Canyon and Bear Ridge Trails at Pescadero Creek

This 7.6-mile hike is an excellent one to make in the spring, when the wild irises are blooming. It's in the fantastic Pescadero Creek County Park, which I have written about many times before (see here, here, here, and here). 

I took the loop above in a counter-clockwise direction. Starting at the Tarwater Trailhead, I took the Tarwater Trail Loop to Canyon Trail. Then I turned onto Bear Ridge, which first adjoins and then breaks off of the Bravo Fire Road. At the end of Bear Ridge, I hooked onto the Pomponio Trail and took that to the Shingle Mill Trail, which loops back to the Tarwater Trailhead. There is significant up and down on this hike, so it is pretty strenuous and not for people with bad knees.

This was a wonderful hike, that I would recommend to anyone who loves wildflowers. The irises were most concentrated along Bear Ridge and Pomponio; however, each stage of the hike offered different types of flowers. There were California Blued-Eyed Grass flowers blooming in the hilly grasses up near the trailhead; violets, forget-me-nots, and hounds tongues blooming in the shadows of the oaks; and redwood sorrel flowers blooming in the deep shade of the redwood groves. It was also cool to see the natural oil deposits in the creek that gives the Tarwater Creek its name.