Peninsula Trails. Jean Rusmore
has a location on the eastern crest of the Watershed that makes it a good walking trail as well. Here is a chance to check your pace on carefully measured and marked loop paths.
Jurisdiction: San Francisco Water Department; maintained by College of San Mateo, 650-574-6448.
Facilities: Trails for runners, joggers, and hikers; drinking fountains at trail entrance
Rules: Open to runners, joggers, and hikers except during competition events; no dogs; no bicycles; no smoking
Maps: See map, city of Belmont Jogging Trails, available at the Parks Department, USGS topo San Mateo
How to Get There: From I-280 take Hwy 92 east. Take Ralston Ave. exit, turn right on Hallmark Dr. and continue to Hallmark Park on west side of street just before Wakefield Dr. Park along street. Take path through trees by tennis courts to running course.
Distance: 0.5 to 7.5 miles
Time: 15 minutes to 4 hours, or as long as you like
Elevation Change: Relatively level
This championship course, started some 40 years ago by two College of San Mateo coaches, had to be rerouted because of the construction of I-280. Its popularity continues to increase. Local, regional and state high-school and community-college competitions held during the months of September, October, and November, draw large crowds, both runners and spectators.
Care of the course is under the direction of the College of San Mateo track and cross-country coaches. Volunteers do cleanup, mowing, and course conditioning. Walkers, hikers, and joggers can use the course, but should respect competitions by staying off the course during races.
From the start of the course at Hallmark Park the paths extend in loops west and south. The openness of the rolling hillsides and the views over Crystal Springs lakes to the Santa Cruz Mountains make this an exhilarating walk at any time of the year. In spring, poppies, lupines, daisies, blue-eyed grass, and brodiaeas bloom at your feet. In summer, coastal breezes cool what could be a hot, sunny path. And with these breezes come drifts of fog curling over the mountains to the west.
For other walks along the Watershed ridge from Hallmark Park you can take the graveled service roads of the San Francisco Water Department that follow the Watershed boundary. Good for walks in wet weather, these surfaced roads extend more than a mile west and southeast. Going west from Hallmark Park, you will come to the upper entrance to the Sheep Camp Trail at the St. James Road watershed gate.
Entrance to Cross Country Running Course
Foothills Parks Adjoining Southern San Francisco Watershed
Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve
In the foothills west of San Carlos and just north of Edgewood Park is the 293-acre Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserve, featuring a broad central meadow flanked by two wooded canyons. Cordilleras Creek originates in the preserve’s canyons and then flows east to the Bay near the end of Whipple Road, picking up volume from the streams in Edgewood Park.
Formerly the site of a tuberculosis hospital owned by the city of San Francisco, the area was purchased by MROSD in 1983. Residents of San Carlos approved a local tax on their assessed valuation to help fund the purchase.
Restoration efforts on this preserve have succeeded in reducing the number of non-native, invasive plant species, particularly eucalyptus, acacia, and broom. Volunteers and the California Conservation Corps worked with District personnel to re-seed several areas with native species to restore them to a more natural state. This project, begun in 1996, is an ongoing, probably 20-year effort.
Jurisdiction: Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District: 650-691-1200
Facilities: Trails for hikers and an off-leash area for dogs; Cordilleras Trail accessible to wheelchairs and hikers (no dogs)
Rules: Open dawn to dusk; dogs allowed on all trails and must be on maximum 6-foot leash, except in designated off-leash areas, where they must be under voice control; owners must clean up after their dogs
Maps: MROSD Pulgas Ridge OSP, USGS topo Woodside
How to Get There: From I-280 take Edgewood Rd. exit east and go 0.75 mile. Turn left on Crestview Dr. and immediately left again on Edmonds Rd. Around first curve, park at roadside turnout.
HIGH MEADOWLANDS LOOP
Hikers and their dogs will sample the best trails in this preserve.
Distance: 3-mile loop
Time: 1½ hours
Elevation Change: 400’ gain
From parking on Edmonds Road, walk through the entrance gate onto the 0.6-mile, fenced Cordilleras Trail on an easement beside the San Francisco Water Department road. This surfaced trail, accessible to wheelchairs, meets the paved service road that rises to the top of the preserve.
However, at this junction an unpaved trail goes right through a little glade on the east side of Cordilleras Creek. Here is a bench, installed by local Boy Scouts, in a willow-shaded clearing. From the bench, hikers can continue on the east side of the creek to the George Seagar Memorial Grove, where a plaque commemorates the first MROSD Ward 7 Director. He was instrumental in preserving this land for open space. Native live oaks, maples, and willows shade the peaceful scene, a pleasant destination for a short trip on a hot day
Returning toward the junction of the Cordilleras Trail, bear right on a small bridge across the creek and head uphill on the Polly Geraci Trail. This trail follows the creek near its west bank and then ascends on switchbacks through an oak forest. Ferns cover the hillside, and shade-loving flowers blossom here in spring. The authors try to visit this trail every spring to see the profusion of small, white, star-shaped blossoms of fetid adders tongue growing beside the trail.
Leaving the creek far below, the trail rounds a ridge where madrones and large, shiny-barked manzanitas appear in a tall chaparral cover. Here is a wooden bench shaded by evergreen oaks facing due north toward the chaparral-covered ridge across the canyon, now part of this preserve. A trail northeast along this ridge will someday join the San Francisco Watershed lands.
Farther along the trail you can look across the headwaters canyon of Cordilleras Creek and in rainy winters see a small waterfall tumbling over its headwall. The trail zigzags west and uphill until it finally breaks out in full chaparral scrub and joins the Hassler Trail at the top of the preserve’s high meadow. Some tall eucalyptus, remnants of the dense forest planted here years ago, still border this trail. If you turn right at this junction, you can walk 0.2 mile uphill to a clearing beside the Caltrans triple-fenced, circular Vista Point rest area.
Graceful ferns on a rotting tree stump in Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve
Returning to the paved Hassler Trail you will see immense oaks filling the deep canyons on the west side of the ridge. The trails planned for this canyon will someday bring a more intimate look at these lush forests.
On the left side of the trail is the site of the former health home, now a sloping meadow, capped by tall eucalyptus—a place to picnic and enjoy the views of San Francisco Bay through a notch in the foothills. South are Edgewood Park’s grasslands and wooded hilltop; west are the forested Santa Cruz Mountains.
Below the meadow is an off-leash dog run fenced with split-rails and circled by a surfaced road. Signs caution both dogs and dog owners to be