Bay Area Ridge Trail hike at Anthony Chabot

May 10th, 2009

Bug party

I mentioned a few entries back that I’ve gotten the Bay Area Ridge Trail hiking bug, and of course past hikes don’t count. I have to start from scratch and ‘officially’ add everything to the list. Yesterday I took the opportunity to knock of the stretch at Anthony Chabot Regional Park since David had a shooting competition at the range there. I also wanted to check out the wildflowers before the weather gets too much warmer. East Bay hiking is miserable in the summer heat, so we’re getting close to the end of the season over there.

The park is nice, though not one of my favorites. One of the reasons I seek out the Bay Area Ridge Trail sections in parks is because they, well, follow the ridges. Ridges usually mean good views and good hiking. Unfortunately, the stretch through Chabot doesn’t have too many open views, and the trail was very rutted from heavy mountain bike use, causing me to roll my ankle a few times. I was also accompanied nearly the entire day by the cracks and bangs of the shooting range - it was hard to get away from that noise when along the ridge. I was in kind of crabby mood to begin with, having not entirely slept off the previous night’s dose of NyQuil (even half a dose of that stuff leaves me in a haze the next day - blech). However, it wasn’t really a disappointing hike - there were some geocaches, many nice wildflowers to photograph, and several eucalyptus groves with their wonderful scent to keep me happy.