A Diablo Loop Hike: 58 parks in 11 Days

[Amy Lauterbach]

A Diablo Loop Hike: 58 parks in 11 Days

We (Amy and James) have completed a number of multi-day backpacking trips in the San Francisco Bay Area. See some earlier trip reports at:

Point Reyes Circumambulation
San Francisco to Point Reyes Loop, 5 days
Novato to San Francisco
Palo Alto to Santa Cruz
Monterey Bay from Santa Cruz to Point Pinos

However, we had never done a long trip in the East Bay, an area rich in public lands. James had been working on planning this route for over a year, and the weather forecast looked excellent in early March, so off we went.

The Route

You can view the route map and download kml/gpx files at our CalTopo map; they include the basic 207-mile route, along with some diversions. There is a folder of water sources and a folder of resupply locations.

This trip is a loop that can be started and completed at any point a walker might choose. We have a goal of using public transit to access our local walks, and bus service between Palo Alto and Union City is fast and frequent, so we selected Union City as our start. We walked counter-clockwise, but see no reason the other direction wouldn’t be as good. The Loop is also easily accessible by BART at several locations.

The route is 207 miles in length. On our trip we walked an additional 11 miles for resupply and other diversions, for a total of 218 miles. Altitude gain is something over 44,000 feet. To put the Diablo Loop in perspective, the John Muir Trail is 210 miles in length and has a gain of around 46,000 feet. Below is a map of the route.

The route traverses at least 58 designated pieces of public land. These include a National Park Historic Site, a State Park, many East Bay Regional District preserves, local city parks and recreation areas, non-motorized trail corridors, and so forth. By piecing all of these together, road walking (on a paved public street or on a sidewalk next to a street) is reduced to around 10 miles. Even though the route traverses Union City/Fremont, Livermore, Walnut Creek and Hayward, very little of it is on actual city streets because each of those towns has cross-town trail corridors.

In many parks, there are numerous alternative ways to get from Point A to Point B; our choices were often arbitrary and others could easily select variations which would lengthen or shorten the route. Hike your own hike.

The big challenge James faced in building this route was finding links between parks, staying on various trail corridors and keeping off of roads as much as possible. Some of the links are not obvious from just glancing at a map, and much research and a lot of exploration with Google Street View and satellite imagery and other tools was done to parse out these links.

Roughly half of the loop follows the yet to be completed Bay Area Ridge Trail. Over time things do change on the ground as the Ridge Trail Council and other agencies work to acquire and develop more parks. We know of at least two significant areas where planning and/or current trail work is being done that will eliminate some of the road walking and make the park-to-park connections even better, and we will update the route information when those connections are available.

The loop passes over three significant East Bay summits: Mission Peak, Rose Peak, and Mt. Diablo. There are many less significant high points that offer fantastic views as well, and spectacular panoramic views of the entire Bay Area are frequent.

Habitat varies and includes open rolling grasslands, oak woodland, riparian corridors, some small amounts of coniferous woodland, and a bit of chaparral as well. Some areas have active grazing, so don’t be surprised to have to interact with a cow or two.

The Loop passes the Lindsey Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, the John Muir NHS in Martinez, and the Chabot Space and Science Center in the Oakland hills for those who enjoy a bit of culture on their hike.

The route only requires climbing over a couple of fences and the only trespass we are aware of is a very short crossing of a railroad right-of-way at the south end of Crockett Regional Preserve. This is actually is not posted “No Trespassing” but caution is advised when crossing the tracks and on the short bridge spanning two lanes of Highway 4.

Resupply

There are plenty of grocery stores that are either directly or very close to the route, with a major supermarket on route every ~50 miles. There are also a variety of conveniently located cafes and restaurants. Access to water was not a problem, as public water sources are relatively frequent. There are also stock ponds and creeks if you are willing to clean the water before drinking, however these sources are seasonally dependent and may not be available in the summer. Water sources in urban areas are not mapped.

Camping

There are a number of public campsites along the route. However, they all require reservations. Reserving a campsite from East Bay Parks requires at least five days notice and is a stupidly complex process. There are also motels in some locations along the route that could be used for overnights. We elected to stealth camp and had no problems finding suitable sites. We were never, to the best of our knowledge, observed camping by outsiders. We did follow standard stealth rules: set up at dusk, break camp before sunrise, no fires (not even stoves), no lights, no noise, no litter. Just be aware that if you do stealth camp, you will be in violation of park regulations.

Permits

Two permits are required and easily obtained:
SF Watershed lands and the Ohlone Regional Wilderness.
East Bay Municipal Utilities District lands.

