First weekend in February came and I headed for a new trail that I hadn’t hiked before: Ramage Peak Trail

It ran almost the entire length of the east side of the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) watershed around the San Leandro Reservoir. It would be a long hike and didn’t really have any way to make it a loop hike unless I just went one way and then turned around and returned to the starting point. That would be over 17 miles, so not something I would normally subject myself to if I didn’t have to.

It would add a little extra mileage to the one way trail, but I decided to start from the Las Trampas Elderberry Staging Area. It would also give me a chance to explore a new part of Las Trampas Regional Park.

Elderberry Trail climbed steeply up towards Rocky Ridge, so it wasn’t a easy start to the day. Climbing 1,000 feet to about 1,900 feet was a long climb, but I made it and enjoyed a break at a convenient bench that was probably put there just to give people making the climb a good place to park their butt for a bit.

Then it was time to go down along Devils Hole Trail. Nothing ominous about that. I took another much welcome break at Goblin Rock. It was a little smaller than I thought it would be based on it being the only named rock on my GPS map, but it was an interesting rock outcropping that catches the eye.

Then I continued down the trail (and up) along various hills until it met the Rocky Ridge Loop Trail that I had done in January. I just had to hike a small part of this trail until I reached the start of Ramage Peak Trail. 4.5 miles and over 2 and half hours just to get to the starting point. 🙂

But it was a nice hike with some great views, so it was worth it.

From there, it again went up and down various hills and ridges and around gullies carved by seasonal streams. Then I reached the nearest point to the trail’s namesake: Ramage Peak

The last time I was in this area, I had thought about taking a side hike to go to this peak and climb to the top. It was a good thing I had decided against that then.

I had known that the actual peak was on private property, but some property owners are good human beings and allow access to trails and notable features on their property.

Not so, in this case.

In fact, they were pretty clear in their insistence that you couldn’t hike up to the peak.

Even if I was inclined to ignore that message (I wasn’t), there were several people riding dirt bikes up the trail to the peak and around the sides of the peak. I don’t know if they were supposed to be there either, but trying to climb the very steep trail with dirt bikes churning up the dirt next to you would not be safe. By the looks of the trails on that side of the fence, it was used for dirt bike riding a lot.

It was always nice to be able to reach a nearby high point when I hike, but I didn’t have any particular need or desire to climb this one. I do have to wonder why they named this trail ‘Ramage Peak Trail’ when you can’t actually reach the peak.

So, I sat down on a nearby rock and had a long break for lunch while enjoying the view all around me.

I did have a brief thought that I should turn around and return directly to my Jeep, but it was almost as long back there as it would be to continue to the end of the trail at Chabot Staging Area. And it was mostly downhill in that direction.

Mostly.

There were a number of gullies that I had to descend into and re-climb to a ridge to climb along the way. Riley Ridge was one of the bigger challenges.

Looking along the ridge as I started to climb along it’s length, I was a little worried at how high it looked like the trail would require me to climb.

But after a little climbing, the trail took a sharp left turn down the side of the ridge. There was a fire road that continued up the ridge, but it was closed or the public. Ironically, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t continue to the higher reaches of that ridge.

My legs were a little grateful that I couldn’t. 🙂

I continued along the trail, a little miffed that two benches that were shown on the map didn’t actually exist. Yeah, I could use a rock or a log (which is what I did after the second one wasn’t there), but sometimes having a nice bench to rest on was nice too.

Descending down towards a large open meadow with cattle grazing, I was a bit surprised that the trail didn’t go through that meadow and instead snaked along the ridge, requiring some final ups and downs to the day. Nothing big, but at the end of a long day’s hike, every foot you have to re-climb sucks a lot. 🙂

Before the trailhead, there was another trail that climbed up to Dinosaur Peak which you could climb up to, but climbing close to 900 feet at that point was not going to happen. I could come back and climb that trail some other day from the Chabot Staging area. It was only about 2/3rd of a mile to that staging area and was also getting late in the afternoon, so it was a no brainer to finish the hike.

Ahhhhhhh….

But now I had to turn around and hike all the way back to my Jeep, right?

Not a chance. My plan was to get a Uber or Lyft back to my Jeep. I had worried that I’d have to walk a mile or two down Redwood Road towards Castro Valley before I could get a signal, but fortunately I managed to get a signal at the staging area (1 whole bar).

While it was quicker, I was surprised that the ride back was only 2 miles longer than the 13 miles I had hiked on the trail, but it was quicker and was less stress on my legs. 🙂

So, 13 miles in a whopping eight and a half hours. A long day, but an enjoyable one (mostly).