 Yours Truly in front of San Leandro Bay with the Oakland hills to the north behind her. | |
Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline Bike Ride For my third Trails Challenge 2009 “hike” (See original post about EBRPD's Trails Challenge) I didn't do a hike at all—I did a bike ride. Not all of the trails in EBRPD are just for travel by foot. Quite a few are available to wheeled users as well. Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline is one of these wheel-friendly parks as it has many paved pathways. I used this paved opportunity to take my bike out for a sunny Easter Sunday ride along the waterfront from Lake Merritt to MLK Jr. Reg. Shoreline including parts of Bay Farm Island & Alameda. Since only seven of the seventeen round trip miles where in the Trails Challenge Guide I've only included those seven miles in my Trails Challenge total. Trails Challenge “Hike” #3 Stats:
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Hike #3 Trails Challenge ’09
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Hike #2 Trails Challenge ’09
 Yours Truly contemplating the interesting trickle that was Murietta Falls on our visit. | |
Ohlone Regional Wilderness: Lake Del Valle to Murietta Falls & Stewart’s Camp Backpack For my second Trails Challenge 2009 hike (see original post about EBRPD's Trails Challenge) I chose a recommended hike that I’ve wanted to do for quite awhile now—Murietta Falls in the Ohlone Regional Wilderness south of Livermore. Murietta Falls is supposedly one of the tallest waterfalls in the Bay Area falling 100 feet over a huge chunk of serpentine rock jutting out of the surrounding grassy oak savanna and draining into La Costa Creek. The Trails Challenge trail guide lists it as “the longest continuous drop waterfall in Alameda County.” This waterfall however doesn’t have much water volume and can be less than spectacular or even dry if visited too late in the season or in a low water year like this year. The Trails Challenge guide lists it as a “winter” hike just for this reason, but I was willing to risk it as the weather was still cool—the San Francisco Bay Area's valley interior can get blistering hot—and since spring has sprung, I was hoping that the wildflowers would be out. Another consideration was that all of my trail guides stress the strenuousness of this trail. I figured I would better enjoy this hike as an overnight backpack which shortens the daily mileage and elevation gain/loss, and luckily, since stewart’s camp trail camp was available and only half a mile away from the falls I could. On our visit it turns out the falls were more of a dribble than a gush, but fortunately my hiking partner Amy's and my efforts were more than rewarded with vast views of lush green hills, fields of beautiful wildflowers, soaring raptors, frog-filled ponds, coyote howls and sweet solitude. Trails Challenge Hike #2 Stats:
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Hike #1 Trails Challenge ’09
 Western Hound's Tongue (Cynoglossum grande) seen on French Trail. | |
Roberts Regional Recreation Area & Redwood Regional Park Loop As I wrote a couple weeks ago the East Bay Regional Park District is hosting its annual Trails Challenge. Last Thursday I hiked my first official challenge trail of 2009. I chose a “summer” recommended hike as it was a nice warm sunny spring day and this route would be shaded by redwoods and oak woodland most of the way with just a smidge of chaparral and grassland. Being midweek I had the first half all to myself, but later in the afternoon I was joined by equestrians, mountain bikers, and dog walkers. Along the route, I was pleasantly greeted by plentiful wildflowers and a “serpentine prairie” right here in Oakland.
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 | California tortoiseshell butterfly (Nymphalis californica). It briefly landed on Dunn Trail in the Serpentine Prairie Preserve part of Redwood Regional Park. |
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 | Backlit sword fern on Graham Trail in Roberts Regional Recreation Area. |
Topographic map of my route. Click for a larger view.Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Trillium of Tres Sendas
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The day before St. Patrick’s Day it rained here in Oakland and I thought it would be really wonderful to go traipsing around the lush forest floor of Redwood Regional Park. I knew the rain would make the understory fresh and green and fill the creeks and tributaries, and also unfortunately make the trails muddy, but keep the crowds away. I decided to try some new trails including East Ridge Road and Prince Road, but what I really wanted to explore was more of Tres Sendas Trail. From previous visits I knew that Tres Sendas was flanked by watershed and deep within the shade of redwoods, so it would be particularly nice on a wet cloudy day. My decision paid off as I was rewarded with dozens of blooming trilliums along the path of Tres Sendas. Normally I only see trilliums with their buds munched off by ravenous deer or shriveled up long past their prime. The trillium is a pretty easy wildflower to identify and remember as there are three leaves, three sepals, and three petals... hence the “tri” in trillium. As you can see from the photos above the flower can range in color from white, to pink, to purple. I’ve seen two kinds of trillium in the local redwood forests. One is the Trillium ovatum pictured above, also called Western Wake Robin or Pacific Wake Robin, and the other is Trillium chloropetalum otherwise known as Giant Wake Robin, Giant Trillium, Common Trillium amongst other common names. Coincidently, Tres (as in Tres Sendas) means three in Spanish! Tres Sendas = Three Trails. Unfortunately, I was only able to explore the lower half of Tres Sendas as I took a wrong turn on French Trail and spent too much time lollygagging, and so chose a more familiar trail to return to the trailhead insuring that I got back to my car before dark. My Links:
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Thursday, March 26, 2009
Springtime in Oakland
 Daffodil amongst the Nasturtiums on Newton, March 7, 2009. |
Oakland has had a lot of dark news the past few months due to a sad slew of high-profile shootings. In a feeble attempt to brighten the mood, I thought I’d show a tiny bit o’ O-town seasonal color. The pictures above and below where taken on my way to deposit the ol’ unemployment check at the Patelco in “Uptown” Oakland, I spied this sprightly daffodil blooming amongst various layers of nasturtium foliage in my neighborhood and the purple magnolia(???) tree dwarfed amongst the high-rises near the new Catholic church— Cathedral of Christ the Light. |
 Magenta blooms on a tree with high-rise, March 7, 2009. |
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