I wanted to do this hike for 10 yrs but didn’t happen until April 30th, 2023. I was in fairly good shape before this hike due to my Napa Marathon training, followed by multiple hikes in the month of April. I asked around usual suspects to join me and everyone chickened out. Looking back, I’m so glad that no one accepted my invitation to join — ‘coz this hike was way harder than I had imagined. At the very last min, one of my friends (milind keskar), who is very tenacious, agreed to join me. I’m glad that I didn’t do this hike alone — the terrain was difficult, the chances of getting lost were high, and the area was so desolate. I was happy with our readiness, equipment wise,(gear, clothing, food, water-wise) and glad we were, given how hard this hike turned out to be.
Milind drove from Sunnyvale and my wife dropped us at the trailhead in Sunol. I picked up the permit from the DelValle park earlier. We started hiking by 7:30 AM. The trail started with steep climbs, but we were fresh and marched ahead. For this entire hike, if you stick to Ohlone Trail (OT), you are fine, but we took a wrong turn early on and climbed quite a bit, only to reach a hilltop, fence, and gate that opened to a house. We obviously didn’t want to trespass, so took help from google maps and got back on the trail. This unintended detour must have added 3.5 miles and some climbing as well.
We met a couple of groups on the way, most were doing a loop Sunol-RosePeak-Sunol, and some of them looked like casual hikers. Also, there were 3 trail runners. It’s worth mentioning there is an annual trail run (50K) held on this route. Now I know how incredibly hard it would be. Yes, there were cows on the trail, but not like those gangster-cows from Bishop Ranch.
The site of the RosePeak is very disappointing, it is just a mound. We reached there approximately at 2 PM and we were at the halfway mark to the finish in DelValle. The map that comes with the permit is so awesome — it gives OT markers, milages from both ends, and elevations. I misread the elevation — in my mind, there was elevation gain up to 5 miles after RosePeak and the last 5 miles to DelVelle was downhill. And I was so wrong — the last five miles were very steep downhills, single file trail going by the edge of the hills — it felt like, it is taking us to the depth of the hell. Once reached the bottom, yet another steep hill waited for us.
From OT34 marker, things started to get a bit scary. The wind had picked and I didn’t have a sense of the direction. My hope was to see the waters of DelVelle soon, but it was nowhere to be seen. I decided to march on, keeping a very tired, but determined, milind right on my tail. Our biggest worry was if we were lost — there was no option but to find some shelter and that situation could have been very dangerous. Luckily, after a crazy climb, we found OT36 marker and felt relief. Still, it was not quite the finish line, we still had to walk 3–4 miles to reach the park boundary.
Finally, we found OT40 — signed our names in the log, and soon reached the parking lot inside the park. It was getting dark, the park was closed. My (meghana)wife was supposed to pick us up by 6:30/7 PM. She nervously waited there for us. A couple of kind hikers gave her company for a little bit, but they had to leave. Alone there in the dark, she drove back a bit to get cell phone reception and made a call to a friend to come and help -’coz by now she was worried about us.
After reaching the parking lot, we looked meghana’s car, but couldn’t find it, so we decided to walk toward the entrance. After walking a short distance, I saw her pulling up her van — what a relief it was to see her.
Looking back, I think this hike was tougher than running a full marathon. I do dream to run trail run, ultra-races someday. But this hike gives me a good perspective about how hard those races would be!
I’m glad that, I did this hike, we came back home safe! I don’t mind doing it again someday, but only on a good day (don’t go there on a hot day, don’t go alone, GPS/Satellite comm devices are highly recommended, go with good gear — clothing, water, hiking poles). Here is one good resource for this hike: http://www.trailstompers.com/ohlone-wilderness-trail-sunol-to-del-valle-trail-run.html
