Round Valley

Miwok Trail near beginning of hike

Earth Day was a good day for taking a hike. I didn't realize that it was Earth Day until I was already driving to Round Valley Regional Preserve for a hike, and I heard it on the radio. I had been interested in checking out this park for a long time, and actually went there to hike with my dog, Darby, a year ago, but discovered at the park entrance that dogs are not allowed. So today I left Darby at home and went by myself. I drove out on 580 to Livermore, and then Vasco Road toward Brentwood, and then Marsh Creek Road to the park. This was probably the easiest way to get there from the Hayward area. On the return drive, I went the other way, through Clayton and Walnut Creek, and it seemed to take a lot longer even though it looks more direct on the map.

I arrived at the parking lot at about 11:30 am, and was surprised to see maybe a couple dozen cars there. Most regional parks are usually almost deserted on weekdays. The Miwok Trail starts out climbing a hillside, but soon levels out and most of this hike was relatively flat. I soon found the reason for all the cars as I passed a large group of hikers going the other way. After that I saw only a few other people on the trail. The trail follows a creek up a canyon for about a mile, and then the hills open up and you are in a broad, flat valley. It is really great that this valley has been preserved because there are very few places in the Bay Area where flat ground has been left undeveloped. There is a lot of park land around, but almost all of it is hills.

On Murphy Meadow Trail

I turned left on the Murphy Meadow Trail and headed across the valley. The hills to the southwest present a fairly dramatic escarpment, rising steeply about 1500 ft. from the valley. The trail skirts along the base of these hills and then rejoins the Miwok Trail. If one were to continue on the Miwok Trail, you would climb to the top of the hills and into Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. Maybe one of these days, I'll try to organize some friends to do a car shuttle and hike this trail link.

On Miwok Trail

On Miwok Trail

I turned left on the Miwok Trail and headed back across the valley. It was a beautiful day, a bit cool and breezy with a few puffy clouds. The meadows and surrounding hills were all brilliant green. I took a lot of photos, trying to capture the beauty of it all, but most of them fall short of my expectations. I noticed lots of ground squirrels all over, and they seemed fairly unconcerned about me walking near them. Then I realized that it is probably because there are no dogs in this park. If Darby had been here with me he would have been having a great time chasing the squirrels back into their holes.

 As I walked back down the canyon, I was getting a bit tired and quite hungry, since I didn't bother to bring anything to eat. When I looked at the GPS on my iphone and saw that I had walked nearly 6 miles, I felt better about being tired. But because this trail is mostly level, it didn't seem as hard as some of the shorter walks with hills that I've done recently.

6.0 miles, 560 ft. climb

Five Canyons

Along the ridge

I do a lot of walking in the Five Canyons area because it's close to home. Today I did a loop that I hadn't done in a while that shows off some of the best trails in the area. One of the reasons that I wanted to do it today was that I was curious about what happened to Eagle's Nest Ranch, the place where we boarded our horses 4 years ago. At that time they kicked us all out and closed the ranch. We've heard various rumors about the place over the years, and the latest was that they had leveled all of the buildings. The Five Canyons trail that I chose to take today has a great view down into Palomares canyon and the site of Eagle's Nest Ranch, so I hoped to see for myself what they had done.

I started off at the Recreation center where there is a swimming pool and tennis courts. The trail almost immediately heads down into a pretty little shady canyon. Then it crosses a road and goes through another little canyon, and then past a small playground (Ridge Trail Park), along a service road, across Five Canyons Parkway near the development entrance with its fake waterfall, and up a hill along the edge of the development. Then it comes to a paved road leading up to some water tanks, a pretty steep climb, and it soon reaches the top of the highest hill in the area.

 There was my view of the former Eagle's Nest, and it was indeed leveled — all except for a couple of small sheds. I don't know why I cared, but we had our horses there for three years and we have a lot of good memories of the place. From there it was all downhill, first along the ridge, and then steeply down into the canyon. Going down the shady canyon along the creek, I ran into a couple of old friends who I hadn't seen in quite a while. They told me that they had seen some newts further down the trail in a pool in the creek. I looked, but didn't see any, but in past years I remember lots of newts along this creek. Even with some pretty good rains in February and March, the creek is mostly dry now.

As I was hiking, I began to think about the name "Five Canyons". There seems to be only two obvious canyons here, the one with the Shady Canyon Trail and the one with the Deer Canyon Trail. Then I realized that there must have been five small canyons here at one time, but three of them were filled in by the grading for the development. This is just another example of developments all over California that are named for the natural environments that were destroyed to build them. I guess it all started just after the gold rush when they cut down a grove of oak trees to build a town and named it Oakland.

3.3 miles, 750 ft. climb

Bishop Ranch

Grey Fox Trail

I'm finally recovered enough from my heart surgery to start doing some hiking again. Actually I've already been doing some 2-3 mile walks for the past several weeks, but on trails that I've already written about here on this blog. Everyone seems surprised that I am doing so well, but it feels to me that after 2-1/2 months, it's about time that I'm back to my old self. I still have to go slow on the hills, but there's no need to hurry and I get there eventually.

Today seemed like a good day for a hike, and at first I thought of going someplace without Darby, maybe Mt. Diablo or Round Valley. But then I started feeling sorry for him being left at home, So I decided to check out Bishop Ranch Regional Open Space, which I hadn't visited in a very long time. On the map it looks like a pretty small park, but on the ground, there seems to be plenty of space for a pretty good workout.

It was a perfect day for hiking. The morning fog had just burned off as we started out a little before noon, making it cool and sunny. We started up the Grey Fox Trail, climbing steeply. In fact it is so steep that someone has carved steps into the dirt of the hillside to make it a little easier. It eases up a bit after the first hill, but continues climbing all the way to the top of a ridge. It was a beautiful walk with green grass everywhere and lots of buttercups and other wildflowers. From the top there are nice views of the higher hills to the south and of the San Ramon valley to the northeast. We turned right on the Red Tail Hawk Trail heading northwest along the top of the ridge.


My plan was to make a loop by going down the Stream View Trail, so I kept looking for a trail sign or a trail heading off to the right. We soon came to an unmarked fire road heading right. It appeared to cut across the hillside to a water tank. It didn't quite match up to what I expected from the map, but we tried it anyway. As we neared the water tank, there was a sign saying "Red Tail Trail", and at the tank, there didn't seem to be any trail heading down towards the creek, so I figured that we had gone too far and missed our turn-off. I didn't mind too much because it was a pretty trail and a gentle slope back up to the ridge.

Stream View Trail

We found the correct turn-off, unmarked and barely visible because it was overgrown with new grass, and we headed steeply down to the creek again, and then along the hillside just above it. After a while, it climbs a bit and then a footpath branches left and heads down nearer the creek and leads back to the starting point. As usual, Darby was thirsty by now and quickly found a little running water to drink. I would guess that in a few weeks more it will be all dry. So it turned out to be a very enjoyable couple of hours, and a place that I will probably come back to again soon.

3.6 miles, 700 ft. climb