Contra Costa Canal Trail, revisited
Last day of low-ish temperatures for a while, before the heat rises back up into the nineties, so we thought we’d hike a bit of the Contra Costa Canal Trail; a stretch that I’ve done before, but that Melinda hasn’t.
Start at Heather Farm: lots and lots of parking for the playing fields on San Carlos Drive. We meandered a little around Heather Farm, into the flower garden and through the wildlife preserve—ducks, coots with chicks, bright red dragonflies— before joining the Canal Trail heading east.
After the Lafayette–Moraga Trail, it’s a little disappointing. Hotter and less shaded, although that’s partly our fault for walking earlier in the afternoon. And less to see: Melinda likes to peer into the back yards that border the trail, and most of these have fences to keep prying eyes out.
I was a little snarky about the canal last time—no narrowboats travelling this concrete trough—but it is none-the-less a functioning canal: the tail end of a 48-mile waterway which brings untreated water from the Sacramento Delta to the Contra Costa Water Authority’s reservoirs and treatment plants.
We walk down to the trail junction at Citrus Avenue, where the trail connects with several of our previous hikes, and head back. About a five mile round trip; but it felt like a much longer and sweatier trek than the previous one.
Categories: Hiking
Start at Heather Farm: lots and lots of parking for the playing fields on San Carlos Drive. We meandered a little around Heather Farm, into the flower garden and through the wildlife preserve—ducks, coots with chicks, bright red dragonflies— before joining the Canal Trail heading east.
After the Lafayette–Moraga Trail, it’s a little disappointing. Hotter and less shaded, although that’s partly our fault for walking earlier in the afternoon. And less to see: Melinda likes to peer into the back yards that border the trail, and most of these have fences to keep prying eyes out.
I was a little snarky about the canal last time—no narrowboats travelling this concrete trough—but it is none-the-less a functioning canal: the tail end of a 48-mile waterway which brings untreated water from the Sacramento Delta to the Contra Costa Water Authority’s reservoirs and treatment plants.
We walk down to the trail junction at Citrus Avenue, where the trail connects with several of our previous hikes, and head back. About a five mile round trip; but it felt like a much longer and sweatier trek than the previous one.
Categories: Hiking
