After participating in last weekend’s family friendly BPL outing to Hoover Wilderness, Michelle and I decided to take the initiative and organize another family friendly BPL outing.
We were looking for something that would
- be local to the Bay Area
- allow a somehow big group to participate
- give the option to do only one half (either leave after the first half or join for the second half)
- include lots of geocaches for the kids
- give the feeling of achieving a long trek
- be in the wilderness
So here is what we came up with: Ohlone Wilderness Trail
- It is right here in the Bay Area and runs between Livermore and Fremont
- We reserved campsites for 24 people for Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night
- People can hike
- all the way from Del Valle Reservoir (Livermore) to Mission Peak (Fremont) from Friday to Sunday/Monday
- hike from Del Valle Reservoir (Livermore) to Sunol from Friday to Saturday/Sunday
- join us Saturday/Sunday to hike from Sunol to Mission Peak (Fremont)
- There are around 40 geocaches along the trail
- The complete trail is roughly 28 miles long
- It is as much wilderness as you can get in an urban area
Picture 1: Map of Ohlone Wilderness Trail
We booked 24 spots each at
- Stewart’s Camp for Friday night (6.7 miles from Del Valle Reservoir) for Friday night
- Star’s Rest in Sunol’s Backpack Camp (9.7 miles from Stewart’s Camp) for Saturday night
- Eagle Spring Backpack Camp (8.2 miles from Star’s Rest) for Sunday night
Monday we will hike the remaining 4 miles over Mission Peak and do some more geocaching along the Horse Heaven Trail down to the trail head at Stanford Ave. After that we can have a big celebration meal somewhere in Fremont.
Please reply to this message if you would like to participate. You don’t need to have children to come along – just be family friendly and have patience with kids who are slower or want to take some extra time to look for a geocache. I will maintain a list of participants in this post. To cover the cost for camp sites and permits we ask $20 from adults, $10 for youth twelve and older and $0 for children under twelve.
We will provide four Garmin Rino (GPS + Walkie Talkie) that will allow several sub-groups to hike at their own speed and still stay in contact with each other. That way everyone can see on their display where the other groups are and people can talk to each other. The units will have all geocaches along the route pre-loaded so the kids can have some extra fun with geocaching along the trail.
Best Regards,
Manfred & Michelle
Participants:
Manfred – adult (paid $20)
Michelle – adult (paid $20)
Cassandra – youth (paid $10)
Elisabeth – youth (paid $10)
Hannah – child (paid $0)
Natalie – child (paid $0)
Jane – adult (paid $20)
James – adult
Becky – adult
Olivia – child
Al – child
