B
Beej
Guest
Hey, guys...
A long Google path led me to this group, and since I just had a fun
local ride today, I thought I'd share it with y'all. Less technical,
more atmospheric. I hope that's ok.
Sorry for the metric, but I'm a scientist and I'm rebelling. ;-)
-Beej, first usenet post in years
The weather was showing a menacing storm cloud hovering off the coast,
and general overcast, so this might have been one of the last chances
of the season for a good dry ride. The overcast was keeping it cool,
too, which was good since I figured there'd be the usual UP and DOWN of
your standard Far East Bay park.
Started from the Lafayette BART station and headed up Happy Valley Road
to Panorama Road. A short but good warmup, this, climbing about 60
meters.
Panorama climbs hard, and then keeps climbing hard as you turn off on
Mariposa Trail on the dirt. I passed the westbound Mariposa turnoff,
and opted for straight northbound. Lots of dry tall yellow grass on
both sides, with groves of oak here and there. Fantastic gorge views
toward Layafette ridge to the right, and the trail even narrowed to an
obvious ridge at one point.
More serious climbing on Mariposa until it intersected Russell Peak
Trail, which continues up to Russell Peak, elevation 413 m (maybe 250 m
up from the start of Panorama Road.) And then it eventually turned
into Briones Crest Trail.
Up until now, I'd been generally unhappy with the ups and downs. It's
far from my favorite type of riding. But I was pleased to find that
things generally improved once up past Russell Peak.
(Maybe next time I'll try coming in from Lafayette Ridge Trail,
instead, even though the last climb on that up to Briones Crest looks
daunting.)
There are a few cattle gates on this route. One of them, a beefy one
just south of the Seaborg/Briones Crest intersection, has a broken
hinge.
And there are a few cows, too. I stopped for a pick-me-up powerbar
after the intro climb was over and had a chat with three cows that were
sitting under a nearby tree chewing their cud, my partners in
preprocessed culinary delights. They were non-responsive.
Back on and feeling renewed, the ups and downs seemed a little less
crazy than before.
Clipping along toward the Crescent Ridge turnoff, I spotted a baby
snake in the road ahead, repeating patterns on its back and sides! I
swerved and brought my snake-leg high, avoiding him smartly. But of
course I had to turn around to look.
(A week before, we'd had a run-in with a 1 m rattler in Ventana
Wilderness between Redwood and Sykes Camps, so I was a little nervous!)
But this time, it was just a gopher snake. Probably. I didn't ask for
a venom sample.
Overcast skies kept me cool as I arrived at the Briones Crest/Table Top
Trail interchange. I had originally planned to stick to Briones Crest,
but I'm a sucker for a view, and Table Top was looking like it had a
view.
Good decision! I cranked up there, and enjoyed a nice relatively-flat
ride along this great grass-lined trail, with views of Mount Diablo,
Concord airport, the Benicia Bridge, and the Mothball Fleet. The delta
dominated the distant horizon.
Curving back west, I rejoined the Briones Crest Trail and after a small
dip, crested at Briones Peak (elevation 552 m.)
>From there, it was all downhill to the Maricich Lagoons. The trail
bent and twisted easily down the grassy hill. I passed a jogger and
his pup, the first person I'd seen in the park (save a hiker and her
two dogs I'd seen just exiting the park on Panorama Road.)
I got to the bottom of the hill and for once didn't get my map out,
thus making the only wrong turn of the day. (By the time I sorted it
out, I didn't feel like going back just to see the water fountain at
the north end of the park.) As such, I didn't see the Maricich
Lagoons, but turned northwest to stay on the Briones Crest Trail,
instead of transitioning to the Old Briones Road Trail like I'd
originally intended.
But I did see the more-impressive Sindicich Lagoons instead! These
were beautiful reed-lined ponds, complete with ducks lazily paddling
back and forth, wakes cutting silently over the dark surface of the
water.
Up a mild hill to the (other) Lagoon Trail turnoff, I was greeted with
more sweeping vistas, this time more northward. On a clearer day, it
might have been even more magnificent, but today I was glad to not have
a 1pm sun beating down on my back.
