If you live in The Bay Area, you probably know that Wildflower season is upon us!  And a bit sooner because of all the wonderful rain we have had. Chico and I decided to do an old hike that we like to do at Briones Regional Park, and hopefully have lunch by some wildflowers. They aren’t in full bloom yet, but we were in luck!

Briones is a wonderful dog friendly park, dogs are allowed off leash, however, if it’s your first time, there are cows open grazing and also horses, you might want to see how your dog reacts to these beautiful animals 🙂 And then there are also the coyotes at certain times of the year, keep small ones close, and keep large dogs in sight. Also, sun here can be brutal in the warmer months.

We parked at the Alhambra Staging Area, there is water here, and also bathrooms a small walk up the path. We did an in and out with some good elevation gain (900+feet) to get the heart pumping! The hike is about 4.5 or so miles, but, coming down goes pretty quick as it is mostly easy, level fire roads.

Tried to capture the flowers on the slope…

Trails : Alhambra Creek Trail ( big wide open sunny fire road, starts near the bathrooms) to Spengler ( mostly shady uphill trail) to the top where you go through a grazing gate, and jump on Old Briones Road Trail. You will see a gated pond on your left, and then after an 1/8th of mile or so meet the intersection with Briones Crest Trail, you aren’t taking that trail, but look for the grazing gate to your right, when you go thru, immediately look to your right and you will see a bench on top a little hill.  Really, you can eat lunch anywhere up on these luscious green hills, but the view is pretty nice from this bench:) You can also easily make this into a loop, but I wanted to test my new boots on this downhill.

Spengler Trail

When you get to the top, it is a wonderful green in every direction!

Been trying to organize 2000 photos of my hikes in the past year, so I can write about the rest of the 2015 Trail Challenge hikes I did, as well as some other hikes…but I am already into the 2016 Trails, and  I keep being inspired by the new hikes!

Happy Trails!