SF Bay Trail, Sunnyvale 2015-12-05

I had walked this segment on Day 7 of my SF Bay Walkabout. SF Bay Trail in Sunnyvale allows dogs and I was back here today with Apollo to have an easy and peaceful walk by the bay. Yahoo!'s main parking lot (701 1st Ave.) has several spots reserved for SF Bay Trail users in the visitors section. And the trails can be accessed from the back of the campus walking across a wooden bridge.

Great Blue Heron

There is a hill behind Yahoo! campus with a trail system going around it as well as on top of it. A short walk by this trail will lead you to another bridge and crossing that will land you in the SF Bay trail. We started our walk turning left, walking towards Mountain View.

Brown Pelican, Cormorants

It is impossible to walk any segment of SF Bay trail without seeing birds of all kinds. Our walk today was no different. By the time we completed our walk today, I had got to see a Great Blue Heron, Great Egrets, Brown Pelicans, American Avocets, Scaups, Mallards, Northern Shoveler, Black-necked Stilts, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night Heron, Snowy Egrets, Willets and the very common Canada Geese. A veritable treat to anyone interested in observing the beautiful birds by the bay!

Little more than a mile from where we started, we came to the boundary of Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge & Mountain View border beyond which dogs are not allowed. We had to turn around here and walk back south. Crossing the point we started, we went ahead where the trail comes to a large intersection of trails. 

To go further ahead, you would have to walk by the Sunnyvale Water Pollution Control Plant. For the next mile or so, the water pollution control plant will be on the right as the bay opens up to the backdrop of east bay mountains and Alviso on the left. 

Crossing another bridge, the trail starts bordering Baylands Park and the sports complex on the right. Apollo and I went ahead for a while more, deciding to turn around when we had about two miles of walk back to the parking lot. It is possible to walk ahead a little more until the trail enters Baylands park where dogs are not allowed.

Bay trail in this entire stretch is a multi-use dirt trail, predominantly on top of levees with excellent views of the bay and mountains. We wrapped up our walk retracing our steps to the hill behind Yahoo! and walking around it to reach the parking lot.

More pictures from our nearly 6 mile walk.
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