Looking southwest. Montara Mountain in the background

A hike on the Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail

4 April 2007 - 13.02 Miles

On SATURDAY, 17 MARCH 2007, I joined a group of 13 people in an attempt to hike the length of the Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail. Unfortunately, due to poor judgement, the hiking group made a wrong turn and we headed south on an incorrect trail. Eventually we had to turn back, and return to the starting point of the hike. The hike is normally done as a point-to-point, north to south, 13 mile traverse along the entire Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail.

I decided to attempt the hike again; this time on Wednesday, 4 April 2007. This hike has a slightly different route as compared to the 17 March attempt. The 4 April hike started at Skyline College which is the northern terminus of the Sweeney Ridge Trail. The 17 March attempt started a little further southeast, at the western end of Sneath Avenue in San Bruno.

On Wednesday, 4 April, six people met at the site of the old Skyline Quarry, the finishing location of the hike. We then carpooled north to Skyline College, the starting point of the hike. Bob Walker was the volunteer leader of this hike, and he did an excellent job. 5 hours and 30 minutes after we left Skyline College in San Bruno at 10:15 a.m., he led us back to the old Skyline Quarry in San Mateo, 13.02 miles south of Skyline College. As the trail wended its way through this pristine and lovely watershed, we accumulated approximately 1,750 feet of vertical gain.

UPDATE: GO HERE to see the maps and pictures from the 17 March 2007 attempt

See the Google-Earth map below, for an illustrated comparsion of both hiking routes.

Google Earth satellite/aerial photo map of the area with two GPS tracked routes, of two different hikes, superimposed on the satellite/aerial image. The 17 March 2007 route shown in yellow was an unsuccessful attempt. The 4 April 2007 route shown in red was the successfully completed hike. This is a view looking west-northwest.

Hiking data gathered with a Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS Receiver.

GPS data converter for Macintosh OSX by Load-My-Tracks.

Scroll to the right to see the complete map ======>

This photo was taken from the Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail. Sweeney Ridge is visible, as is MOUNT DIABLO located about 35 miles east of this location. Six separate digital photographs were "stitched together" to produce this panoramic image.

Scroll to the right to see the complete image ======>

Looking southwest. Montara Mountain is in the distance, the Pacific Ocean is visible on the right side of the panoramic photo. Nine separate digital photographs were "stitched together" to produce this panoramic image.

Scroll to the right to see the complete image ======>