November is one of my favorite months for hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The rainy season has started and the plants are coming back to life. The banana slugs and newts are on the move. The forest is colored by madrone and toyon berries, and most of all by the brilliant yellows of the falling bigleaf maples leaves.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I built up my appetite with a 10.8-mile hike at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve with my Wednesday hiking group. This is a hike for people who want beautiful fall colors, great views from the ocean to the bay, and a serious aerobic workout. This route requires an elevation gain of more than 2,000 feet.
We started at the preserve parking lot off of Portola Road in Portola Valley, next to The Sequoias retirement home. We headed south, passing Sausal Pond, and continued on the Eagle Trail and then charged uphill on the Razorback Ridge Trail. We had to watch our step to avoid crushing migrating newts. The forest is lush and green, with lots of healthy sword ferns along the way. At the top of this trail we hiked north on the Lost Trail for lunch at the picnic tables at the Skyline Boulevard entrance to the preserve. You can cut eight tenths of a mile from the route by eliminating this part of the hike. We then headed downhill on the Hamms Gulch Trail. Be sure to pause to examine the magnificent weathered old Douglas fir trees near the top of the trail.
At the bottom of the hill we headed north on the Betsy Crowder Trail and back to where we started.
TO GET THERE... from Highway 280 take Alpine Road south to Portola Road in Portola Valley and turn right. The trail head is at the parking lot just north of The Sequoias retirement community.
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