Morgan Territory 3-24-19

My Sunday morning was free so I went out to Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. I was thinking that it might be a good time for wildflowers, but I only found a few buttercups. The place was very green and beautiful anyway. As I started out from the Morgan Territory Road Staging Area, I remembered reading several years ago about the site of a village of the Native American people called the Volvons. It was not far outside of the park boundary, and although I didn't feel like climbing any fences today, I thought I might look around a bit. (see http://eastbayhillpeople.com/lost-city-in-the-east-bay-hills/ )

I started out heading into the southeast corner of the park. I knew that the village site was nearby but I couldn't remember exactly where. Sometimes it is nice to just wander aimlessly rather than following a planned route, and I was sort of in that kind of mood. A couple with a dog came by and stopped to look at their map. I said "maybe I should have picked up a map", and they offered to let me look at theirs, but I said "no, that's OK", and headed off the road on a narrow track across the grass. Being a little lost was not a bad feeling. The track led down toward a steep wooded ravine and I decided to turn back, circling around a little hill. There were lots of rocks around, and there right in front of me was one with a perfect round hole, an ancient bedrock mortar. There are supposed to be hundreds of them around the village site, but I was quite satisfied with finding just this one.

Still in my aimless mood, I continued along the road (the Whipsnake Trail), which turned to the southeast below an antenna crowned hill and past a stock pond. I came to a gate entering the Los Vaqueros Watershed. I didn't want to leave the regional park, so I turned back after enjoying a nice view over the distant Altamont hills.

On the hill below the antenna, there seemed to be the remains of an old road, and I thought it may be a shortcut heading north, so I followed it across the hillside. As so often happens, my shortcut came to the edge of a steep ravine blocking my way, so I headed back to the road and continued north.

I was enjoying the silence when a group of women hikers came up behind me, all talking loudly. The loudest of them was speaking an unfamiliar foreign language. Luckily, they all stopped to look at something and I was able to get ahead and regain my silence. At the Hummingbird Trail I turned left to loop around and start heading back toward the park entrance on the Volvon Trail and Condor Trail.

When I got home, I looked up more information about the Volvon village site. It sounds like if I had continued into the Los Vaqueros Watershed land on the Black Hills Trail, I would have soon come across the site. I'll go back and try that some time soon.

3.8 miles, 360 ft. climb