Back to some nice hiking after a long hiatus during my cycling trip. Today, I decided to hike Foothills Park again. I’m usually looking for new parks to explore, but I wanted to check out Los Trancos Trail, which is a long loop over interesting terrain and I hadn’t seen that part of Foothills Park.
(More below, after the fold.)
I parked at the Alexis Road entrance, which allowed me to start earlier than the official opening time of 8am, since I expected to be out for about 3 hours and wanted to avoid the heat I expected later in the day. On the other hand, it would make the hike longer, going from about 11km to over 15km.
From the entrance, it was a quick and easy walk to the Vista Hill overlook. The views weren’t great this morning, due to haze in the valley. I didn’t dawdle and soon I descended from Vista Hill to Orchard Glen, and the start of Wildhorse Valley fire road. From there, I turned at the trailhead for Steep Hollow Trail and started up a steep (hence the name) narrow valley. Here, there were sections with steps and sometimes the trail would pass through a copse of trees.
Steep Hollow Trail joined Los Trancos Trail, which I would stay on for about 13km. The trail soon turned south and roughly followed Los Trancos Road for a bit. I’ve often ridden my bike on this road, so it was interesting to see it from this perspective. After a bit, the trail entered a narrow valley, and started following alongside Los Trancos Creek. There was still water in the creek, despite it being well into the dry season. During this section, there were numbered bridges that crossed over side creeks, and the trail would often have a steep drop off to one side when I was higher above the creek.
After a couple of kilometers along the creek, the trail turned away, with a single bench marking this point where hikers could rest before continuing up the hill towards the ridge. It was a pleasant spot to rest for me before continuing. I soon reached the high point of my hike, which brought me close to Page Mill Road, and to a viewpoint of the bay. As was the case earlier, the haze did not make for good views.
I started descending from there, and soon reached the Wildhorse Valley fire road, and the Orchard Glen picnic area, where I stopped and enjoyed some pumpkin bread. There were numerous visitors that were also enjoying the picnic area, since the main gates had opened by then. I trekked past the interpretive center and up the hill to rejoin the trail back to my car.
This was one of the longer hikes I’ve done, but it was worth it for the section along the creek, and the views were still nice, despite the haze.
