Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve
Wow. I haven’t been on a hike in 6 months! That’s just crazy, but St. Louis had a bad winter. Now I have a whole different state full of trails to explore and I’m pretty excited. I wanted a short and easy trail. Since I’m staying in East Bay, I started looking there. However most of the trails are full sun around here and I’m not really up for that quite yet. Maybe on an overcast day. I really missed my goofy self portraits too!
I found Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve in Oakland. It has a guided pamphlet tour but I really just bypassed the educational experience. It is rated at 1.7 miles but I got about 2.20 miles out of it by combining a neighbouring trail. It was a beautiful day. About 65 degrees and sunny outside of the treeline.
I was really happy about all of the shade, and the trails are really well manicured. There are switchbacks but they are hidden so it doesn’t feel like you are on the same piece of hill for miles. It definitely wasn’t a flat trail so it did challenge me to push myself quickly through the elevations and it was fun.
I only ran into two people on the trail, and I think they were doing the trail backwards. I generally do trails backwards mostly because I’m directionally challenged but the numbers were going in the right way so I knew I was going in the right direction. Not that it matters. Each of the steep directions could be travelled easily in either trail direction.
The views were just beautiful. So lush and green! I was happy to stop and snap some pictures (in case you couldn’t tell I was camera happy today) of the view and take in the beautiful scenery. So was the foliage. I found some cthulhu inspired ferns that were just too cool. I would come back to this trail for sure. It was entertaining with the elevation changes and foliage but short enough for a day when a long hike isn’t possible. Pretty good choice for a first hike of the season. However, I think the season is a lot longer here in California so I’m excited to explore new places.
Originally published at Killer Bunnies, Inc. You can comment here or there.