At this point, I decided to depart Briones Crest Trail, and headed down
Abrigo Valley Trail to check out the group camps that were down there.
This trail was steep and loose, and included the steepest and loosest
terrain I saw, both in the same 20 m stretch of trail! It looked like
maybe a grader had been out there recently.
(In retrospect, I would have stayed on Briones Crest, and then turned
south on Santos Trail to get down to the same point, presuming Santos
Trail is better... and then I would have had more of a chance to enjoy
those Briones Crest views.)
In short order, I was down at the bottom of Abrigo Valley, and came to
the Wee-Ta-Chi Camp nestled in a grove of oak. Filled up my water
bottle, and continued down the valley, curving gradually to the left.
Crossed the Abrigo Valley creek, but it was bone-dry.
This is a great little valley, with oak groves and grassy meadows. The
gradual downhill makes it a joy to coast through.
The next group camp was Maud Whalen Camp, where I unfilled some of my
water. (It looked like the bathrooms at Wee-Ta-Chi were locked, but
not so at Maud Whalen.) This camp has a covered firecircle with
capacity for probably 30-40 people.
Continuing down the valley, it's a quick downhill 1.5 km to Oak Grove
and Newt Hollow picnic areas near the main entrance.
Here I met the second person of my trip, a jogger who was just starting
her run. She asked me how to get to the view, and I gave her the
reverse of my route. I wish I knew more, but it's only the first time
I've been here!
With names like Oak Grove and Newt Hollow, which would you eat lunch
at? Of course, Newt Hollow. There was a big grassy area with a flat
concrete pad 2 m in diameter in its center... I presume this is newt
country? There were no newts to be found this day, however.
I sat down and ate my peanut butter sandwich lunch, which had been
comically flattened in-bag by the heavy-duty bungee-lashing I'd
applied. Oh well.
No one was in the parking booth as I rode by, and headed up to Seaborg
Trail, destination: Archery Range. (I love the name of this trail, by
the way.)
Since I'd been thinking about getting back into archery, I wanted to
check out what the Bay Area had to offer, which is actually what led me
to this park in the first place. So I pedaled the short distance up
Seaborg (!!) to Crescent Ridge Trail, and then to the range.
There was already one gentleman there from the Briones Archery Club,
named Carl. He gave me the complete scoop on everything that had to do
with Bay Area and Northern California archery, which was most
excellent.
The atmosphere on the archery range is much much different than on the
shooting range. The range itself is nestled in a small oak-lined
canyon under Crescent Ridge. I like it.
>From there, it was back to Seaborg, where I intended to have a look at
the less-developed Homestead Valley Camp. But instead I was distracted
suddenly by an giant herd of goats coming out of the camp road!
I stopped my bike and got off, having no idea if you could actually
spook goats, or what. They didn't seem scared, but were definitely
gravitating toward me. Must have been the tasty-looking brake cables.
Fortunately, before any taste-testing could occur, the two goat-dogs
intervened and herded them away to the west. The shepard (goat-herd?)
said hi, and told me I could keep on riding--I guess goats aren't
easily spooked after all.
I was so impressed by the skills of the dogs, and by the fact that a
few lonely raindrops were starting to fall out of the darkening sky,
that I forgot about the Homestead Camp, and just kept heading up the
canyon past the broadleaf trees growing out of the seasonal creek next
to the road.
Seaborg is an easy trail until the last bit, where it basically shoots
straight up the hill. Ugh. Very powdery trail, too, but not so much
you can't pedal up.
It might be steep, but that part's mercifully short. And I was back on
Briones Crest Trail again, this time heading home. One final climb up
Russell Peak (because once a day just isn't enough, I guess!) and then
it was down the crest back to Panorama Road. The light rain was just
enough that I was starting to flip mudflecks into my face (haven't been
able find my sunglasses since the Ventana trip) but the firetrail was
still solid.
Panorama Road and Happy Valley Road were damp (downhill muddy tires wet
asphalt woo), but it was easy from there back to BART and home!
Overall, this is a mighty fine park, I think. There's a lot of
opportunity for a lot of big loops. I'm even willing to forgive the
up-downiness, and that's saying a lot.
I'd rate the ride as moderate exercise, low technical difficulty. 23.6
km.
