Home & Garden

Weekly Walker: Hike the Ridges and Ravines of SMC

San Carlos hiking enthusiast Tom Davids shares some of his favorite weekly walks. This week's adventure is to the Skyline Trail.

“Man is not man sitting down; he is man on the move.” —Stephen Graham 

Ridges and Ravines on the Skyline Trail
San Mateo County Park System

Directions:
 From Highway 280, take Woodside Road west through the town of Woodside for about one-half mile. Turn right on Kings Mountain Road, then 4.8 miles to the trailhead. Or take Skyline Boulevard to Kings Mountain Road, then one-quarter mile east to trailhead.

Trail Map: www.co.sanmateo.ca.us and  search for Skyline Tr.

Grade: Easy. Approximately 300-foot elevation gain.

Distance: 10 miles round trip.

Find out what's happening in San Carloswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Time: Four hours in and out.

Special Conditions: Watch for poison oak at northern quarter of trail. No dogs allowed. No water or restrooms.

Find out what's happening in San Carloswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This walk details a five-mile segment of the 400-mile Bay Area Ridge Trail between Wunderlich and Huddart county parks. The trail is well graded and almost level, especially fine for the beginning walker or for introducing your out-of-town guests to the beauty and diversity of the Santa Cruz Mountain range. This is a trail of contrasts—wide open views and deep closed-in ravines, dry oak woodland and damp redwood forest.

Begin this hike at the Kings Mountain Road trailhead (parking alongside the road), although you may also start from Skyline Boulevard three miles north of La Honda Road where the Skyline Trail enters Wunderlich Park.

After a gentle ascent through a cool second-growth redwood forest, the terrain opens up to a sunny, dry ridge of chaparral. Sage, buck brush, and manzanita are common in the short section before the trail doubles back into the cool forest of tall trees.

The path winds through the forest in a westerly direction until it intersects with a short spur trail to Skaggs Road. You will be hiking parallel to but visually below Skyline Boulevard. Even so, you will hear the buzz of traffic from time to time as the trail undulates from ridge to ravine.

As you wind in and out, the topography of the watershed becomes clear. The ravines are close to Skyline ridge, which runs north and south, and the ridges radiate in an easterly direction. We counted 15 ridges from the Skaggs Road spur to Wunderlich Park, and some ridge points gave us good views to the South Bay and the East Bay hills.

After about two hours of hiking, the Clara May Lazarus bench comes into view. Dedicated to the memory of a trail advocate by the Sierra Club, this bench is a good place to rest or eat lunch. Farther on, as you near the Wunderlich Park trailhead, you will notice large stumps from the redwood logging days of the mid-1800s. Look sharp for a large stump surrounded by second-growth redwoods on the upslope. Beyond it you can catch a glimpse of the 2,000-year-old Methuselah Tree, also easily accessible from Skyline Boulevard. Continuing on, you will soon skirt new homes built off Bear Gulch Road. From there the trail switches back four times to Bear Gulch Road and four more to the Skyline trailhead.

When you reach Skyline Blvd., it’s  time to turn around and come back. You will be on the same trail, but you know the rule…You haven’t really experienced the trail until you walk it in both directions.

By the Way...

From a publication of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, here is an interesting account of logging along the Skyline…”About half way on the trip you will see old moss-covered stumps of the largest trees, some ten feet or more in diameter. Note the slots cut about six feet from the ground, which held spring boards on which loggers stood to fell trees. In the mid-1800’s the whole forest was cut to supply redwood to build Gold Rush San Francisco. Logs were dragged down the steep hills by oxen to mills below were taken to the Port of Redwood City to be barged up the Bay. So great was the demand for wood that by 1870 hardly a redwood remained standing on this mountainside. Logging ceased in this watershed when water rights to Bear Creek were purchased to supply a grist mill and then for the growing communities in the valley below”

San Carlos hiking enthusiast Tom Davids invites you to join him on his weekly walks. This week's adventure is to Fire Trail Loop in Butano State Park. 

By Tom Davids


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here