Spine Ridge

Near: Moss Beach
Distance: 6 miles
Elevation 50 - 1200 feet
Vegetation: Coastal scrub
Last Visit: August 2020

 

The Spine Ridge Trail (aka Sully's Trail) is one of the few current access routes to the Rancho Corral de Tierra, and undeveloped chunk of the Golden Gate National Recreation area.  This is a new acquisition to the GGNR and building out the trailheads and official trail network will take many years likely.  Most of the trails now accessible to the public in the RCT have no good public parking options.  The Spine Ridge Trail at least is accessible via a dirt road that has space for a few cars to park.  The hike up Spine Ridge is much less nice than the nearby route up to the North Peak of Montara Mountain from Montara State Beach, but it's less crowded.  In theory you can reach that same sprawling ridge line from the Spine Ridge, but we haven't made it far up the trail (on our one visit we were turned around by worsening air quality from a bad season of summer wildfires as we hiked out of the marine layer).  It's also unclear to me how the rules work when crossing San Francisco Watershed land around the top of the ridge.  On the way into the trail you must pass through the Moss Beach Ranch / Ember Equestrian Center.  Please be respectful of private property and don't feed/pet the livestock.  (They have many signs to this effect around the ranch so I guess that's sometimes a problem).

Pyramid Peak

Near: Placerville
Distance: 6 Miles
Elevation: 6,000 - 10,000 ft
Vegetation: Pine Forest to Moonscape
Last Visit: July 2020

Pyramid peak is a challenging day hike for humans, and the summit is particularly difficult for dogs.  There is no official trail up the mountain, but a well-worn use trail easily accessed from hwy 50 has become one of the more heavily used routes to any Tahoe area peak.  Because it was blazed by bushwackers, it's much more aggressive than most trails in the area, climbing around 4,000 feet in just over three miles. 

The finish is a fun scramble up 400 feet of jumbly boulders ranging in size from toaster ovens to refrigerators.  This summit is thus extremely challenging for dogs.  We think our whippet could have made it on his own when he was younger, bounding from rock to rock, but we ended up carrying him more than half the way up and most of the way down, which was quite tiring I can tell you.  Carrying a whippet up a flight of stairs is one thing.  Carrying one up a 400 foot tall pile of uneven boulders with lots of opportunities to slip and fall while you're feeling weak from a steep hike up to 10,000 feet is a different thing.  Doing that with a larger dog would have been hell. So don't start the summit section unless you're a strong hiker and confident you can carry your dog out, because if the bounding from rock to rock is too much for them they could really hurt themselves here. Exercise caution! 

If this sounds too much for your dog, but a steep dirt ramp up to 10,000 feet sounds fine, you can still hike up to the base of the boulder pyramid and circle around to the northwest shoulder of the peak without any significant scrambling.  From there you gain an excellent view of Mt Price and the cirque above Sylvia Lake.  I do advise making the summit if you can, though, perhaps taking turns with a hiking partner with one munching on snacks and waiting with your dog down at the base of the pyramid, while the other scrambles up and takes it in for a few minutes.  In my opinion, in the whole of the Lake Tahoe Basin, the only equal view to summit's panorama over the Desolation Wilderness is the view over Lake Tahoe from the top of Mt Tallac.

Lillian Lake Loop

Near: Fresno
Distance: 12 miles
Elevation: 7500 - 9000 feet
Vegetation: Pine forest
Last Visit: July 2020

 

**Note: the Ansel Adams Wilderness was heavily impacted by the Creek Fire of 2020.  Check the Sierra National Forest website for up to date information on trail closures.** 

 

You really can't go wrong in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.  We usually access the Ansel Adams from the Bishop side of the Pacific Crest, but there's a huge chunk of it more easily accessed from the Fresno side.  I'd been eyeing a trip into this area for a while when wildfires pushed us off our planned route and some calling around turned up the last two open spots on the quota from the Fernandez trailhead on the Lillian Lake Loop.  We were quite pleased with our 'misfortune'.  This loop is doable as a day hike but makes for a nice moderate backpacking loop too.  The loop passes directly by two excellent alpine lakes and close enough for short side trips to three more.  While the loop doesn't hit any peaks or high passes, several spots along the trail afford wide views to the northwest.  I highly recommend making the detour to Chittenden Lake as the lake is very nice and the rocky benches on it's southern side afford the best views of the hike.  The best camp sites are around Lillian Lake, which also makes a convenient staging area for day hike to Rutherford Lake and/or Fernandez Pass to the north.