This was hike 9 of the 9 peaks in the Bay Area, primarily because of the distance away from home (almost two hours from Pleasanton). My friend Brian and I left Pleasanton before sunrise to start by 7:30 am. Was a little concerned about some low cloud cover, but things were starting to burn off as we drove north. Hadn't seen Lake Berryessa look so full in quite some time, so that was a welcome site. Got to the trailhead, which is mile 20 on Berryessa-Knoxville Road.

The trail headed out, and seemed to be a bit overgrown but reasonably well marked, so was happy that I was wearing gaiters and long socks (which was definitely appreciated later). The trail crossed the creek a couple of times, then headed up a hill which became extremely steep through a tall stand of foxtails (first pic). Crossed over past Hartwig Ranch and onto a single track that looked carved into the side of the hill beneath a cliff, which we followed for a while (second pic). There was a slightly sketchy part where the trail was washed out, but were able to cross it OK. Shortly thereafter, ran into some backpackers coming down from the summit after camping overnight. They said the trail ahead was a bit gnarly … they didn't exaggerate too much. It got a bit dense and overgrown. Had some brush, thistles, manzanita, poison oak, and a bunch of other plants … basically, anything that could grow out of the ground seemed to impede our progress. We came up out along a ridge north of the peak, and were greeted with fantastic views of Lake Berryessa as well as the surrounding area.

We bushwhacked through more of the trail and made it to a service road which took us the final mile or so to the summit. There were several moments prior to this point where we questioned whether we were actually on a trail, but confirmed it by looking around and noting that there was absolutely no space in between the brush in the areas that weren't the trail … so, yes, we were on the trail! The area is apparently managed by BLM, but I would use the term “managed” rather loosely. Perhaps, there is a need for more foot traffic to make the trail a little more manageable. We were able to make it down a bit quicker than heading up, shaving off a little more than 3o minutes from our climb up time. But, we held off on running much of the trail due to the technical aspects of the narrow trail, rocky terrain, and brushy overgrowth.

This is definitely one that would be better in the spring than in the heat of the summer. I would have liked to have seen it immediately following the winter rains.  But, the hills were starting to turn brown, and this looks to be a tough one to do when the temperatures rise.

Not a heavily traveled trail. No services at the trail head. There are some toilets at camp sites about 7 miles south of the trailhead at Pope Canyon Road.