Sunol 9-9-14

Maguire Peaks from Loop Trail

Seems that Tuesday hikes are becoming a regular thing. Maureen's horseback riding lesson means that I generally have the day free. I hadn't been to Sunol for a while, but I wanted to do something new, so I thought of the Maguire Peaks Trail. I had hiked it about 40 years ago, but my memories of that are pretty dim now. I do remember it as being a pretty long hike, and when I looked at the map I saw that it would be about 10 miles from the park headquarters. That sounded much longer than I had the energy for, but then I looked closer and saw that the park map showed a parking symbol on Welch Creek Road. Years ago, parking was not allowed anywhere on this road, but apparently, now it was permitted. The note on the map said that a permit would be needed, available at park headquarters. Starting from this road would cut the hiking distance by nearly half, so I set out to try it.

It was foggy when I left Hayward, but over the hill it was all sunny. Luckily, the day stayed relatively cool making the hiking much more enjoyable. Welch Creek Road is a steep winding one-lane road which is a bit scary to drive, and mostly with no shoulders, but I found a place to pull off about 100 yards above the start of the trail. Darby and I started off up the trail, a fire road climbing steeply out of the canyon. We passed what appeared to be the site of a former ranch, judging from the trees that didn't belong there — eucalyptus and redwoods. The redwoods were tall dead snags, victims of a fire. We kept climbing over a ridge and down into a little valley where a road branched left, so we turned on it. It soon became a single-track trail, and I realized that we must have made a wrong turn. But there was a trail marker, so we continued on. We passed through a group of cows with young calves lying in the grass nearby, and several of the cows started bellowing and coming after us. Undoubtedly they felt that their calves were threatened. I've never been attacked by a cow, so I was not really concerned, and we just kept walking past them and soon they went back to grazing.

On the north side of the peaks

We joined the correct trail again, and continued on the fire road around the west side of the peaks. The road climbed to a ridge with a great view of Sunol Valley and San Antonio Reservoir, and we sat on a bench for a few minutes to rest. A couple of guys appeared hiking the other direction. They said that they had started at the park headquarters, a long hike, but they looked pretty fit. We continued on down across the north side of the peaks, and finally around the east side to finish the loop. I noticed in several places patches of yellow-flowered tarweed, and its distinctive sweet aroma, something that I always enjoy about this season. The climb back over the first ridge was tiring, but no too bad, and we made it back to the car in pretty good shape. I usually use the gps on my iphone when I hike, and I did use it today, but I forgot to turn it off, so it read 29 miles when I got home — not very useful. Fortunately, the park map shows mileages for the trails.

Southeast of the peaks

It turned out to be a very nice hike, and it seemed to be a good place to get away from it all. It seems that this part of the park does not get a lot of use, especially on a weekday.

5.5 miles, 1300 ft. climb.