealand’s Rocky Mountain at Diamond Lake as moderate. Some sturdy AllTrails contributors dismiss the 4.4-mile loop as easy. Don’t believe them. The trail is deceptively difficult.
Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain Track, 4.4 miles, 1,591 feet (March 5, 2024)
Continue reading “An Unexpected Glute-stretcher at New Zealand’s Rocky Mountain”
Most days, a peek inside prospector Sam Summer’s stone hut might be the highlight of the Mount Crichton Loop. Or the view of New Zealand’s Lake Wakatipu from an outcropping not far from the trail’s apex. Instead, a night of rain drowned the stepping stones across 12-Mile Creek, And so a tricky swift-water crossing became our most memorable trail moment.
Mount Crichton Loop 4.8 miles, 1040 feet of elevation gain (March 4, 2024)
Continue reading “A Creek Quandary at New Zealand’s Mt. Crichton – Boots or Barefoot?”
We began our Bay Area Ridge Trail adventure in April 2021 at Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Three years, 403 trail miles, 530 total miles and 13.7 miles of elevation gain later, we completed the last of the 73 segments listed in the 2019 Ridge Trail guide book with a difficult 12-mile tramp across Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve at Los Gatos.
We are hiking the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Sierra Azul Trudge ‘Completes’ Bay Area Ridge Trail Odyssey”
The Bay Area Ridge trail at Trione-Annadel State Park begins on a connector path through Howarth and Spring Lake parks in Santa Rosa. It snakes past a pair of reservoirs – Ralphine and Spring lakes – wraps around a bevy of water tanks and crosses an earthen dam. Upon reaching the state park, the trail parallels Spring Creek before rising into wooded highlands on the east side of Bennett Mountain. As the rocky track descends, it passes through a marshy meadow and finally a series of switchbacks through a blackened redwood forest. Portions of the state park were damaged by the 2017 Nuns fire and 2020 Glass fire.
We are hiking the 407-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “A Deadfall Scramble on the Ridge Trail at Trione-Annadel”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve begins on a ridge 2,000 feet above the Santa Clara Valley. The trail traverses the face of a steep hillside before rising and then dropping steadily into the valley below. It ends abruptly just past the park’s historic homestead, where a locked gate, yellow caution tape and sign with skull and cross bones make clear that the last two miles are closed indefinitely.
We are hiking the 407-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “A Sea of Clouds below the Ridge Trail at Sierra Vista Open Space”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail winds past parking and picnic tables along the wooded banks of Penitencia Creek at Alum Rock Park before ascending, more steeply than anticipated, more than 1,500 feet into the pastures and chaparral of the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. The parking lot was full when we arrived at 10 a.m. on a weekday. But we found a curbside spot in the San Jose neighborhood just outside the park. Trail traffic was minimal once we began hiking uphill.
We are hiking the 407-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “A Ridge Trail Toe Jammer at Alum Rock Park”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Mount Umunhum climbs steadily and occasionally steeply through a mixed forest of madrone, bay laurel and oak. The 3,486-foot peak, pushed skyward by a left bend in the San Andreas fault, is the fourth highest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In addition to the requisite views and a large parking lot, the summit contains “The Cube,” the shell of a Cold War era radar installation that was decommissioned in 1980.
We are hiking the 410-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Logistics Complicate Ridge Trail Hike at Mount Umunhum”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail grew nearly four miles this summer with the grand opening of the Máyyan ‘Ooyákma – Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve. The five-mile loop that encompasses the Ridge Trail begins with a steep ascent – nearly 900 feet in the first mile – through grasslands to Máyyan ‘Ooyákma, which means “Coyote Ridge” in the native Chochenyo language. The trail runs along the ridge for about a mile before looping back to the trailhead. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority requires a “Butterfly Pass” for the Ridge Trail segment. Hikers also must clean their boots before entering the sensitive preserve.
We are hiking the 424-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Bay Area Ridge Trail Grows at Máyyan ‘Ooyákma”
Seeking spectacular desert landscapes or ocean breezes? You won’t find them at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Looking for amazing mountain vistas? Look elsewhere. Hoping to get away from it all? Not here. But you can find a nice selection of walks in the woods with food and lodging nearby.
