Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park


Today we decided to do a short hike due to time constraints, so we decided to do a short hike on Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.  We drove there along a scenic road by Route 84 east, which runs along the Niles River.  We turned left at Main Street in Sonoma and took a right on Foothill Drive via Bond Street. We soon reached at the park trailhead at the southern end of the park. It seems that this park is heavily used based on the number of cars parked in the parking lot.

This trail has many loop options, long and short. We started the hike on Oak Tree Trail. This hike ascends gradually on a paved way with many cyclists going along.  As you go up you start seeing beautiful rolling hills. We also heard the I-680 highway noise. As we crossed Point #5, we saw a nice view of Sunol valley and Mission Peak. Although it got very hot today, the trail does provide some oak tree shade along the way. We did not see any cows grazing as you often see in the east bay hills.

As we turned around the small hill and came on the ridgeline, we saw the beautiful view of Castlewood Country club and Mt. Diablo. This ridge must be providing a gorgeous view in winter or spring, when everything is covered with green carpet. As we went up the trail, we passed a few picnic spots and water fountains. After marker #18, a shaded bench and a broken picnic table sits at a vista point. The view from the bench is very serene.  Therefore, we took a short break there and enjoyed the view.

Then, we started our trail again and reached marker #20, where the paved way for the cyclists ends. We decided to start our journey back from there and we came back along the Thermalito trail. At the marker #5, we took the Woodland trail to reach the trailhead. Our total hike took less than 3 hours and my NewYu showed that we walked for 5.95 miles. This hike’s gradual nature and many loops make it a great starting point for any fledgling hiker.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mt. Diablo State Park

Image
Surprisingly for the first time after summer break we had weather that was in the low 70s on the first Sunday of this fall. We decided to take advantage of good weather and hike up challenging Mt. Diablo Summit. Mt. Diablo height is 3849 feet. The hike starts at 400 ft level. We reached the North entrance of the park at 9.15 am. We checked the map at the ranger station, where the ranger suggested us to take gradual hike route Coulter pine trail instead of usual Mitchell Canyon route.   After stretching a bit, 3 of us started our 7-mile uphill hike. Since the weather was nice and initial slope was mild, we were covering the ground faster. Soon, we took the fire road, a downhill path; causing us to loose whatever height gain we had gained earlier. After a half-mile trail on fire road, we soon reached the back creek tail. This was a very steep uphill hike for next 2.5 miles. Even though this trail is in open, it is a very narrow trail through 5-6 feet tall shrubs.   As we
Read more

Windy Hill Open Space Reserve

Image
Hike Date: 10/23/11 This week we decided to hike Windy Hill Open Space Reserve. We reached there by Highway 280 taking Alpine Road exit to Portola Road. There is a nice parking lot accommodating 30 cars at the trailhead. The day was clear and temperatures in high 60s. The trail starts behind the restrooms. The trailhead is around 600 feet elevation. In 0.1 miles from the entrance we came across a nice and small Sausal Pond.  We took the Ridge Trail along the pond. In 0.6 miles you come across many forks on the trail. The trail does not gain much overall elevation change but goes up and down. We always kept the left and in 1.2 miles we merged into Eagle Trail, which ascends mildly. Eagle Trail goes along the Alpine Road for 0.7 miles along one side and a creek on the other side. At the end of Eagle Trail there is another entrance to the park. At this entrance we crossed the bridge on the creek and got on to Razorback Ridge Trail. This trail ascends very steep in the dense tall Redwo
Read more

Lake Ilsanjo, Annadel State Park

Image
I happened to be in Santa Rosa and had few hours of free time. Hence, I looked around to see where my son and I could hike. Google showed that Annadel State park was nearby. We decided to give the place a vist. The park has many trails and loops. We decided to do combination of loop trail for Lake Ilsanjo. While entering the park we saw a parking lot where lot of cars were parked, and we also parked our car there. The actual entrance of the park was about half mile from there. We realized that most of bicyclists park their cars there and cycle around the park. At the park entrance, we checked out a map and decided our route. We started with Channel trail at the trailhead. This trail goes alongside the road. After we 0.3 miles the trail turns right and starts a gradual ascent. After another 0.7 miles, the path forks, where we decided to take a left on the North Burma trail. On this trail we saw many live oaks, black oaks, and madrones. Around the end of the Burma trail, we saw a big g
Read more