Marcy Beard submitted the route:
I recently learned about the "Bay to Ridge" trail in Palo Alto CA, the concept being that it connects the San Francisco Bay Trail and the Bay Area Ridge Trail to travel from the Bay to the peninsula ridgeline. The route is mostly complete, involving trails, sidewalks, and bike trails. There is an unconnected section in the middle requiring additional sidewalk/road running; hopefully eventually this will connect as a trail through the Stanford Dish area across I-280 to Arastradero. Even with this disconnect, it looks like an interesting and fun route. The start is at the Baylands Sailing Station and the end (or turn-around) is at Skyline Blvd in the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve. Total distance and elevation one-way ~18.5 miles, 2800 ft up // round trip ~37 miles, ~3600 ft of climbing in total.
Be aware of park open hours at the start/finish - the gate opens at 8 am daily. It closes at different times throughout the year depending on sunset. In order to avoid access problems, consider parking outside the gates on Embarcadero just past Embarcadero Way (adds 0.9 miles to get to the start and another 0.9 miles back from the finish).
Bay to Ridge Trail information:
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2008/07/29/from-the-bay-brto-skyline-ridge
Trail map:
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/media/reports/1217551217.pdf
Baylands Preserve (start/finish), open hours varies by month:
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/csd/parks/preserves/default.asp
Comments
Congratulations Ashly and Jason! I'm super stoked to see other people jumping on Bay Area FKT's. Especially women :) Well done!
I just got back from a course recce of the Bay to Ridge Trail and noticed that a couple of trails in Foothills Park and Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve are now one-way only due to COVID-19. Since I'm itching to give this FKT a go and want to promote responsible trail usage at the same time, I'm suggesting the following temporary changes to the course:
Ascent:
- Use Trappers Fire Road and Pony Tracks Fire Road to avoid one-way section of Los Trancos Trail.
Descent:
- Use Canyon Trail to avoid one-way section of Stevens Creek Nature Trail.
These changes make the course very similar in length compared to the one used for the current unsupported male FKT. Below is a Garmin link to the full course with the changes included:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/33951183
Please let me know if this modified course is eligible for the FKT. I'm planning to give it a go this weekend.
Thanks & Kind regards,
Tobias
Thank you for this reasonable question (comes up with fire closures). But to be frank, we can't answer it! We're buried with FKT submissions from all over the world, so no got time to compare the routes, and rely on local folks for route-specific knowledge. Â
Generally, one should respect your predecessor by doing their exact route. But if one truly can't, then acknowledge that in your Description, and document that your variation was at least as long and as much vert, and we should approve it.
Thanks Buzz, that's totally understandable. I'll try to stick to the original route then to avoid any controversy - by starting a bit earlier I should be able to get past the one-way segments before it gets too crowded.