Bay Area Ridge Trail: The Official Guide for Hikers, Mountain Bikers, and Equestrians (Revised)

Revel in Solitude and Dramatic Views Minutes from San Francisco!

On a network of paths that ring San Francisco Bay, the Bay Area Ridge Trail is now a 375-mile route that spans nine counties. It provides easy access to hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding across oak-studded grasslands and through tranquil forests. Bay Area Ridge Trail is the fully updated official guide, endorsed by the Ridge Trail Council. Join author Elizabeth Byers--a founding board member of the council--and discover dramatic coastlines, former Mexican ranchos, old Native American footpaths, vistas that inspired Spanish explorers, and more.

Choose from 75 trail segments in parks and public lands like Marin County's hilly Mt. Tamalpais State Park and view-packed Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. Trips range from a 2.5-mile excursion over the Benicia-Martinez Bridge to a 12.5-mile traverse of Bolinas Ridge in the North Bay. Each trip includes summary information, like distance, accessibility, managing agency, regulations, and facilities, as well as an easy-to-read map. Comprehensive trail directions help to ensure that you always know where to go, while details on the region's history and culture entertain you along the way.

Grab a copy of Bay Area Ridge Trail and start planning your next adventure. The perfect outing is closer than you think.

Author: Elizabeth Byers
Publisher: Wilderness Press
Published: 04/01/2019
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780899979052

About the Author

A Mill Valley resident and native Northern Californian, Elizabeth Byers has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of her life. As a child and teenager, she explored the beautiful mountains of Carmel Valley and Big Sur near her home. Her love of the outdoors led her to study environmental planning in college and graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. She began working in the land conservation field in the mid-1980s, for 16 years as a project manager, program director, and writer at the Trust for Public Land (TPL) and then as a consultant for many nonprofits and agencies, including the Garden Conservancy, the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, and TPL.

In 1988, while at TPL, Elizabeth became one of the founding board members of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, and she stayed connected to the organization over the years. She coauthored the second edition of The Conservation Easement Handbook, copublished by TPL and the Land Trust Alliance in 2005, and was a photographer and project coordinator for the 2014 Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy publication Alcatraz Gardens: Remembered, Reclaimed, Reimagined. She is a mom to two children in their 20s who grew up on the lower slopes of Mount Tamalpais.

Elizabeth hiked, biked, and photographed the Ridge Trail to update this guidebook, often with family and friends, and this journey reconfirmed for her the magnificence of the Bay Area landscape.

Jean Rusmore, the author of this book's first three editions, grew up in what was once the small town of Anaheim, California, in the county that boasted orange and lemon groves as its namesake. She took her first backpacking trip at age 16, when she and a cousin ascended the slopes of Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains with some food and a jacket rolled up in a blanket. Her outdoor experience was enlarged through her husband, Ted, whom she met at the University of California, Berkeley. They skied and backpacked with their six children, and all looked forward to their annual Sierra backpacking trip.

When the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District was established, Jean and her friend Frances Spangle decided to write a book about the new foothill preserves, Peninsula Trails, followed by South Bay Trails, both published by Wilderness Press. When the first segments of the Ridge Trail opened, they wrote pamphlets about each leg. These were later combined and published as the first edition of this book.