Wednesday, October 8, 2014

China Camp: A New Hike

Trail construction and closure forced us to ditch both "Plan A" and "Plan B" for hiking yesterday at China Camp State Park.


Instead of the routes we've taken in the past, this time we parked along San Pedro Road at the park entrance that leads to the Back Ranch campground, discovered that we had to pay $3/person or have park pass just to hike in that section of the park, and headed up the Bay View Trail and Powerline Fire Road.



Fortunately, although the sun was shining on the hillsides and the temperature was warm, there was enough shade to keep our brains from being baked into adobe bricks.

We topped out at about 700' above sea level, now and then being rewarded with sweeping views to the north across San Pablo Bay toward Sonoma and Napa.

Steeply descending the Back Ranch Fire Trail brought us to picnic tables in the campground near the bottom of the hill, leaving us just a short walk back to our cars after lunch.

(Hike "D14 Bay View Trail - Miwok Fire Trail" in the Martin's book, Hiking Marin, shows these trails we walked, although we didn't follow the entire route for that specific hike.)


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