3-3-12 Marciel Gate

On another beautiful Saturday, I was going to go out for another hike, when my son Christopher called and said he was planning to take his boys out hiking too. So we decided to go together. We met at Marciel Gate in Anthony Chabot Regional Park. We didn't really have any plan about where to go. We thought we would just start out and see how far the boys would be willing to walk. The boys -- my grandsons -- are Zachery, age 6 and Elisjsha, age 8. I knew that they both are often more interested in TV and video games than outdoor activities, so I wasn't expecting too much.

We started off heading northwest, turned left onto the Cottontail Trail, and were soon descending quite steeply into Grass Valley. The kids were doing fine, stopping to look at bugs and butterflies and whacking stuff with sticks. At the trail junction near the bottom, we stopped for a while and I suggested that if we turned left, we could make a loop rather than retracing our steps. I couldn't remember just how far it was -- the last time I was on that trail was a couple of years ago and we were on horseback. Christopher and the kids were willing to try it, so we started off again.

It turned out to be a bit longer than I remembered and more up and down, but it wasn't too bad. After about a mile of mostly easy climbing, the afternoon was getting warm, and the boys began to drag -- especially Zachery. Then Elisjsha began to complain that he was hungry. We had water, but no food, so Chris and I just had to keep telling them that we had no choice but to keep on hiking. We came to the Deer Canyon Trail, and now it was quite steep. We had some very slow going for a quarter mile, but it finally leveled off and we crossed the road. It was easy up and down for another half mile or so back to the cars.

In spite of all the complaining, I think the boys had a pretty good time and took some pride in their accomplishment.

2.5 mi. -- 500 ft. down and up