Tilden is a regional park in East Bay spanning 2,079 acres between Berkeley and Orinda. Getting there from the Peninsula is no problem but the roads around the park are pretty steep. We drove through some interesting neighborhoods and my car’s clutch tried its best. We started at Lake Anza and worked our way in a loop to Grizzly Peak, Inspiration Point and back for a 6.8 mile walk: There’s a lake right at the entrance that I guess in warmer weather people could swim in.

I found this hike through redwoodhikes.com, specifically the hike to Barnabe Peak. See also the things to do page on the state park website. My expectations were that this would be on a fire road type trail, clock in at about 5.8 miles, and have outstanding views. Start at Camp Taylor. Parking there as of 2020 still costs $8. I parked close to the entrance, but to get to the trailhead you should park further in.

Once again my girl over at Trees and Tents provided me with an in depth trail description and recommendation. I followed her instructions for the Brooks Falls Loops to a T, but it’s been dry lately so there was no waterfall. One thing I noticed right off the bat was how many critters there are here! I saw deer, tons of birds, chipmunks and even a rabbit. I suspect with the proximity to Pacifica that a lot of these guys aren’t too afraid of humans because these deer were very chill.

I am normally against these kinds of “city parks” because they don’t really feel that much like a nature excursion but I’m glad I gave up on that idea. I was expecting it to be cold, but it was actually a really pleasant winter day. I ended up putting two jackets and my beanie in my backpack. Here is the trail map. See the image for about half of the recorded path we took:

Since half of this trip was spent drinking in the Airbnb pool, I’ll just condense it into one long post. I knew I wanted to meet up with my friend who lived in Austin, and we figured with COVID we could do a roadtrip and meet somewhere in the middle. Arizona fit the bill perfectly. One question was where would we meet in Arizona? Flagstaff, Tucson and Phoenix were all options.

When my old coworker asked me if I’d like to meet up in San Luis Obispo for the weekend there was no way I was saying no! My old boss has an Airbnb there he rents out which we used as our home base. I left my place early Friday morning to go borrow a car from my parents and made the 3.5 hour drive to SLO, getting there around 11 AM.

I recently discovered an AWESOME blog called Trees and Tents and I got the recommendation for Pillar Point Bluff from there. Once again this is not technically a state park but I am still counting it, especially considering COVID and the fires! This puts me at 13 “state” parks in 2020. 7 left with uhhh 3 months to go! Since I’m side tracked, I was also thinking I should probably put a rating and difficulty section for hikes, to make finding the hike that’s right for you easier!

Oops, did I not do anything for over a month? Anyways, my company has been nice enough to give us periodic “Friyays” where we get some Fridays off to just relax and do whatever. I wanted to get out of the house after a week of virtual chatting and staring at computer screens so I opened up my 20 State Parks in 2020 goal document and selected Butano State Park as today’s destination.

Muir Beach is situated nearby Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais. The beach and hiking trails were open but Muir Woods itself is currently closed. Even in June we encountered 60 degree F temperature and TONS of fog. There were still people attempting to enjoy a beach day though, and the parking lot was full. In this picture you can kind of see how many people were there. Lot’s of people in shorts and swimsuits that I felt sorry for.

It’s been a bit of a long weekend so I’ll be keeping this short. Corte de Madera Creek Preserve is open to hiking with proper social distancing. The bathrooms were closed but we didn’t end up needing them. This is another park that’s right off Skyline in Woodside, so very conveniently located. There’s actually about 30 miles of hiking trail. In my opinion the trails are pretty confusing and the map is pretty cramped.

My big news is that I relocated to San Francisco from Austin, Texas as of Monday! This really threw a wrench in my whole plan to “appreciate Texas more” but stars aligned and here I am! Kind of terrible timing, really, with Coronavirus, to be moving to the Bay Area. Anyways, since 20 parks in 2020 isn’t happening for Texas state parks, I’m shifting gears to a 20 park in California 2020 goal.

This, along with Wild Basin, is not a state park, but it is close-ish to Austin at about 45 - 60 minutes away. You can see here that the trail makes a triple ice cream scoop shape, which means you can walk along the outside edge of the whole thing and come out to about 3.5 miles of hiking. This is the perfect activity for the times because you get some exercise and fresh air, outside the house and not surrounded by people or touching things other people have touched.

This place was a tip from a random woman at a different hike while I was waiting in line for the bathroom. I’m glad I listened! Government Canyon is outside of San Antonio and about an hour and forty minutes from Austin. I now have a state park pass so I had no issues getting in. The first thing I noticed while looking at the trail map is how MUCH trail there is!

I didn’t have high hopes about the hiking in Guadalupe River State Park. I read online that it was mostly a place where you might swim or kayak. After looking at the trail map and seeing a 3.1 mile hike, I decided it was worth it to at least check out. This is roughly 1.5 - 2 hours driving from Austin which, for Texas, is decently close. The weather lately has been pretty dry so the river was a little low.

While it’s technically not a state park I’m including this hike in the “20 State parks of 2020” collection because I can. The park is really close to Austin and has only 2.5 miles of hiking but does have decent overlooks of hill country. There’s also good variety in things to see when in such a short span. We crossed a decently serene creek. The waterfall doesn’t really have a good vantage point but it looks decently impressive if you squint.

Today we went about an hour and a half North West of Austin. I have a list of 20 state parks to check off and I’m rapidly running out of ones that are close by! The park website descriptions of the trails made them seem pretty bland. I’ve been keeping my expectations low on purpose and I wasn’t disappointed. The signage to get to Pecan Flats wasn’t very clear and we went the wrong way a couple of times.