Mount Madonna County Park

Today’s hike was an 8 mile loop at Mt Madonna County Park, with an elevation gain of  1450 feet.   The uphill portion was on Sprig Lake Trail which is a beautiful trail through the redwoods, so that made the climb a little more bearable.  🙂   We did the hike described by this page, but had to do the modified version of the hike (cutting out the Tan Oak section) since our time was limited.   Still, we managed to finish the loop in well under 3 hours and before sunset, so we did pretty well.

Sprig Lake Trail > Bay View Trail > Blue Springs Trail > Meadow Trail > Upper/Lower Miller Trails > Loop Cutoff Trail > Loop Trail > Merry-Go-Round Trail.

View Mt Madonna, Jan 8, 2012 in a larger map

Here’s what the trails mostly looked like on the first half:

Here are Jennifer with Rockie, and Don with Thistle (cell phone photo with poor lighting).   This is on the last 1/4 of the hike on the Merry Go Round trail where the terrain changed and became wide open with very few trees.   It wouldn’t be a good trail to take during the heat of the day.

The next picture is in the same location, but taken with Don’s Canon G9 so it’s much better quality.   This is me and Ronan in all our hiking gear.   He is wearing a Ruffwear Singletrak water pack, and I’ve my hands-free leash waist belt as well as a waist pack that I usually use for tracking.

Afterward, we went to Creasian, our favorite sushi restaurant in the South Bay, where we ate entirely too much!