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◆ Coyote Hills Regional Park ◆

This is one of the most user-friendly of the East Bay parks. It has a visitor center with informative displays and helpful staff; a lovely, shaded picnic area; rewarding but not-too-taxing trails; ample opportunity for nature study; and a rich history dating back thousands of years. Children will enjoy the Muskrat Trail, a self-guiding nature walk through the park’s Main Marsh, as well as special cultural programs presented by descendants of Native Americans who lived in this area for more than two thousand years. There is a paved pathway, the Bayview Trail, which circles the Coyote Hills on a mostly level course, and connects at its north end with the paved Alameda Creek Trail.

The Coyote Hills themselves are the tips of an ancient mountain range, composed of iron-rich Franciscan chert, which lies between the Hayward Hills, east, and the Coast Range on the west side of San Francisco Bay. Mud, gravel, and silt washed down from the Hayward Hills created the flat plain at the Bay’s southern end. One of the best views of this area is from the summit of Red Hill, just a few minutes from the visitor center. At the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose and the Bay filled, the Coyote Hills became islands. Gradually, sedimentation deposited by Alameda Creek created marshlands around the islands—on the west side, a salt marsh; and on the east, a marsh flooded with freshwater from the creek.

Wetland areas in the park today consist mostly of brackish marshes, dominated by cattails and bulrushes. These areas provide important habitat for many species of birds and aquatic animals. The Coyote Hills bird check list, revised in 1990, contains 210 species in more than 40 categories, including grebes, pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, geese, ducks, raptors, shorebirds, gulls, terns, and songbirds. One wetland area, called the DUST (Demonstration Urban Stormwater Treatment) Marsh is a research project, begun in the early 1980s, to study the effectiveness of using marshes to remove pollutants from urban runoff.

Coyote Hills Regional Park was opened to the public in 1968, and the area has a colorful history. The building that today houses the visitor center served in the 1960s and early 1970s as a lab where Stanford Research Institute scientists studied seals and other marine animals. (After the park opened, tours of the lab for the public were arranged.) In the 1950s the building served as an Army barracks for Nike missile crews; the missiles themselves were atop the hills.

Like other regional parks, Coyote Hills has a long ranching history, going back to an 1844 land grant establishing Rancho Potrero de los Cerritos (“Pasture of the Little Hills”). This 10,000-acre parcel, owned by Augustin Alviso and Tomas Pacheco, included land that became today’s 978-acre park. After California became a state in 1850, the U.S. Congress allowed challenges to the land-grant system, and many owners were forced to sell their land to pay legal fees; this fate befell the rancho. One of those who purchased a part of the rancho was George Washington Patterson, who eventually came to own nearly 6000 acres of farm land, including the current park. The Patterson family, whose farm can be visited at nearby Ardenwood Regional Preserve, and whose name is on the park entrance road, held the land until 1968.

The original occupants of the Coyote Hills area were the Ohlone Indians, whose village sites can be visited on naturalist-led tours. The sites, raised areas that were created by the debris of everyday life, are called “shell mounds,” or “kitchen middens,” because they contain mostly shells, animal bones, and ashes. But archaeological excavations of village sites have also uncovered jewelry, pieces of mortars and pestles, and remnants of hearths and house floors, along with human remains. Native people lived in willow-framed huts thatched with tule, and navigated the Bay’s waterways in kayak-like crafts made of bundled tules. Park naturalists and volunteers have built replicas of Indian buildings at the shell-mound site, and in 1979 they constructed a tule boat, which they paddled across San Francisco Bay. The Spanish referred to all Indians west of the Diablo Range from the Bay Area to Big Sur as Costanoans, or coast people, but today’s East Bay descendants prefer the term Ohlone.

Park gates open: 8 A.M. to 8 P.M., April–October; 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. November–March

Visitor center: (510) 795-9385; open 9:30 A.M. to 5 P.M.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

LIZARD ROCK

Length: 0.8 mile

Time: 1 hour or less

Rating: Easy

Regulations: EBRPD; fees for parking and dogs; the single-track Lizard Rock Trail is for hiking only.

Facilities: Visitor center, picnic tables, water, toilet.

