The Long Way

My husband and I wanted to walk down the other side of Rocky Ridge in Las Trampas. We started the climb up the parking lot side of the ridge by the Elderberry trail. We had taken that trail down from the ridge on our last hike here. While making the ascend, we came across some cows.

One of them took an interest in having a close up taken and started to come over closer to Ming. While Ming got a closer shot of the beast, I quickly went up the hill with MeeOk. I wasn't about to become best friends with 375.

Meeks wanted to pay a visit to her favorite watering hole, but I wouldn't let her since I knew she only wanted to roll in the cow pies.

Ming slowly climbed the hill ahead of us.

We made it to the top. MeeOk helped me up the very last couple of steps with a steady pull. It was her way of telling me to hurry up. Since Ming had gone around the bend, she could no longer see him and she didn't like to be left behind with me.

Once we found a spot to rest, I took a breather. I'm already tired and this was just the beginning of the long hike for the day. Yes, that is the trail that we just climbed directly behind me.

As we walked, I kept noticing the fossils in the rocks that are embedded in the trail. Signs of sea life that existed millions of years ago in this region. The hills were once a sea floor, but earthquakes have pushed that sea bed up.

I also spotted a survey marker for the boundary of Alameda and Contra Costa.

We started our descent to the other side of Rocky Ridge by the way of Devil's Hole trail. A good name for this trail since the climb down was very long with many outcropping of rocks. Some say, where the devil walked he left rocks.

As we wandered through switchbacks, we passed by numerous rocky formations.

This was the first California poppy that I have seen in years growing outside a garden. I'm so taken by the contrast of its delicate beauty next to the brownish grays and harshness of the surrounding dirt and rocks.

Somewhere down to the left of the green foliage was the trail head that led us back up out of the canyon, but at this point we were still making the descent to that trail head.

After resting at the bottom of the canyon, we started our climb up by way of Sycamore trail. I only saw California Oaks and Bay trees along Sycamore trail.

This trail was grueling. MeeOks was very patient with me. She just wanted to get back to the car.

We took a rest and viewed where we had traveled in the course of the last three hours. Somewhere down there was trail.

We kept trudging up the hill hoping that the next bend would be the junction to the ridge. Sadly, the ridge was off on the right.

I took another rest. While resting under the shade of an old oak, we drank some water that Ming carried in the Camelback. Meeks enjoyed all the water breaks that we took in the day.

We finally made it back to the top of the ridge. The rest of the trip was a 1.40 mile descent back to the car by way of the Rocky Ridge View trail. The trail heading up the hill along the ridge was the portion of the Rocky Ridge trail that we didn't take since we took the Long Way.

Totally hike was 7.38 miles, which took us 4 hours.