11-8-13 Anthony Chabot

A Friday afternoon and Maureen and Cherry were going riding, and I felt like a hike. For the last couple of months I've had a pain in my left heel and it has gotten worse lately. But it wasn't too bad that day and I didn't think it would give me any problems. On a couple of my hikes I've explored some of the northern end of Anthony Chabot Regional Park, going out from Bort Meadow on the Grass Valley Trail and Ranch Trail. Both times I had turned left at the Goldenrod Trail and made a loop, but I had never turned to the right. I wasn't sure how this would work, because the map shows the Goldenrod Trail deadending without connecting with any other trail or road. I figured we could find some way to get from there to the Parkridge Drive park entrance.

So Darby and I started off from the Bort Meadow Staging Area on the now familiar trail past the meadow and then steeply up the hillside to the west. Turning right onto the Goldenrod Trail at the top, we found it much the same as to the left. A young guy on a mountain bike passed us and asked if we knew where the trail ended. I had to tell him I didn't know either. Soon we came to a gate with a road on the other side. The biker went out through it, but the trail continued so we kept following it. The trail ended at another gate, and through it was what appeared to be an equestrian facility, but it was deserted -- no people or horses. A couple of the structures looked quite new, and signs said that they had been funded by the 2008 bond issue. It looked like it could be a nice place to keep a horse, and it was surprising that it was unused. At the far end of the facility, past an interesting old Spanish-style building, we came to a gate with a sign "Private Property", and a driveway beyond it. I looked at my iPhone and saw that we were only 100 yards or so from Skyline Blvd. So we walked down the driveway and found the street. This part of Skyline is a divided road with a trail along the center divider, so we didn't have to worry about the traffic.

At Parkridge Dr. we turned right and walked several blocks on sidewalks to the end of the street and the park entrance. A few yards from there, we turned right on the Macdonald Trail which gradually descended along the eastern ridge back to our starting point. It seems that this section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail is a popular trail with mountain bikers, and several of them passed us going dangerously fast. I noticed a sign for the Brittleleaf Trail heading down the east side of the ridge. I don't know what Brittleleaf is or why anyone would want to go down this .39 mile, steep dead end trail, but maybe one of these days I will check it out.

Coming down the last hill, my heel was hurting quite a lot now, and I was glad to be near the end of the hike. It probably wasn't a good idea to hike with a sore foot because the next day I could barely walk on it. Now, after a couple of days rest, it is not so bad, but I need to take it easy for a while.

Back home, I looked up Oakland City Stables, and found out that it was in use as recently as last year and that it was the site of a popular program to let city kids learn about riding and working with horses. It has an interesting history going back to the 1820's and the Peralta family, the original landowners of most of the East Bay. Apparently, the city closed it because they couldn't find a suitable manager for it and didn't want to provide any funding to keep it open.

4.6 mi. 900 ft. climb