Directions: From Highway 84 at the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge in Fremont, take the Thornton Ave./Paseo Padre Pkwy. exit, and go north 1.1 miles on Paseo Padre Pkwy. to Patterson Ranch Road. Turn left, and go 0.5 mile to the entrance kiosk. Another 1.0 mile brings you to the parking area for the visitor center. The trailhead is at the west end of parking area, at its entrance.

Short and easy, this loop uses the Bayview, Lizard Rock, and Chochenyo trails to give you a quick sample of what this park has to offer, including an overview of the Main Marsh. If you have more time to spend here, consider also doing the “Red Hill” trip.

From the west end of the parking area, where the entrance road makes a 180-degree bend, head northwest on the paved Bayview Trail, passing the Quail Trail, a dirt road, left. The Bayview Trail is gated just beyond the parking area. After passing the gate, you have the Main Marsh on your right and beautiful grassy hills rising on your left. The Main Marsh, a brackish body of water bordered in places with cattails and bulrushes, is a haven for birds. There are several vantage points along the Bayview Trail to look for herons, egrets, ducks, and shorebirds. Black-necked stilts, which nest in marshes around San Francisco Bay, are sometimes here in flocks of 20 to 30—look for a black-and-white shorebird with shocking pink legs. Besides a few willows and London planetrees (introduced hybrids related to sycamores), the vegetation is mostly scrub—coyote brush, fennel, and poison hemlock.

When you reach a junction with the Nike Trail, about 0.1 mile from the trailhead, continue straight on the Bayview Trail. Across the Main Marsh is Lizard Rock, a large pinnacle of light-colored chert, reached by the single-track trail that bears its name. Chert was used by local Native Americans for arrowheads and spear points when they could not obtain obsidian. After about 0.25 mile you reach a junction with the Lizard Rock Trail, where you turn right and climb on a gentle grade to the rock, passing it on the left. This is a wonderful vantage point from which to look out over the marsh.

You might also take a moment here to scan the eastern skyline, picking out such landmarks as Mission Peak and, to its right and beyond, Mt. Hamilton. Once past Lizard Rock, the trail descends gently across an open hillside of grass mixed with clumps of California sagebrush. After an unsigned single track joins from the left, you reach a T-junction with the Chochenyo Trail. Turn right and follow the dirt-and-gravel road back toward the visitor center, passing deeper water where white pelicans sometimes float lazily about. The marsh wren, a chickadee-sized bird mostly heard but not seen, is likely to keep track of your progress with its raspy, buzzing call.

Hikers approaching Lizard Rock, which overlooks the Main Marsh.

Here is a good opportunity to learn the difference between cattails and bulrushes, both of which are found along this stretch of the route. Cattail (genus Typha) is a familiar perennial marsh plant, found where there is at least some fresh water, best identified by its brown, cigar-like flower clusters held aloft on tall stems. Bulrush, also called tule, refers to plants of the genus Scirpus, which has 9 species in coastal California and 17 throughout the state. The ones found here have tall, round stems tapering to a sharp point, and tipped during late spring and summer with brown flower clusters. Red-winged blackbirds share the cattails and bulrushes with the marsh wrens. Blackbirds are vocal wizards, keeping up a constant refrain of odd gurgles, chortles, whistles, and other sounds.

A gate marks the south end of the Chochenyo Trail. Beyond the gate, you come to a T-junction with a paved path that parallels the park entrance road. To the left is a short paved path leading to a boardwalk that goes into the marsh, a route followed by the self-guiding Muskrat Trail. To return to the parking area, turn right and follow the paved path.

RED HILL

Length: 1.5 miles

Time: 1 hour or less

Rating: Moderate

Regulations: EBRPD; fees for parking and dogs; the Quail Trail is for hiking only.

Facilities: Visitor center, picnic tables, water, toilet.

Combining portions of the Bayview, Nike, Red Hill, Soaproot, and Quail trails, this short loop over the summits of Red and Glider hills offers more scenery per calorie expended than any other hike in the East Bay. Besides open summits, which provide 360-degree views that extend from San Francisco to the Santa Cruz Mountains, this park contains an extensive brackish marsh, habitat for waterfowl and shorebirds. If you have more time to spend here, consider also doing the “Lizard Rock” trip.

