The second park we visited on the trip to Mendocino was Van Damme State Park, located a couple miles south of Mendocino on Highway 1. We did a run up the Fern Trail along Little River. The trail is aptly named as a carpet of ferns covers under thick stands of second growth redwoods and…
Category: Trail Running
Hendy Woods State Park
On Friday and Saturday Serena and I took a trip to Mendocino on the northern California coast. We lucked out with some great weather and were able to visit numerous state parks. Since there were so many great photographs, I will have a series of blog posts featuring a different park each time. The first…
Arastradero-Los Trancos Loop
This is a fantastic lollipop loop (one of my favorites) passing through Arastradero Park and Foothills Park. The highlight of the run is the narrow single track of the 7.39 mile Los Trancos Loop, complete with scenic views of the Bay Area and a great section in a narrow canyon along Los Trancos Creek with…
Pulgas Ridge Hike
Great hiking and trail running can be found at Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve, a little known gem across Edgewood Road from Edgewood Park. Views of the Santa Cruz Mountains and San Francisco Bay are great from the highpoint of the park, but the light was not particularly good for photography on this day. The…
Mindego Trail and Borel Hill Sunset
I walked the Mindego Trail in Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve a couple weeks ago. Mindego Hill was recently acquired by POST (Peninsula Open Space Trust), but remains closed to the public so I turned around at the gate on the Mindego Trail. It will be great to explore the beautiful lands of Mindego Hill…
Woodside 50k
I had a fantastic time running at the Woodside 50k organized by Pacific Coast Trail Runs (PCTR). This spectacular and aesthetic course covers ground in Huddart Park, Kings Mountain, Bears Gulch, and Wunderlich Park, containing some of my favorite trails in a true trail runner’s playground. Virtually the entire way is under lush forest canopy…
Quad Dipsea
I was expecting the Quad Dipsea to be epic, but definitely not the way that it unfolded for me. I started off decent and did the double in 1:57:30 but never felt strong like usual. I don’t know exactly where to attribute the weakness. Maybe hitting the first flights of steps too hard. Maybe the…
Thanksgiving Hike
Serena and I did a nice Thanksgiving hike up Corte Madera Creek (Windy Hill Open Space Preserve) and down Coalmine Ridge (Portola Valley Ranch Park). We walked Hamms Gulch Trail, Eagle Trail, Alpine Road, Lake Trail, and Old Spanish Trail. Here are a couple nice photos from the walk. I was enjoying the peaceful setting…
Sanborn-Castle Rock-Saratoga Gap Loop
Another fantastic run in the Santa Cruz Mountains covering lots of ground in four parks – Sanborn County Park, Castle Rock State Park, Saratoga Gap Open Space, and Long Ridge Open Space. This 23-23.5 mile loop took the base 12-12.5 mile loop I scoped out last time and made some great additions. The first addition…
Ridge Trail Service Day – Sweeney Ridge
On Saturday I participated in the Ridge Trail Service Day sponsored by REI to celebrate the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council’s 20th anniversary. There were 11 locations around the Bay in which over 400 volunteers helped improve and maintain the trails. I volunteered on Sweeney Ridge (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) in San Mateo county,…
Leor Pantilat's Adventures