High Sierra Topix

I like using this site to find Bay Area trails. There is an East Bay section. http://www.trailstompers.com/

davidsheridan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:18 am Thanks everyone. Keep the suggestions coming. @giantbrookie - thanks for sharing your Mt. Diablo "therapy" story, I am glad you are feeling good for an all day hike. We all know nature can help heel and uplift. Best of luck in your full recovery.

I used to run the trails in the Shell Ridge Open Space in Walnut Creek. There are a lot of trails, some flat, some going up to the ridgelines, you could get a very good workout with a full pack. The Shell Ridge space connects to Diablo Foothills, which connects to Diablo State Park, so that's a big area in total.

maverick wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:58 pm Mission Peak and Mt. Diablo.

Yep

Hey HST community... Just wanted to thank folks for the recommendations. We have held multiple training hikes getting us prepared for Mt. Shasta, Mt. Baker and Half Dome

Mission Peak
Eagle peak on Mt Diablo
Mt. Tam.
Tabletop in Briones

We are a group of adventure fundraisers raising money for www.bawt.org

Come to a Discovery Session to learn more: https://www.bawt.org/about-us/discovery-sessions/

A couple more pictures - From a Briones training hike. We started at Reliez Valley Staging Area and hiked towards Briones Peak and basically stopped at TableTop. This hike was great training with heavy packs and I recommend for those who live in Lafayette, WC, PH, Concord, or Maritnez. Trailhead has parking at Reliez Valley Staging Area, the hike's peak elevation is only like 1,400, but it is full of steep up and down rollers. Very pretty forested areas... These training hikes are getting us prepared for Mount Shasta, Mt. Baker, and Half Dome. Together we are adventure fundraisers for www.bawt.org and we are going to experience amazing mountains in 2019! Please get involved!

Another Training Hike on Eagle Peak (sub-peak of Diablo) starting form Mitchell Canyon Trail head.... Great butt kicker with a heavy pack for training!

A couple more pics... 1st ones shows our 3-peak goals! The second one is another Mt. Tam hike training in North Bay in February.

This is our team fundraising site...https://bawt.salsalabs.org/aaaandaoncli ... index.html
You can expand the selection to see all 33 climbers!

A little south of your area, but I focus on 3 parks for different reasons. Mission Peak offers a sustained climb of about an hour and 3 different routes to keep boredom down. Coyote Hills terrain provides natural variation and steep slopes that lines up well with interval training. And Pleasanton Ridge terrain is sort of in the middle between the other two, but has long trails. There one can do double digit miles for endurance starting at any of several trailheads between Sunol and 580, get in semi-sustained climbing, and also have some steep slopes for getting the heart rate up for HIIT.