Summary

We greatly enjoyed this walk. It is always a pleasure to be able to take a backpacking trip close to home without using a car. We are incredibly lucky to have vast amounts of open space, some of which is functionally wilderness, so close to home. Even though we have hiked extensively in the Bay Area for 35 years, we were still able to see parks and regions we had never visited. The diversity of the hike was excellent and passing through populated areas just added to the fun of the trip. The weather was good, the grass was green, the flowers were blooming, and the birds were singing.

List of Parks

Alameda Creek Trail
Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area
Centerville Community Park
Fremont Central Park
Gomes Park
Mission San Jose Park
Mission Peak Regional Preserve
Sunol Regional Preserve
Ohlone Regional Wilderness
Del Valle Regional Preserve
Arroyo Road Trail
Sycamore Grove Park
Holdener Park
Robertson Park
Sunken Gardens Park
Almond Park
Robert Livermore Park
Springtown Public Golf Course
Springtown Preserve
Christensen Park
Altamont Creek Park
Brushy Peak Regional Preserve
Los Vaqueros Watershed
Morgan Territory Regional Preserve
Mount Diablo State Park
Diablo Foothills Regional Preserve
Shell Ridge Open Space
Briones to Mount Diablo Regional Trail
San Miguel Park
Heather Farm Park
Larkey Park
Alacantes Ridge Open Space
Springhill Park
Briones Regional Preserve
John Muir National Historic Site
Carquinez Straight Regional Shoreline
Crockett Hills Regional Preserve
Muir Heritage Trust Fernandez Ranch
Pinole Valley Watershed
Pinole Park
Sobrante Regional Preserve
Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area
Wildcat Regional Preserve
Tilden Regional Preserve
Siesta Valley Recreation Area
Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve
Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve
Redwood Regional Preserve
Chabot Regional Preserve
Cull Canyon Regional Preserve
Independence Park
Don Castro Regional Preserve
Five Canyons Park
Hayward Greenbelt Park
Old Highlands Park
Garin Regional Preserve
Dry Creek Regional Preserve
Charles F. Kennedy Park

A Few Photos

Mission Peak RP east side

Los Vaqueros watershed

Morgan Territory RP

Carquinez Straights

Golden Gate from Wildcat Canyon RP

Mt. Diablo from Sibley Volcanic RP

Mt. Diablo from Cull Canyon RP

[Paul Wagner]

Thanks for posting this, Amy

[Erik G]

You and James are an inspiration! I've done a few trips based on your trip reports, and they've been great. My wife and I are hiking the BSL this June (clockwise FWIW).

THANK YOU for the detailed trip reports and highly creative trip ideas!

[Warren G]

That's an inspiring trip, and I'm sure the planning was complicated.

Have you considered Henry Coe Park? You can easily spend a week there, and there will be days where you won't see anyone, particularly in the Eastern part of the park. You wouldn't have to carry as much food if you like to eat Bass. You could link Coe Park to some of the other park areas along Coyote Creek if you wanted a longer trip.

[Amy Lauterbach]

ErikG – Thanks for letting us know that the reports are useful! We make use of other people's reports, and so we try to write ours in ways that are useful to others planning their own trips. Have a great trip in SEKI. Hopefully the June mosquitos won't be too bad this year, given the anemic snowpack.

WarrenG – funny you should ask about Coe. Jim and I have spent over 300 days there over the past 30+ years, including many dozens of days conducting bird surveys at Coe and adjacent private ranch lands. We've probably taken 30 or 40 multi-night backpacking trips there. We don't post any trip reports for Coe backpacking trips because there are so many other reports available that it seems repetitive. Here's one trip that was a bit non-standard in terms of what most people do:
http://amyl.smugmug.com/Backpacking/BayArea/200911-Coe-Thanksgiving

This recent East Bay loop trip was a fun challenge to figure out the best way to connect all the parks. And just today Jim read that the Muir Heritage Land Trust recently acquired another piece of property that looks like it will allow us to make one more tweak to eliminate a piece of the ~10 miles of road walking! Little by little that route will be perfected.

[HkNewman]

Great adventure! Were you able to minimize pack volume by eating with everything available? Seems food volume could almost be done away with (guessing no stoves?).

[Richard Nisley]

Amy,

Thank you for posting another very informative trip report. As a Bay Area resident, your adventures always get filed in my "to-do" list. Please keep up your exploration of this area!

