Briones Crest Trail, April 2020 Spanning 1,600 acres in the East Bay’s Contra Costa County, Briones Regional Park is a wonderland of woody valleys, rolling hilltops, and sun-soaked ridges with panoramic views of the Berkeley Hills, Carquinez Strait, Mount Diablo, and Ygnacio Valley. Once owned by a 19th century rancher, the Briones Hills are now …
Lafayette Ridge Trail, Briones Regional Park, March 2020 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Lafayette Ridge Staging Area)
Lafayette Ridge Trail, Briones Regional Park, March 2020 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Springhill Road Staging Area)
Blue Oak Trail, Briones Regional Park, November 2019 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Reliez Valley Staging Area)
Hayfield Trail, Briones Regional Park, March 2020 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the course …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Alhambra Creek Staging Area)
Lagoon Trail, Briones Regional Park, January 2020 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the course …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Park Office & Briones Road Staging Area)
Black Oak Trail, Briones Regional Park, February 2020 Note: This is part of a multi-post series chronicling the many possible day hikes in the East Bay’s Briones Regional Park, a 1,600-acre tract nestled east of the Berkeley Hills, west of Mount Diablo, and south of Martinez and Carquinez Strait. I tackled these hikes over the …
Continue reading Hikes in Briones Regional Park (Bear Creek Staging Area)
Grinnell Glacier, Glacier National Park, August 2024 Well, better late than never? We are now halfway into 2025, but, alas, work and other priorities produced a heavy backlog of blog posts from hikes in 2024 that I was only able to complete in the past few months. Yet the tradition of looking back on the …
Mount Saint Helena, Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, February 2024 Long before the Napa area became renowned for wine-making, author Robert Louis Stevenson—of Treasure Island fame—spent an extended stay here on the slopes of Mt. St. Helena, one of the highest peaks in northern California’s Mayacamas Mountains. The trip in 1880 inspired The Silverado Squatters …
Continue reading Mount Saint Helena (Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, CA)
Eagle Lake Trail, Sequoia National Park, July 2024 West of the Great Western Divide, California’s Sequoia National Park is effectively bisected by three branches of the Kaweah River—the Marble, Middle, and East Forks—all of which carve deep canyons fed by snowmelt from the 12,000-foot mountain range. Most visitors remain in the vicinity of the first …
Live and Let Hike 