Continue reading “Falls & Ledges at Cuyahoga, Ohio’s Only National Park”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Joseph D. Grant County Park rises and falls along a ridgeline with a view of San Jose to the west and the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton to the east. Large and lovely meadows bookend the trail at the north and south ends of the trail. Watch out for feral pigs.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Big Sky & Wild Pigs at Grant Park on the Ridge Trail”
The core of the Bay Area Ridge Trail across Mission Peak Regional Preserve rises 1,600 feet in just three miles from the parking lot at Ohlone College. It then rises some more. The trail flattens out as it bypasses Mission and two other peaks before diving steeply down the west side of the mountain toward Ed R. Levin County Park. The views and elevation gain are breath-taking. Recent trail extensions meander through neighboring hills at the college and county park.
We are hiking the 400-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Battling Ridge Trail Anxiety at Mission Peak”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Hood Mountain begins with a gentle climb from the St. Francis Winery and Vineyard in Santa Rosa toward Hood Mountain Regional Park and Open Space Preserve. Upon entering the preserve, the trail spikes skyward to a ridge about 300-feet short of the 2,730 foot summit. Fire damage from 2020 and storm damage from 2023 litter the mountain. The views of Sonoma Valley are lovely.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Hood Mountain Jump Starts Ridge Trail Trek”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail parallels Penitencia Creek for nearly four miles through two large community parks and beneath Highway 101 in San Jose.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Urban Hiking at Penitencia Creek on the Ridge Trail”
Some people bag peaks. We bag lighthouses. The New Dungeness Lighthouse off the coast of Sequim, WA, poses a unique challenge.
The light station sits in the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the end of the Dungeness Spit – the longest sand spit in the United States. Lighthouse visitors must make the 10-mile round-trip trek at low tide or get swamped in a jagged thread of tumbled rocks and driftwood that crown the spit’s high water mark.
Dungeness Spit Trail (Aug. 25, 2022) – 10.2 miles
Continue reading “A Hike to the Light at the Tip of the Dungeness Spit”
A glacial valley that boasts 140 inches of rain per year cradles the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. Moss and lichen-covered spruce, hemlock, fir and other native tree varieties rise from the valley floor along the banks of the Hoh River and its South Fork. A layer of ferns and shrubs undergirds the canopy. The South Fork Hoh Trail is a less-traveled alternative to the Hall of Mosses and other trails located near the Visitor Center on the Hoh River’s main branch.
South Fork Hoh Trail (Aug 20, 2022) – 8.1 miles, 265 feet of elevation gain
Continue reading “A Trail Less Traveled in the Hoh Rain Forest”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail across Sonoma Mountain climbs a series of switchbacks at North Sonoma Mountain Regional Park and Open Space before crossing a narrow isthmus of dedicated open space and plunging headlong into the forest at Jack London State Historic Park. The “wall” was purely psychological as we crossed the 80 percent completion threshold on our Ridge Trail trek.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Battling the Ridge Trail ‘Wall’ on Sonoma Mountain”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Santa Teresa County Park begins with a steep, mile-long hike up to Coyote Peak and its magnificent view of the South Bay. After returning to the starting point, the trail undulates through the park before exiting down a rocky set of switchbacks and picking up suburban footpaths along the banks of Calero and Los Alamitos creeks.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “A Boot Conundrum at Santa Teresa Park on the Ridge Trail”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail winds past the remains of California’s oldest commercial mining operation at Almaden Quicksilver County Park. The trail segment runs across land first tapped for its mercury content in 1845. Look for the partially reconstructed ruins of a 20th-century processing plant trailside above English Camp and other buildings in the surrounding hills and valleys.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Quicksilver Relics at New Almaden on the Ridge Trail”
The Bay Area Ridge Trail at Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park rises gently above the 90-year-old Coyote Dam and Reservoir and meanders through a pasture on the ridgeline east of Gilroy. Recent rains left the hills a brilliant green and portions of the trail a cattle-churned quagmire.
We are hiking the 405-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail. Sign up to follow our progress here.
Continue reading “Boot-sucking Mud above Coyote Lake on the Ridge Trail”