Hiking High Above The Bay

Bee flies.  Dock beetles.  Banana slugs.  These species of “wildlife” joined us for our annual late winter walkabout above Blithedale Canyon and the Bay.

This 4.9 mile hike starts in the redwood-lined bottom of the canyon, ascends northward up the Corte Madera Ridge Fire Road, switches back southeast on H-Line Fire Road, drops down to the level Southern Marin Line Fire Road, nearly reaches Crown Road, then climbs steeply back to the southwest through the forest on the Hoo Koo E Koo Trail to the Blithedale Ridge Fire Road, before looping back down into the canyon again.



Water storage tanks along the first uphill section of the hike are a popular place for graffiti artists to display their skills.  One such “painting” is very fitting since we always encounter a number of dog-walkers on this outing.



This could be a very miserable place to hike on a wet, windy day, since only the uphill section on the Hoo Koo E Koo Trail has ample cover from the tree canopy.  But as has been the case in recent years, we once again had bright sunny skies filled with wispy clouds high above the view across the Bay to Mount Diablo where we stopped for lunch.



Wake Robin Trillium,  Shooting Stars, Indian Paintbrush, Indian Warriors, and Hound’s Tongue were some of the blooming plants that we passed as we climbed about 600’ feet over the course of 3.5 miles before losing all of our gains over the final 1.4 miles of the hike.

Three hours, fifty-five minutes, and thirty-four seconds after we started out we were back at creek-side in Blithedale Canyon, tossing our gear back in our cars.