A long Google path led me to this group, and since I just had a fun
local ride today, I thought I'd share it with y'all. Less technical,
more atmospheric. I hope that's ok.
Sorry for the metric, but I'm a scientist and I'm rebelling. ;-)
-Beej, first usenet post in years
The weather was showing a menacing storm cloud hovering off the coast,
and general overcast, so this might have been one of the last chances
of the season for a good dry ride. The overcast was keeping it cool,
too, which was good since I figured there'd be the usual UP and DOWN of
your standard Far East Bay park.
Started from the Lafayette BART station and headed up Happy Valley Road
to Panorama Road. A short but good warmup, this, climbing about 60
meters.
Panorama climbs hard, and then keeps climbing hard as you turn off on
Mariposa Trail on the dirt. I passed the westbound Mariposa turnoff,
and opted for straight northbound. Lots of dry tall yellow grass on
both sides, with groves of oak here and there. Fantastic gorge views
toward Layafette ridge to the right, and the trail even narrowed to an
obvious ridge at one point.
More serious climbing on Mariposa until it intersected Russell Peak
Trail, which continues up to Russell Peak, elevation 413 m (maybe 250 m
up from the start of Panorama Road.) And then it eventually turned
into Briones Crest Trail.
Up until now, I'd been generally unhappy with the ups and downs. It's
far from my favorite type of riding. But I was pleased to find that
things generally improved once up past Russell Peak.
(Maybe next time I'll try coming in from Lafayette Ridge Trail,
instead, even though the last climb on that up to Briones Crest looks
daunting.)
There are a few cattle gates on this route. One of them, a beefy one
just south of the Seaborg/Briones Crest intersection, has a broken
hinge.
And there are a few cows, too. I stopped for a pick-me-up powerbar
after the intro climb was over and had a chat with three cows that were
sitting under a nearby tree chewing their cud, my partners in
preprocessed culinary delights. They were non-responsive.
Back on and feeling renewed, the ups and downs seemed a little less
crazy than before.
Clipping along toward the Crescent Ridge turnoff, I spotted a baby
snake in the road ahead, repeating patterns on its back and sides! I
swerved and brought my snake-leg high, avoiding him smartly. But of
course I had to turn around to look.
(A week before, we'd had a run-in with a 1 m rattler in Ventana
Wilderness between Redwood and Sykes Camps, so I was a little nervous!)
But this time, it was just a gopher snake. Probably. I didn't ask for
a venom sample.
Overcast skies kept me cool as I arrived at the Briones Crest/Table Top
Trail interchange. I had originally planned to stick to Briones Crest,
but I'm a sucker for a view, and Table Top was looking like it had a
view.
Good decision! I cranked up there, and enjoyed a nice relatively-flat
ride along this great grass-lined trail, with views of Mount Diablo,
Concord airport, the Benicia Bridge, and the Mothball Fleet. The delta
dominated the distant horizon.
Curving back west, I rejoined the Briones Crest Trail and after a small
dip, crested at Briones Peak (elevation 552 m.)
>From there, it was all downhill to the Maricich Lagoons. The trail
bent and twisted easily down the grassy hill. I passed a jogger and
his pup, the first person I'd seen in the park (save a hiker and her
two dogs I'd seen just exiting the park on Panorama Road.)
I got to the bottom of the hill and for once didn't get my map out,
thus making the only wrong turn of the day. (By the time I sorted it
out, I didn't feel like going back just to see the water fountain at
the north end of the park.) As such, I didn't see the Maricich
Lagoons, but turned northwest to stay on the Briones Crest Trail,
instead of transitioning to the Old Briones Road Trail like I'd
originally intended.
But I did see the more-impressive Sindicich Lagoons instead! These
were beautiful reed-lined ponds, complete with ducks lazily paddling
back and forth, wakes cutting silently over the dark surface of the
water.
Up a mild hill to the (other) Lagoon Trail turnoff, I was greeted with
more sweeping vistas, this time more northward. On a clearer day, it
might have been even more magnificent, but today I was glad to not have
a 1pm sun beating down on my back.
At this point, I decided to depart Briones Crest Trail, and headed down
Abrigo Valley Trail to check out the group camps that were down there.
