Pleasant walk through green rolling hills amid spring wildflowers.

Location: Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

» Official Trail Map: Pretty good map showing various trails.

» South Skyline Regional Map by MROSD: Awesome map showing many parks managed by MROSD (Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space Destrict). Long, interesting routes going through multiple parks can be chalked out using this map.

» Redwoodhikes Trail Map: Great map showing many parks like Purisima Creek, Huddart, Wunderlich, El Corte De Madera, Foothills, Hidden Villa and Rancho San Antonio. Trail maps for individual parks are available online for free. However, the RedwoodHikes map shows the big picture and is helpful for planning hikes that go through multiple parks.

Route in brief: BART (Bay Area Ridge Trail) (1.8 miles) → Hawk Ridge Trail (1.3 miles) → Ancient Oaks Trail (0.8 miles) → connector (0.3 miles) → BART (0.5 miles)

Notes: Ancient Oaks is partly shaded. All other trails are in the open. Wildflowers in mid-April 2010 were relatively sparse. I saw many more wildflowers in Sunol Regional Wilderness and San Bruno Mountain State and County Park.

Location: Intersection of Page Mill Road and Alpine Road, La Honda, CA 94020 . Parking area is visible in Google Maps if you zoom in sufficiently.

Directions: From Interstate 280, exit on Page Mill Road. Drive west on Page Mill about 8–9 miles until it hits Skyline Blvd (also known as Highway 35). Russian Ridge and Skyline Ridge are both at the intersection of Page mill and Skyline Blvd (Highway 35). Hikes to both parks start from the same parking lot.

Google Maps:

Parking Fees: None (last visited: April 2010)

Capacity: About 20 cars may be parked in the parking lot.

Latitude: 37.314817     Longitude: -122.187109