Peninsula Trails. Jean Rusmore
the dog run and just off the edge of the trail are two large plots of cactus, probably remnants of a garden adjoining the site of the chief doctor’s former home.
As the surfaced Hassler Trail curves left downhill, watch for the Blue Oak Trail on your right. Take this trail down switchbacks through a lovely, mixed oak forest. Look for deep-red Indian Warriors and blue hound’s tongue as early as January— early augurs of spring. This delightful, 0.4-mile trail switchbacks down the canyon passing rivulets edged with moss-covered boulders and trailsides draped with maidenhair fern. A thoughtful Eagle Scout, Daemen Merrill, constructed a bench at a wide spot where you can rest, listen to many bird calls, and observe the differences in oak species. The dominant species is the live oak, Quercus agrifolia. The blue oak, Quercus douglasii, is deciduous, usually a much smaller tree, and has blue-green leaves that are not as prickly as the live oak. It is usually found on dry hillsides.
When the Blue Oak Trail emerges at Edmonds Road, on which you entered the preserve, turn left (northeast) to the parking area.
For a 1.1-mile loop, start from Edmonds Road on the Blue Oak Trail, bear right downhill on the Hassler Trail, and return to your car on the Cordilleras Trail. The shady ascent is just right for a hot day.
Edgewood County Park and Natural Preserve
This San Mateo County park of hilltops, gentle meadows, oak groves, and canyons faces the green expanse of the Skyline ridge to the west and looks out over the Bay to the east. It adjoins Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve just across Edgewood Road and the southern San Francisco Watershed lands across I-280. You can picnic here on a knoll listening to meadowlarks in the grass, climb a hill, or walk in cool, secluded glades.
Edgewood Park’s 467 acres, crowned by a wooded hill rising steeply from the surrounding meadows, had been set aside for a state college. After years of negotiation, the land was finally acquired for a park by San Mateo County and the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in 1980. The county originally planned a golf course on the park’s grasslands with trails on the periphery, but in 1994 changed plans and declared Edgewood a park and natural preserve.
Implementation of the park’s 1996 master plan is under way: the Friends of Edgewood Natural Preserve lead hikes from March through mid-June; volunteers continue the work of eliminating exotic plants; all trails are in good shape and a new map shows all trails and contour lines; plans for an interpretive center are complete and the site chosen.
From the park’s main entrance on Edgewood Road, more than 7 miles of trail lead through wooded, fern-filled canyons to the rolling grasslands that surround the central wooded ridge. Beyond the entrance near the trailhead are a day camp and an amphitheatre beside Cordilleras Creek. Close by are attractive picnic sites nestled on terraces under the shade of huge oaks and redwoods, open to the public except during summer day-camp. Other entrances also open onto trails that reach flower fields, the wooded hilltop, and the northern canyons of the park.
This is a park for all seasons. Its closeness to the hundreds of thousands who live in neighboring communities makes it a good choice for short outings. In winter, rain-washed air and north winds bring clear views and cold days for brisk hiking. In spring, the meadows underlain with serpentine are thick with goldfields, poppies, cream cups, lupines, and owl’s clover. From March to June, volunteer members of the California Native Plant Society lead free weekend wildflower walks. On summer and fall days, shady oak groves provide good picnicking and inviting walks on the wooded northeast slopes.
Jurisdiction: San Mateo County: 650-363-4020
Facilities: Trails for hikers and equestrians; picnic areas with barbecues, restrooms, day camp, and amphitheatre
Rules: Open from 8 A.M. to sunset; no dogs or bicycles; horses on all trails but Sylvan Loop
Maps: San Mateo County Edgewood Park and USGS topo Woodside
How to Get There: From I-280: (1) Main entrance on Edgewood Rd. at Old Stage Day Camp—Take the Edgewood Rd. exit and go east 1 mile; turn right at Edgewood Park and Day Camp sign, cross bridge to park. Overflow parking uses unpaved area beside Edgewood Rd. (2) West of I-280 on Edgewood Rd—Take Edgewood Rd. exit, go west under freeway. Park on south side of Edgewood Rd. near freeway or at Cañada and Edgewood roads. (3) Cañada Rd—Take Edgewood Rd. exit, go west under freeway, turn south on Cañada Rd., go through freeway underpass and park beside Cañada Rd. opposite PG&E switch-yard. The Clarkia Trail entrance is immediately north of this installation. (4) Sunset Way—Follow directions for (3) above, but continue on Cañada Rd. 1.2 more miles and turn left on Jefferson Ave. Turn left on California Way (not West California Way) and then right on Sunset Way to park entrance at Hillcrest Way. Limited parking beside road.
Delicate fairy lanterns are springtime treats
LOOP TRIP TO THE WOODED HILLTOP THAT CROWNS THIS PARK
Take this trip across the park’s wooded ridge for views over the Santa Cruz Mountains and out to the Bay.
Distance: 5-mile loop
Time: 2½ hours
Elevation Change: 600’ gain
Starting from the Old Stage Day Camp entrance, you enter the park across a narrow old bridge over Cordilleras Creek framed by spreading valley oaks. Just beyond the bridge, a rustic brown sign points to Old Stage Road, a section of a mid-1800s route to lumber mills and camps in Woodside. Ahead are the parking area and the trailheads for the Edgewood and Sylvan trails. Near this entrance too, will be the new interpretive center.
Start uphill on the Edgewood Trail to the right of the parking area on switchbacks that take you up the north side of a steep canyon. Shading your way are woods of buckeye, madrone, and oak, with an understory of toyon, snowberry, and poison oak.
Skirting a sloping meadow accented by immense spreading oaks, you continue uphill, crossing a service road to stay on the shady, tree-lined Edgewood Trail. At the next junction take the Franciscan Trail to your left. Now you traverse the steep canyon’s rim and look across it to the southern San Francisco Bay and the East Bay hills. From a rocky outcrop beside the trail you can see into the canyon where once stood a Victorian house, part of the 1915 San Francisco Panama Pacific Exposition. It was disassembled and barged down to Redwood City, then reassembled on this site. Only the foundations of the house and vestiges of the garden walls remain today, artfully used to support terraced areas of the day-camp and picnic areas.
Continue around the hillside on the Franciscan Trail to its intersection with the Sylvan Trail. If you turn left here, you will return to the park entrance and make this a 1+ mile loop trip. But if you stay on the Franciscan Trail, you first cross a high grassy plateau, and then take the Serpentine Loop Trail left, pass another Sylvan Trail turnoff on the left. Hidden in the tall grasses are the homes of gophers, field mice, and other rodents that make up the diet of the hawks you may see soaring overhead.
From the Serpentine Trail looking over Redwood City to the Bay
After the second Sylvan Trail junction, you round two bends, leave the Serpentine Trail, and turn right onto the Live Oak Trail. Under a canopy of live oaks and buckeyes you soon come to a fork in the trail. Take the right-hand fork and walk over the wooded crown of this hill and out into the chaparral. From a wide clearing, views stretch up and down along fifty miles of the San Andreas Rift Zone. Looking northwest you see a vista relatively unchanged from early times (disregarding the multi-laned concrete ribbon by which you reached this idyllic spot). In San Francisco Watershed lands you see thousands of acres of unbroken forests,