Morgan Territory Regional Preserve 2016-01-10

After two hikes in an urban setting, I decided to go rugged at Morgan Territory Regional Preserve fully cognizant that the trails will be wet and muddy after the rains of last week. Tucked away 10 miles north of Livermore in Contra Costa County, this preserve is rich with Native American history, miles of trails, rolling hills, expansive views of several ridges and Mt. Diablo and more. To reach the staging area, from Hwy 580, take N Livermore Rd exit, travel north and turn right onto Morgan Territory Rd, following the one lane road to the parking lot. 

Apollo and I started our hike by Volvon trail. As I expected, the trail was quite muddy and slippery. Even though we hiked in the afternoon, the fog had not lifted this desolate park and the temperature was barely in the 40s, making our hike a proper wintry outing.

A brief stretch of Volvon trail had gravel making it that much easier to walk. From Volvon, we took Blue Oak trail, both of which essentially head in the same direction and meet ahead. Blue Oak trail opens up to large open grass lands which proved a blessing today as we could walk in the grass rather than the muddy trail. 

It was satisfying to see several ponds filled with rain water. Blue Oak trail also goes through a patch of oak trees before it connects back to Volvon trail. We continued north on Volvon trail. You will have the option of doing the mile long Volvon Loop trail, but we skipped it and took the shorter segment to reach the intersection of Stone Corral trail.

The park felt expansive with rolling hills and ridges all around in this section. I am sure walking round the Bob Walker ridge by the loop trail would have offered even impressive views. Along the way, we did pass several herds of cows grazing, now a reasonably sure part of most of our hikes in open preserves.

Our hike so far was kind of easy, gradually sloping down. Stone Corral trail took us down even more. Our progress had been slow given how wet the ground was. I decided to take the shorter Coyote trail, a single track, hiking only trail to wrap up our hike today.

Coyote trail descended somewhat briskly to the creek. And ran parallel to the creek for about half a mile. The narrow trail proved somewhat challenging and treacherous to negotiate, especially as it started climbing back up from the creek level. 

Coyote trail climbed some 700 feet in less than a mile. This was the only properly shaded section of our hike that was otherwise completely exposed. However, today, the ground saturated with water made it extremely slippery to climb back up. As we exited Coyote trail, we came upon another small pond filled with rain water with clear reflection of the surroundings.

More pictures from our 5+ mile hike. Morgan Territory will make a perfect spring hike, especially when the trails are dry. 
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