June 24, 2003
Maguire Peaks
We went on our first major hike of the year this past weekend at the Sunol Regional Wilderness. It's a regional park pretty close to our house, maybe about a 45 minute drive. We had been there several times before to go to an area called Little Yosemite, located at the southern edge of the park. This time we went to the northern edge on the Maguire Peaks Loop Trail. The entire park seems to share its space with cows. At this time of year, they were mostly resting in the shade, flicking flies off of them. We saw evidence of cows on the entire trail, though, so they must move around at some point.
The trail is rated as a medium, partly for distance (about 6 miles) and partly for slope (not flat, not steep.) Here's Gary about half an hour into the hike, with Maguire Peaks behind him.
We will eventually reach the base of the peaks, go around them to the left, and climb to the top when we get to the other side. The climb to the top isn't part of the main trail, but we figured as long as we were there, we would head up. And we didn't quite make it to the very top, but good enough to get a 360? view of the area. We got a great view of Mt. Diablo from there, as well as San Antonio Reservoir.
Up to the trail breaking off to the top it had been a pretty grueling climb upwards, even though the trail was just leading us around the peak. Climbing to the top was about my limit, and I was glad to find out that most of the trail after that was either level or slightly downhill. We took what we thought would be a shortcut back to the car with the Upper Peaks Trail and walked on a very narrow path along some pretty steep hillsides. I was glad we had taken that part on the way back and not the way up!
Posted by Jen at June 24, 2003 07:04 AM