This trail was steep and loose, and included the steepest and loosest
terrain I saw, both in the same 20 m stretch of trail! It looked like
maybe a grader had been out there recently.
(In retrospect, I would have stayed on Briones Crest, and then turned
south on Santos Trail to get down to the same point, presuming Santos
Trail is better... and then I would have had more of a chance to enjoy
those Briones Crest views.)
In short order, I was down at the bottom of Abrigo Valley, and came to
the Wee-Ta-Chi Camp nestled in a grove of oak. Filled up my water
bottle, and continued down the valley, curving gradually to the left.
Crossed the Abrigo Valley creek, but it was bone-dry.
This is a great little valley, with oak groves and grassy meadows. The
gradual downhill makes it a joy to coast through.
The next group camp was Maud Whalen Camp, where I unfilled some of my
water. (It looked like the bathrooms at Wee-Ta-Chi were locked, but
not so at Maud Whalen.) This camp has a covered firecircle with
capacity for probably 30-40 people.
Continuing down the valley, it's a quick downhill 1.5 km to Oak Grove
and Newt Hollow picnic areas near the main entrance.
Here I met the second person of my trip, a jogger who was just starting
her run. She asked me how to get to the view, and I gave her the
reverse of my route. I wish I knew more, but it's only the first time
I've been here!
With names like Oak Grove and Newt Hollow, which would you eat lunch
at? Of course, Newt Hollow. There was a big grassy area with a flat
concrete pad 2 m in diameter in its center... I presume this is newt
country? There were no newts to be found this day, however.
I sat down and ate my peanut butter sandwich lunch, which had been
comically flattened in-bag by the heavy-duty bungee-lashing I'd
applied. Oh well.
No one was in the parking booth as I rode by, and headed up to Seaborg
Trail, destination: Archery Range. (I love the name of this trail, by
the way.)
Since I'd been thinking about getting back into archery, I wanted to
check out what the Bay Area had to offer, which is actually what led me
to this park in the first place. So I pedaled the short distance up
Seaborg (!!) to Crescent Ridge Trail, and then to the range.
There was already one gentleman there from the Briones Archery Club,
named Carl. He gave me the complete scoop on everything that had to do
with Bay Area and Northern California archery, which was most
excellent.
The atmosphere on the archery range is much much different than on the
shooting range. The range itself is nestled in a small oak-lined
canyon under Crescent Ridge. I like it.
>From there, it was back to Seaborg, where I intended to have a look at
the less-developed Homestead Valley Camp. But instead I was distracted
suddenly by an giant herd of goats coming out of the camp road!
I stopped my bike and got off, having no idea if you could actually
spook goats, or what. They didn't seem scared, but were definitely
gravitating toward me. Must have been the tasty-looking brake cables.
Fortunately, before any taste-testing could occur, the two goat-dogs
intervened and herded them away to the west. The shepard (goat-herd?)
said hi, and told me I could keep on riding--I guess goats aren't
easily spooked after all.
I was so impressed by the skills of the dogs, and by the fact that a
few lonely raindrops were starting to fall out of the darkening sky,
that I forgot about the Homestead Camp, and just kept heading up the
canyon past the broadleaf trees growing out of the seasonal creek next
to the road.
Seaborg is an easy trail until the last bit, where it basically shoots
straight up the hill. Ugh. Very powdery trail, too, but not so much
you can't pedal up.
It might be steep, but that part's mercifully short. And I was back on
Briones Crest Trail again, this time heading home. One final climb up
Russell Peak (because once a day just isn't enough, I guess!) and then
it was down the crest back to Panorama Road. The light rain was just
enough that I was starting to flip mudflecks into my face (haven't been
able find my sunglasses since the Ventana trip) but the firetrail was
still solid.
Panorama Road and Happy Valley Road were damp (downhill muddy tires wet
asphalt woo), but it was easy from there back to BART and home!
Overall, this is a mighty fine park, I think. There's a lot of
opportunity for a lot of big loops. I'm even willing to forgive the
up-downiness, and that's saying a lot.
I'd rate the ride as moderate exercise, low technical difficulty. 23.6
km.
