Tag: hiking

Tilden Park

Tilden Park
Tilden Park
Tilden Park
Tilden Park

While the San Francisco Bay Area is home to over seven million people, there are plenty of of opportunities to step away from the crowds find some peaceful open space. One of our favorite haunts is Tilden Park in Berkeley, which is more or less in our back yard. On Saturday we had family in town and with two dogs we headed to Tilden Park to take advantage of the calm between rain storms. This is a great time of year to take a walk in the park. The hills are green and some of the trails offer spectacular views of the Bay Area. The wildflowers are also starting to bloom. We saw poppies, lupine and a few other flowers. Tilden Park is a great place to walk with dogs, and several of the trails will accommodate dogs off leash as long as your dog is well behaved. The park encompasses over 2000 acres and in addition to trails there is a botanical garden, a steam train, a merry go rounds, a golf course and a number of other activities.

Mount Burdell

We found another dog friendly walk today; Mount Burdell Open Space Preserve in Marin. Our hike took us over grassy meadows, through groves of oaks and bay trees, and up to the peak at 1558 feet, where we stopped for lunch. There is also a communications tower near the peak. We avoided the tower which seemed to be the popular destination. We found a rock at the top which make a convenient place for our lunch. The rock also had a benchmark marking the top of the peak. A rock wall runs along the ridge at the peak and on the other side of the wall is Olompali State Park, with a trail that goes down to the visitor center. I suppose with some planning you could hike up the route we took and down through Olompali, although being a state park, dogs are not permitted, and our point was to find a dog friendly walk. We covered five miles with a 1300 foot elevation gain. There is quite a panoramic view from the top, although a bit hazy today, despite the clear skies. You can our track log here.

Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline

Pampus Grass and Ski. Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline
Lupine. Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline
View from the ridge at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline
Joann and Carson on the trail at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline
Boardwalk. Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline

Our quest for dog friendly hikes took us to the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline today. A 20 minute drive from our house. We were surprised to find that we had the trails more or less to ourselves. Some of the trails were a bit steep and showing signs of erosion. On our 90 minute walk we saw a dozen or so hikers and it seems we were the only dog walkers. Dogs can be off leash as long as you are in undeveloped areas, which is what we were looking for. Our dog Carson had great fun running off leash. He managed to catch a squirrel by the tail. Fortunately the squirrel got away without much effort. The park has shoreline and a beach where I’ve launched my kayak. You can also take a short hike to a ridge with spectacular panoramic views of the bay area, taking in Marin, San Francisco and the East Bay.

Meyssac Loop – The Road Less Traveled

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Today marks the first day of our Macs Adventure Walking Tour, an eight mile look from Meyssac, through woods, past farms, and to the village of Collogne-la-Rouge, an ancient town noted for red sandstone buildings. Our adventure had us on a variety of narrow country roads and ancient and well worn foot paths. A warm and sunny day, but we spent the better part of our walk in the woods, we had cool shade and a slight breeze. As we left Meyssac, we passed one farmer standing in front of his house calling his dogs that wanted to let us know who was in charge. Then we followed the postman for a bit up the track as we left town, once out of town though we didn’t see a single person on the trail. Once we arrived at Collogne-la-Rouge we were back among the tourists, although tourist season being over the town seemed more or less deserted, and while the town is very interesting for it’s architecture, the main economy seems to be tourism, and I find looking at tourist trinkets to be rather boring. Much more to share, but the hotel has rather limited bandwidth, so you’ll just have to stay tuned for the next post.

Quail Hollow Ranch

Pacific Madrone in Quail Hollow Ranch County Park
Pacific Madrone in Quail Hollow Ranch County Park

We had some time on Saturday afternoon to do a little exploring around Scott’s Valley and we discovered a lovely little park, Quail Hollow Ranch County Park. We’ve visited some of the more popular state parks in the area, but this was a treat. On a three mile loop we past on other hiker.  I’ve posted the track of the hike on GaiaGPS.

From the park office we took the Woodrat trail to the Sunset trail, with a short side trip to the end of the Sunset trail and back around the Sunset trail and Lower Chaparral trail returning to the park office. Despite the fact that there was a wedding going on near the park office, we only saw one hiker on the trail. The park encompasses an amazing variety of habitats,  from pond and surrounding riparian to dry chaparral and the unique sandhills habitat. You cans also find cixed evergreen forests, redwoods, and grasslands. We started in a grassland meadow and meandered through redwoods and coastal chaparral. A number of plants were in bloom including  Bush Poppies, Dendromecon rigida and  Sticky Monkey Flower, Mimulus. This is an easy three mile hike on well maintained trails.