Roberts Redwood Regional Park

Roberts Redwood Regional Park (tucked in between Joaquin Miller Park and Reinhardt Regional Park in Oakland) is a wonderful park for families. My daughter and I explored this park together for the first time ever today on an easy hike.

Currently, the main entrance to the park is closed out of precaution for the COVID-19 pandemic (link); however, the park is open for walk-in access. We parked at the Redwood Bowl staging area near Chabot Space Center (in Reinhardt Redwood). We took the paved trail uphill and then veered to the right to head towards the Rotary Day Camp. We cut through the camp to get to the signed intersection; from there, we took a right  to  walk on Roberts Ridge Trail for about 0.25 miles. This is one of the two ways to walk into Roberts Redwood Park from the Redwood Bowl parking lot.

This series of intersections is a little confusing because there are a lot of unmarked trails that hikers and bikers have cut over the years. It's a good idea to keep your eyes out for the official trail markers so you don't get turned around.

As we were entering into Roberts, we saw the swimming pool and the playground. Both are closed for now, but that's fine. I'm ok to do my part--the recent spikes in COVID cases around the country have been frightening. It's just something to keep in one's back pocket for another summer when we are past this virus. I'm looking forward to that day, because this park looks like it would be an amazing place to bring the family for a day of summer fun. There are really nice picnic areas under the redwoods, a really cool looking playground, a pool, and a beautiful green lawn for playing sports.

My daughter and I just walked through the parking lot to access the Manzanita Loop Trail, which is very short and mostly flat. The trail to the little knoll in the middle offers impressive views of the major mountains of the Diablo range to the east: Mount Diablo, the ridges of Las Trampas, Pleasanton Ridge, Maguire Peaks, Mount Hamilton. and Mount Rose. There is a helpful panel to help you identify each of them. After completing the easy, most level loop, my daughter and I had a little picnic on the grass of the sports lawn because all the picnic tables are closed. From our bench on the sports lawn we could see the San Francisco Bay to the west. We then meandered through the redwood grove to check out all the points of interest until we made our way back to the kiosk of the park.

The inauspicious connector to Graham Trail skirts around the left side of the Park Office. We took that connector, and then turned left to get on Graham Trail heading north back towards the Redwood Bowl.

I really appreciated that most (but not all) of this hike was flat. This figure-eight loop was probably only about a mile and a half, but my daughter hiked most of it herself because she's getting a little big for me to carry her in the backpacking carrier. I really felt it every time I had to climb uphill even a little when she was in the carrier. This whole park seems to be designed for accessibility. It's really cool how thoughtful the East Bay Regional Park District was in planning the park to make it so that even people in wheelchairs can fairly easily get to explore the redwoods.