[Warren G]

Good stuff Amy. 300 days in Coe… It's quite a place, and you obviously know it very well. Your photos from your Thanksgiving trip show many of the locales we've enjoyed during our three trips to Coe this year. Last weekend my wife and I camped at Coit Lake for two nights, and we did a day trip over to Kingbird Pond. The trail to the pond wasn't visible in places, and it looked like we were the first ones to visit this Spring. The bass were hungry! I'm sure you remember the wildflowers along Orestimba Creek Road-they're really good right now.

I'm wondering, with so many nights spent sleeping outside, when you are home, do you sleep in a bed, or on a sleeping pad?

[Jacob D]

Amy,

I've followed some of your past trip reports as well and have to say this is right up there with them! Another very cool, our of the norm, Bay Area adventure.

Stealth camping is, unfortunately, much much easier to do around the open and not-so-open spaces of the Bay Area. Just a few weeks ago I was mulling over a long route on the B.A. Ridge Trail thinking how cool it would be to do a local thru-hike of moderate distance, following the trail… unfortunately the camping options (or lack of) all but crush that idea.

It's a bit of an irony that we have SO MANY great open spaces, and a fairly substantial trail system that interconnects many of them (sans a few gaps) but non-existent facilities for those who would do multi-day walks, sleeping outside.

Sorry about that little de-rail, it's an issue that bugs me though :)

Trips close to home like this always feel a little more special to me. Congrats on what looks like an amazing walk about!

[Link .]

Amy,
I love your trip reports! I always look forward to reading them, they are so detailed and inspiring!! Keep up the great reports and trips!

[Catherine D]

Amy,

This is very inspiring. I'm so glad to have discovered your trove of trip reports.

[Ethan A.]

I've learned a lot from your trip reports – about both places and how gear and technique worked for you and Jim in different locals. One of the magical things about your trip reports in and around the Bay Area is how they invite one to see the region with fresh eyes, when so many of us tend to overlook or take for granted what's right in our backyard.

Truly a treasure trove. Thank you very much for investing the time and sharing.

[Ethan A.]

Amy you do an amazing job of using online and mobile tools for pre-trip planning, while on the trail and for illustrating trip reports. If you can spare the time one day, it would be great if you could share a list of the tools you use and how you use them.

[Sharon J.]

As usual, Amy and Jim inspire with the creativity of their route-planning, and the thoroughness of their trip reports.

Since a couple of people have commented on the dearth of (legal) camping options, I thought I'd post an article announcing a new park plugging one of the gaps in the SF Bay Trail.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_28053871/park-district-set-start-work-bay-area-camping

Unfortunately, its proximity to the Dumbarton Bridge isn't its only drawback. Concern has been raised over the soil used to fill in the old quarry. Bringing in outside water may (or may not) be advisable.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_24928839/fremont-agency-oks-pesticide-laden-soil-dumping-dumbarton

[Danny Milks]

This trip report is simply inspiring! We live at the base of Mt Diablo and have been to many of these parks, but to put it all into one long loop is fantastic. Really takes advantage of the nature in the east bay. Thanks Amy for chronicling and sharing your trip.

[Kristin Tennessen]

Really inspiring! I second how frustrating it is to make EBRP camping reservations.

[Manfred]

Amy & Jim,

it's always wonderful to see your trip reports. Thank you for sharing the detailed route, including water sources, etc. Jim's planning is always amazing me.

Now I just need to decide which part to do for the upcoming 4th of July weekend :)

Best Regards,

Manfred

[Amy Lauterbach]

The Bay Area Ridge Trail recently announced that they opened a new section of trail that connects Garin to Chabot parks. The newly opened section eliminates one of the major road/town sections of this Diablo Loop Hike. Hurray. I've updated the CalTopo map – the old section is shown in orange, and the new route is now incorporated into the primary red line. The next major piece of town/road walking will be replaced in 2018 when EBRPD plans to open another seven miles of Ridge Trail south of Garin Regional Park, reaching to Niles Canyon.

[John Topping]

Amy & Jim,

Thanks again for another great trip report. This isn’t a trip I am ever likely to do (not very local!) but still an interesting read.

However, the HRP is on the cards for next year and your earlier article is required reading!

Best regards

John

 

[Amy Lauterbach]

We built our own website, DoingMiles.com, so that we can control the format and improve the content of our trip reports and route guides. We just rewrote this one and improved the gpx data too. It’s a great route and we’re excited to share it. We got a message from somebody who hiked it in the spring of 2016 and he said he thoroughly enjoyed it and that our data worked well.

Big Diablo Loop Route Guide.

[Author]

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