1-22-13 Sibley

It must be about 30 years since I have been on the Huckleberry Trail between Redwood and Sibley Regional Parks in the Oakland hills. A section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail runs parallel to the trail in the canyon below, and I thought it would be nice to make a loop using both trails. I remember the Huckleberry Trail as about a mile-long path contouring across the east slope of the Berkeley Hills, in brush and woods with some relatively rare native plants along the way. I thought a weekday afternoon would be a good uncrowded time to go.

Darby and I arrived at the turnout at the north end of the trail, and to our disappointment, there was a sign saying "no dogs". So we needed a change of plans. Fortunately, the entrance to Sibley Regional Park is only a short distance north on Skyline, so we went there instead.

We took the trail to the right that circles around Round Top, the highest hill in the vicinity. Then we followed the Volcanic Trail exploring several of the quarry pits that line this ridgetop. The brochure and map explains the geology at many points along the trail, and is an interesting story of an ancient volcano, but without a little more explanation, it's not easy to see much more than a lot of rocks. It's a fun place to explore anyway, with steep-walled pits, and great views all around. We made it to the north end of the trail, then looped back on the Quarry Trail.



It was only a month or so after Darby was attacked by another dog and badly injured, so I was still quite nervous about running into dogs. We only passed one other dog with no problems until we were nearly back to the parking lot. Then, here comes a guy up the trail with seven dogs on leashes, and several of them were quite big dogs. We somehow got past without incident, but I wondered why some people think it is OK to walk more dogs than they can possibly control.

about 4 mi.