Del Valle 10-19-15

It was a beautiful fall day and I felt like getting outdoors for a while, but not for a long hike. It seems that lately my hikes have been getting shorter and easier, but I haven't yet given up on longer ones. While thinking about places to go I remembered that several years ago when I checked out the regional parks Trail Challenge, one of the trails listed was at the north end of Del Valle, an area I had never seen. We have been horse camping several times at Del Valle in past years, and have ridden on some of the trails, but always at the south end of the lake where most of the facilities are -- marina, swimming areas, campgrounds. At the north end, there is not so much going on. There is Camp Arroyo, a youth camp used by the YMCA and the Taylor Family Foundation, there is the dam, which is a restricted area, and there is a trail leading south to the reservoir.

Darby and I drove out there at mid-day, passing Sycamore Grove park, the Veterans Hospital, and Wente Winery to the Arroyo Road Staging Area. The trail passes through an old walnut orchard, crosses the creek, and begins climbing the hill rather steeply. Soon views open to the north of Wente's vineyards and golf course and the valley beyond. The steep grade doesn't let up until you reach the top of the hill, and there before you is a great view of the lake. I had expected to get a good view of the dam, but it is hidden behind a hill in a restricted area. I could see the East Shore Trail descending along the treeless hills, looping around Heron Bay, and the Heron Bay Trail heading down closer to the shore. I had thought about making a loop using those trails which would add a couple more miles, but now that I could see the trails, they didn't look that interesting. We just turned around and headed back down the hill.

We were on the trail only a little over an hour, but climbing the hill had given us plenty of exercise and we enjoyed the views.

2.0 miles, 500 ft. climb

Sunol 10-5-15

A week and a half after hiking at Sunol I had another free day and I decided to go back and try the Welch-Flag Hill Trail that I had noticed on the map last time. This time the weather was cooler and felt like I could handle a bit more climbing. My plan was to find some place to park on Welch Creek Road and start hiking from there. The only problem with that is that the park doesn't allow parking on the road without a permit. It's a one-lane road with no shoulders and very few places where it would even be possible to park if it were allowed. But on most weekdays the park is very lightly used and there are no rangers around, so I figured that I could probably get away with breaking the rules a bit.

First, I drove a short distance up Welch Creek Road just to check out the beginning of the trail and see if there was room to park. About a quarter mile up I saw an unmarked gate on the right. Parking looked possible but not welcoming because of a ditch and a pile of logs in the way, so I turned around and went back down to near the start of the road where there was plenty of room on the shoulder.

Hiking back up the road made me a bit nervous because the road is so narrow that it would be difficult to get out of the way if a car came by. Luckily, none did. Once through the gate and on the trail, I relaxed and enjoyed climbing a little oak wooded canyon. I noticed a lot of bumps and hollows along the way that were probably the result of old landslides. This whole area near the mouth of Welch Creek has some wild topography — very steep rocky hillsides rising from the valley that is the track of the Calaveras Fault. Soon the canyon opened up and then the trail climbed steeply up the nose of a ridge overlooking another steep little canyon which opens up into a valley. Soon there is a trail junction with the Flag Hill Loop Trail.

Looking back, a sign informs me that the "Welsh to Flag Hill Trail" terminates at the road and that I will have to return to Flag Hill. Obviously, they don't want people using the road as a trailhead as I did. By the way, I noticed that all of the signs along the way spelled Welsh with an "s", as in "someone from Wales", while on the map it is spelled with a "c". I turned left and continued up another steep ridge and then around the head of the valley. I came out on the ridge of Flag Hill a little below the summit, and enjoyed the big view over the central part of the park. Soon I was at the cliffs that I had seen on my previous hike, and cautiously approached the edge to take a photo. I generally like being on high places, but when it is a sheer drop off, I suddenly get very uncomfortable near the edge. I settled for a shot from a couple of feet back. The trail then continued down the ridge and back into the valley to complete a loop.

It turned to be a really nice hike with lots of interesting stuff to see along the way. If it weren't for the parking situation, I would heartily recommend it to anyone, but apparently the park district doesn't want people doing what I did today, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for getting someone into trouble for it. So I'll leave it up to you what to do with the information.

3.6 miles, 1000 ft. climb

Sunol 9-25-15

I was feeling rather aimless as I set out for a hike with Darby. We drove to Sunol without any plan and when we got there I looked at the map and noticed a trail that I don't remember seeing there before, the Flag Hill Loop Trail. We started off in that direction, but the day was pretty warm and my energy level was rather low, and wasn't too sure I felt like climbing all the way up Flag Hill. So when the trail began heading uphill away from the creek, I noticed that a well worn path continued along the creek. I thought we would follow it a short ways to see where it went. I was surprised to find that it just kept going. After a mile or so, I figured that it probably went all the way to Welch Creek Road, but then an old overgrown ranch road branched up the hill to the right, so I decided to check that out instead. It curved back along a bench a couple hundred feet above the creek, so we kept following it. The west face of Flag Hill was above us with some quite impressive cliffs at the top, cliffs that aren't visible from the main part of the park. The road finally dwindled away to nothing, but we soon found a gate that led to the Flag Hill Trail which we followed down to our starting point.

It was enough of a hike for a low-energy hot day, and it was interesting to see an unfamiliar corner of the park. The trail along the creek appeared to be quite well traveled, especially by horses, and I don't know why the park district doesn't show it on their maps. Maybe they don't want people disturbing the cattle, although much of the rest of the park is used for grazing as well. While hiking, I thought that we may have gone beyond the park boundaries, but the map shows that it is all park land. The Flag Hill Loop Trail will have to wait for another time, and I also noticed another unfamiliar trail on the map, the Welch-Flag Hill Trail. Perhaps I can combine them both in a future hike.

2.9 miles, 550 ft. climb