Mount San Jacinto State Park is a really cool park to visit, even for the casual visitor. I visited this park back in 2012 with my dad. In this throw-back Thursday post, I'm sharing some of our photos from that visit.
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Last Saturday was a particularly mild January day, so I went out to a park that I've long wanted to visit: Ohlone Regional Park. Part of the appeal of this park is that it is so remote. Here is a blurb from the EBRPD website:
You have to hike or ride horseback to see this magnificent 9,737-acre parkland, accessible only by way of the Ohlone Wilderness Trail. Its centerpiece is 3,817-foot Rose Peak, just 32 feet lower than Mount Diablo. Surrounding Rose Peak are grassy ridges, profusely flowered in season. The abundance of wildlife includes golden eagles, mountain lions, and tule elk. Murrietta Falls, the tallest waterfall in the Bay Area can be found at this park, but the hike to get there is a real butt-kicker, and the waterfall is only seasonal--there is no guarantee that you will actually see it once you've gone all the way out there. On my hike on Saturday, I only went about halfway to Murrietta falls, to the scenic Williams Gulch. It was such a pleasure! This 4-mile loop was a longer extension of the easy 2.8-mile loop that I did last September at Morgan Territory. The trail is really peaceful and beautiful, and it was so nice to extend that route into something a little longer!
Another trip to one of my favorite parks in Northern California: Pinnacles National Park! This trip, I brought my brother and we took the same route that I took with my dad and my husband in March through the Bear Gulch Talus Caves. It is fun to compare and contrast the same hike at two different times of the year. The water was more impressive in March, but the light was just golden in early November. I recommend going at both times of the year.
Not this weekend, but last, I went on a really interesting 6.5-mile loop (with 1,200 ft of elevation gain!) through Las Trampas Regional Park in San Ramon. This hike offered stunning views of the entire Bay Area, wind caves, and a "box canyon" called Devil's Hole. I was surprised to see that golden poppies and sky lupine were still blooming late into October. I am glad to have done it while the skies were still clear. We are experiencing a historic wind event that is spreading wildfire in Santa Rosa and bringing smoke down to the Bay Area.
This is a throw-back to a trip I made down to SoCal in late March of 2015. I don't know exactly why I didn't post my pictures before, but Joshua Tree National Park has been on my mind recently. I went to my old album to look at my photos, and I was really inspired.
The last time I went to Morgan Territory, I was inspired by an impressive outcropping of rocks that formed a dramatic cliff face where falcons and raptors were circling and roosting. I decided to go back to Morgan Territory to do a trail that climbed up to the top rim so that I could get a birds-eye view from the cliffs. Even though it's late summer still, the colors were decidedly autumnal: golden browns, deep reds, and faded greens. It was very beautiful, but entirely different than what I saw in the spring.
Sibley Volcanic Preserve is part of the East Bay Regional Park district. It neighbors Huckleberry Botanic Preserve in the Oakland hills near the Montclair Village. This 2-mile loop around an ancient volcano is an easy, flat, one-hour hike that features lots of gorgeous wildflowers in the spring.
This 8-mile loop through Mount Diablo State Park's northern area is one of the best hikes that I have been on in recent memory. The different parts of the loop had wildly different ecosystems, which meant that every new leg of the trail offered something more. I think that this might be the tail end of the season to do this hike. Although I was lucky to see water in the waterfalls and wildflowers at every stage of the hike, it was starting to get hot. I can imagine that it would not be pleasant to do this hike in even a couple of weeks. I will have to come back here next winter or spring to do this hike again though, because it was incredible! Wildflower highlights
To celebrate the start of May, I went on an amazing hike at Sunol Regional Wilderness around Maguire Peaks, a distinctive set of peaks visible from Interstate-680. This 5.5-mile lollipop trail was so lovely in the spring. I saw an absolute abundance of wildflowers, especially winter vetch. The blooms looked like a river of purple rolling down the mountain here and there. It was amazing!
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