History & Wildflowers on Sweeney Ridge

Sweeney Ridge, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, can be a risky destination for a field trip. There is always the risk that the exposed ridge top will be windy, cold, and socked in with fog. Yesterday, however, turned out to be a great day for a hike. The rain was gone and spectacular views of the bay and ocean greeted my College of San Mateo class, along with an abundance of wild flowers.

Because there are no loop hiking routes on the ridge, we met at 9:30 am at the west end of Sneath Lane in San Bruno in order to carpool to the trail head at Skyline College. If the small parking lot at the end of Sneath is full, you can park along the residential streets nearby. The trail head at Skyline College is at parking lot C, which is closed to cars on weekends. We parked at nearby parking lot F. There are plenty of places to park on weekends and no parking fee on those days. The total distance of this route is slightly more than 4 miles.

From there we hiked uphill on the Notch Trail, which has a few steep stairway sections. We turned left at the Mori Ridge Trail junction and continued south on the Sweeney Ridge Trail, which took us past the remains of an abandoned Coast Guard station and a Nike Missile control station. Sweeney Ridge was the radar station for detecting and tracking approaching enemy aircraft. The missiles were stationed on Milagra Ridge to the north. One of my students fashioned a grass noose to catch a blue-belly lizard. We enjoyed lots views of both the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay along the way, and we stopped frequently to enjoy the many wildflowers.

We stopped for lunch at the monument that marks the site where the Portola expedition first sighted San Francisco Bay in 1769. The monument gives November 4 as the day of discovery, though scouts from the expedition ascended the ridge and saw the bay on November 2. It is a great place for lunch, with spectacular views of much of the Bay Area and the coast.

After lunch it was all downhill on the paved Sneath Lane trail to the entrance gate on Sneath Lane. We had a good view of the San Andreas reservoir and the San Andreas Fault rift valley in which it rests. We saw so many wildflowers it is hard to mention them all. They included Douglas iris, bee plant, sticky monkey flower, yarrow, flax, checker bloom, lupine, Indian paintbrush, poppies, wild cucumber, twin berry, blue dick, daisies, ceanothus, poison oak, gold field, columbine, mugwort, holly leaf cherry, larkspur, elderberry, vetch, seep monkey flower, and hedge nettle. One of the students asked me about a plant with a long stem and little red flowers. I later looked it up and identified it as fringe cups.

TO GET THERE... From Highway 280 take Sneath Lane in San Bruno and continue west to the locked gate. To reach Skyline College from Highway 280 take Sneath Lane west, turn north on Skyline Boulevard, and left on College Drive to Skyline College. Park at parking lot C on weekdays and parking lot F on weekends.