The last time I went to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, I kept thinking about how much I wanted to come back with my family. Well, we finally make it over the long Presidents Day weekend! Although it's about a two-hour drive for us from Livermore to Arnold (pretty long for a 2-year old to be in the car), it was well worth it. The photos from this blog post are all taken by my husband. Click "read more" to see more photos of the sequoias.
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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.
Bear Creek Redwood Preserve is a newly opened Midpen preserve near Los Gatos. It's been on my list to visit for a long time--first I was waiting for it to open to the public, then I was waiting for a good time to visit after I moved away from the peninsula. My daughter and I finally made the trek out here! Although we did not hike as far as I wanted, we both had an excellent time here, and I am looking forward to a return visit!
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! One of the nicest open space parks in my current hometown of Livermore is Del Valle Regional Park. I seriously love this park, and have been here now during every season. It's such a large park; however, that I am always discovering something new.
This trip, I decided to explore the easternmost side of the park, the Cedar Creek area along the park boundary. I really liked seeing the bright red pop of color of the bark of the incense cedars as I was hiking along! The parts of the park I had previously visited did not have cedars (mostly oaks), so it was really cool to see that difference. Today I took a vacation day from work to take advantage of something that doesn't happen all that often: snow in the East Bay! I had planned originally to go back to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, like I did last January; however, when I was driving my daughter to her school I could see that the summit of Mount Diablo was covered with snow. I love Mount Diablo, but until today I had never visited it with snow. It was wonderful!
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!
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.
I don't know why exactly, but I was expecting this park to be lame. I guessed from looking on the map at how close it is to both interstates 580 and 680 that it was going to be nothing but exposed ridgetop hikes with deafening traffic noise. While there was some hiking along the exposed Calaveras Ridge, the hike I took descended into a canyon and I could neither hear nor see the busy freeways nearby. It was unexpectedly tranquil!
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.
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