Leona Canyon

DATE: Monday, March 16, 2020
DISTANCE: 3.75 miles
ELEVATION GAIN: 684 ft
TIME TAKEN: 1:17
LEONA CANYON OPEN SPACE
ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA

PHOTO ALBUM
MAP














Intending this to be the week that I hike every single day, having nothing else to do, my job and most of my social activities eliminated by the Covid-19 Quarantine order, I decided to grab a quick one today on the way home from San Jose. I had never been to Leona Canyon before, but as one of the green blobs on the map of the East Bay, it was bound to get visited someday. And that day is today.



At first, I tried to enter from the north end, at Merritt College, but access to the trailhead is cut off there now, because the college is shut, due to Coronavirus, so I drove down to the south end, at the Canyon Oaks Apartments, and entered that way. It was party cloudy, cool, and 4:30 PM, good conditions, and just enough time for a jaunt before I lost the light. At the south end of the park, there is an earthen dam which must exist to control the flow of Rifle Range Branch (the creek that runs through the canyon), and forms a small pond there. Leona Trail is the main track which follows the floor of the canyon from one end to the other, and off I went, through a tree tunnel of oaks, next to the trickling Rifle Range Branch. Moss and ferns painted the canyon floor green on black.

My ulterior motive for being here was try to find a path up Sugarloaf Hill, a prominent East Oakland high point that I'd seen many times before, driving south on 580. I now knew where it was, lodged in the northwest corner of this park, but I didn't know how to get to it. I followed the Leona Trail all the way to Merritt College, past it's abandoned athletic field and solar farm, looking for an unofficial trail to the top, which I guessed would probably be on the north end. I didn't really see anything promising, just what looked like deer trails on the other side of thick tangles of weeds, and I just didn't have the appetite at the moment to plunge into the bushes. I returned the way I came, keeping a sharp eye out to my left for trails that would go up to Sugarloaf Hill, and I followed a few false leads. (I was later able to glean from the internet that the trail goes up behind the storage sheds in the parking lot, looks like I have unfinished business in Leona) The one bonus I got for looking out was seeing the remaining chimney of an old homestead, slowly disappearing under a blanket of damp moss. Then I walked back down the road to the parking lot.

FURTHER READING
• Oakland Geology Blog: Leona Canyon
• "Step back in time in Leona Canyon," SFGate

Map by East Bay Regional Parks District