When you reach the Nike Trail, about 0.1 mile from the trailhead, you climb left, leaving the Bayview Trail to its straight and level course. (The Nike Trail is named for the missiles perched atop these hills during the cold war, not the running shoe.) As you gain elevation on a moderate grade, take a moment to look back and admire the view, which takes in Mt. Diablo, the hills of Garin and Dry Creek Pioneer regional parks, Sunol Ridge, Mission Peak, and Mt. Hamilton. In late spring, the grasses of the Coyote Hills turn a rich, golden brown, especially pleasing an hour or two before sunset; after the autumn rains arrive they become lush green.

Soon you reach a flat spot—a saddle between Red Hill and an unnamed hill to the north—and a four-way junction. The view from here stretches across San Francisco Bay, with its system of levees and salt ponds, to the hills of San Mateo County. Turning left here onto the Red Hill Trail, a dirt road, you continue your ascent over open terrain, with views of the marshes that compose much of this regional park. To the northeast lies Alameda Creek, which gets its start high on the flanks of Mt. Hamilton, flows through the Sunol Wilderness, and empties into San Francisco Bay northwest of here. The Alameda County flood-control channel, which diverts water from the creek, borders the north side of Coyote Hills Regional Park, where the 12-mile Alameda Creek Regional Trail—actually two trails, one on each side of the channel—connects to the Coyote Hills trail system.

As you reach a short, steep pitch just below the summit of Red Hill, you may see California poppy, blue bush lupine, wild radish, and wild mustard in bloom, their bright colors contrasting with the red dirt underfoot. The only trees up here are acacias, imports from Australia. The summit itself is studded with rock outcrops of Franciscan chert, giving you a pleasant perch from which to take in the 360-degree view. To the northwest is the faint outline of San Francisco, with the dark hulk of Mt. Tamalpais looming behind. Oakland is also in view, beyond Hayward, San Leandro, and Alameda, and just north of this park vast tracts of new housing push almost to the shoreline. To the south, the vista extends past the Dumbarton Bridge and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, all the way to the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Red Hill is an easy destination for hikers and runners, and offers spectacular views

While on Red Hill, you may find yourself distracted from the view by the flutter of large yellow and black butterflies. These are swallowtails; there are several species, including one associated exclusively with fennel. Only hardy plants take root on this windy site, where California sagebrush and poison oak sprout from the red, rocky soil. After crossing the level summit, you descend steeply to a saddle between Red Hill and Glider Hill, the next rise south. Just as the route begins to climb once more, you arrive at a four-way junction. From here, single-track trails go left and right (but only the left-hand one, the Glider Hill Trail, is shown on the EBRPD map). Continuing your climb over moderate and then steep ground, you soon reach the top of Glider Hill, where the views equal those from Red Hill. The open, grassy summit even has a convenient picnic table; from here another unsigned single-track trail heads left.

Now a short, steep descent brings you to another saddle and a four-way junction. At this point, the Red Hill Trail, which continues straight, is crossed by the Soaproot Trail, a dirt road. Turn left and begin a gentle descent. From here, the paved Bayview Trail, Dairy Glen picnic area, and South Marsh are all in view. Heading southeast, the Bayview Trail becomes Apay Way, which climbs over South Red Hill and continues to the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Your route zigzags moderately downhill. At a bend are several unofficial trails heading north. Pass these by and continue descending to a junction with the Bayview and Quail trails. Turn left onto the Quail Trail, a wide dirt-and-gravel road that climbs north. Just after the road crosses a rise, a single-track trail, right, offers you an easy side trip to Castle Rock, a jumble of pinnacles made from the same red chert as Red Hill.

Following the Quail Trail downhill, you may see and hear its namesake, the California quail. On your way, you pass the Hoot Hollow Trail, left, and the Hoot Hollow picnic area, with its beautiful assortment of trees and shrubs, including acacia, coast live oak, madrone, toyon, and California buckeye. Late spring bloomers, buckeyes in flower resemble fireworks, with exploding white blossoms tinged pink and beige against bright green leaves.

Beyond the picnic area, you pass an unsigned path heading left up some wooden steps, and a paved path, right, that leads to the visitor center. About 200 feet downhill from these paths you reach a gate and the entrance to the parking area.

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