There are a couple of fairly new regional parks in northern Contra Costa County that interested me, so today I checked out one of them, Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline near Martinez. I was a little reluctant to drive so far for a short hike, but the drive wasn't really that bad -- 45 min. or so.
Finding the Nejedly Staging area on Carquinez Straits Scenic Drive took a little hunting through the little old streets of the Martinez waterfront, but we found it. There was only one other car in the parking lot, and as Darby and I prepared to go, the woman at the other car called out to me, saying that she had just locked her keys in her car. I was going to let her use my cell phone to call AAA, but just then she noticed two tow trucks parked in an upper parking area. She went up and talked with them and returned a bit upset because they rather rudely informed her that they weren't associated with AAA, and for 100 some odd dollars, they would help her, but otherwise she could get lost. So she went ahead and used my phone to call AAA.
We started up the Hulet Hornbeck Trail which climbs steeply and steadily up a shady little ravine. I remember Mr. Hornbeck from years ago when I was working on my book and went to meetings of the East Bay Trails Council. At that time he was in charge of land acquisition for the park district. I met him a couple of times, as well as one of his assistants, a young guy named Bob Doyle, who is now the general manager of the district.
At the top of the ridge, we had to choose between a couple mile loop trail to the right or the continuation of the Hulet Hornbeck trail which follows the ridge to the left. The map showed the loop trail going pretty far down into a canyon meaning a lot more climbing, so I chose to go left. We went about a mile with lots of nice views before turning around and retracing our steps. We took the Rankin Park Trail back down off the ridge (the map shows two trails with the same name -- we took the western of the two). Near the bottom, we found a little path to the left along the upper edge of a cemetery that led us back to the staging area.
The locked-out-woman was back at her car, having got her car unlocked and finished her hike and run. She thanked me again for helping.
about 3 miles, 700 ft. climb
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