NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA

Summary

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A hike through cow pastures with views overlooking San Francisco Bay. This less popular hike is great for those seeking to avoid the masses while remaining close to the city.

Trail Stats

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Trail Details

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Needing to get out in the glorious sunshine we headed out to the Ed R Levin County Park outside Milpitas. They charge a $6 fee to enter and only took cash, which luckily we actually had on hand. The park is complete with playgrounds, a small stocked lake, dog park, a nice trail system and a real bathroom.

Heading up the trail you’ll likely see paragliders setting up shop and sailing through the air just atop the first hill, which is handily Launchbase 2. It provides entertainment while slogging uphill.

While there are options on which trail to take all higher roads eventually lead to the peak. We chose a counter clockwise route today and mostly had the trail to ourselves as numerous people seemed to stick to the lower trails instead of continuing to the peak. For the most part you will be traipsing through pastures.

In a few places the trail was a mucky minefield of mud and cow excrement churned into a lovely bog of yuck. Though, if one can balance fairly well, all were all navigable by rock hopping. Apparently there was a strong cow odor permeating the air off and on. Doug was shocked I could not smell it, I guess being completely stuffy with allergies does come in handy every once in a while.

As you walk along be ever watchful for cow pies. Though there were not many cows overall, the droppings were everywhere and frequently fresh enough to make a mess of your shoes. One unlucky soul was attempting to de poo his shoe in a creek rather unsuccessfully. That stuff is like slippery smelly tar. It’s not going to come off that easily. I’d say he just wound up with a very soggy smelly shoe.

The peak itself encompasses a pile of rocks atop a hill. Makes for a nice photo. Views naturally include San Francisco Bay, the sea of civilization surrounding the bay, including San Francisco in the distance. Looking out over the backside of Monument Peak the Calaveras Reservoir is visible amongst the surrounding hills. Being early spring, everything was lush and green.

Heading downhill you’ll hit a junction. You may travel on to the more popular Mission Peak via a connector trail or there are two routes back down to the main park. We chose to head down on the outer trail, sticking to seeing the most possible within this park.

Abundant wildflowers decorated the hillsides. Especially California’s state flower, the poppy. While photo’s never do it justice, just imagine green hills coated in bright orange poppy’s with a smattering of purple flowers adding the perfect contrast. It truly is spectacular.

On the walk down we ran into a trio of young men (maybe high schoolers? As I age everyone is looking younger and younger and it gets more difficult to guess age). Even they were discussing all the poppies. A bit past them we saw their bikes sitting under the shade of a tree. Apparently they gave up on biking. To be fair the trail would be most difficult, overgrown with weeds and grass, earth churned and pocked by many a cows hooves and that ever present cow dung. And it was quite steep. My shins felt every single step down as did Doug’s knee’s. I suppose I need to stretch my calves more frequently. Eww.

Somewhere on this downhill trek Doug started grumping about his feet. Mind you he choose to bring his worst sneakers possible, knowing we would hike. Some silly reason about lack of space in our luggage. In my experience there’s always room for shoes. Especially as we checked a regular size bag this go around. Turns out I couldn’t fit hiking shoes, clothes for hiking, going out and formal wear complete with formal shoes for Doug and myself (Doug had a work event) in a carry on bag. Ah well. All that meaning we certainly could have taken his big old honking size 13 hiking boots. They would have taken up half a carry on bag. Big foot problems.

At some point after quite some time in solitude we were startled by a gentleman on an electric unicycle. He did nicely crash, quite a graceful dismount really. Chatting with him was fun, he had done over 10 miles. Looked like a leg workout but he said his back was killing him from it and that the trail was much worse for wear than he thought it would be. That makes three of us on that point. After he sped off up and around the bend I decided I should never try a unicycle. I can barely stay upright on my own two feet, let alone cruising up and down hills on a motorized solo wheel. Disaster would occur. I’ve crashed just about every motorized device I’ve tried. Moped on the beach. Check- watch out for loose sand. Quad in fields. Definitely check. That one left a few good bruises.

Eventually we connected back in with our original trail after blazing a path where one supposedly already was. You could see there used to be a road. But it was completely overgrown with thistle and weeds. Luckily we picked up zero ticks.

As we neared a bend in the trail a disgruntled herd of cows began to bellow. And run from the opposite side of the bend in our general direction. Entertaining is watching people freak out around cows. Now they are massive. But generally speaking they aren’t murderous. Bulls are another matter entirely, but these were cows and calves. The calves were more leery of humanity than their mothers. One wide eyed little girl swore she would kill a cow if any more chased her. Slightly dramatic, that one. She was about three feet tall and an absolute whisp of a child. A strong wind would blow her over. Turns out lots of people aren’t used to being chased by farm animals. Nothing is more terrifying than a rooster hell bent on violence.

Two juvenile cows appeared quite mistrustful as we approached the bend. One took off at a cautious run on the opposite side of the road/trail which seemed to further spook cow number two. The poor thing clambered up the hillside jumping over rocks to pass us and re join her friend. Quite a spectacular show of unnecessary sportsmanship, though impressive on how agile such a large creature can be.

The rest of our journey was quite uneventful. No more cows in a tizzy. Just people coming and going as we returned to the parking lot with minimal yuck on our shoes.

Overall it was a lovely hike for soaking up sunshine. Sunscreen is a good idea as there is very little shade and if you’re like me, you’ll burn to a very tender crisp in no time at all.

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