Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park
East Bay Regional Park District
Directions: From I-680 in Pleasanton, CA, take the Castlewood Drive exit and go west. Turn left (south) onto Foothill Road and drive for about two miles to the Foothill Staging Area on the right..
Parking Fees: none
Facilities: yes (outhouses)
Staging Area parking
The trailhead
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Muddy water pond
Thermalito Trail marker
The cows don’t seem to mind
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Mission Peak in the distance
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Mount Diablo in the distance
Looking towards San Ramon
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Fish in a water trough
Olive trees I do believe
On Saturday May 5, 2007, I joined in with the “Let’s hike and maybe take a break if we get tired” meetup.com hiking group for a hike at Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.
Hike route: Oak Tree Trail -> Woodland Trail -> Ridgeline Trail -> Olive Grove Trail -> Thermalito Trail -> Ridgeline Trail -> Oak Tree Trail
GPS Stats
Distance hiked: 6.31 miles
Total ascent: 1489 ft
Trailhead Elevation: 261 ft
Max Elevation: 1512 ft
Moving time: 2 hrs 45 min
Moving Average: 2.3 mph
Overall average: 1.8 mph
Time stopped: 45 min
Personal stats
Dates Hiked:
5-May-2007
Start time: 10:00 AM
Weather: sunny, clear, comfortable 70’s F
Water consumed: 1 liter
Finish time: 1:30 PM
Total time: 3.5 hours
Beauty: Perhaps not the prettiest hike in the greater Bar Area (the Steep Ravine Trail is hard to beat) but with the green hills, wildflowers, and views, it was beautiful in this day.
Wildlife seen: Just birds and cows and humans.
Difficulty: This was an easy hike for a fit person
National Geographic TOPO! software website:
The “Let's hike and maybe take a break if we get tired” meetup.com group is a great little hiking group. Well, actually they are not so little as they have a lot of members with some great hike leaders.
I am trying to visit as many of the parks in the greater Bay Area as I can and I had never been to Pleasanton Ridge so when this hike was announced, I quickly joined in.
We all met up for this hike on a beautiful Saturday May morning while the hills were still green from the spring rains. There were enough of us for this hike that the organizer for this hike, Maura, split us up into a number of smaller groups. Since I tend to be a slow hiker and especially on hills, I liked to go with the slow group.
We took off for this hike at about 10 AM and headed up the Oak Tree Trail starting at the parking lot trailhead. The trail climbs the hills there pretty much immediately but the slopes up were not that bad. Even though I tend to bog down on hills I managed the trail up OK.
We eventually worked are way of to the Thermalito Trail via sections of the Woodland and Ridgeline Trails. Along the way we saw a number of other hikers, mountain bikers, and cows. The nice thing about the cows here though is that they have apparently seen enough people to be relatively comfortable around them. Don’t try and pet them but otherwise the cows here were not threatening or aggressive.
From the Thermalito Trail we eventually cut over to the Ridgeline Trail and headed back at a leisurely pace, enjoying the views and the wildflowers, making it back to our cars at about 1:30 PM. It was a short hike but a very nice one. If you want a hike that won’t take the entire day, this could be it, especially during the spring. But enough of the details, let’s look at the pictures.
