89. Briones Regional Park Trails

Length:	8.4 miles round trip
Hiking time:	5 hours
High point:	1,483 feet
Total elevation gain:	1,300 feet
Difficulty:	easy to moderate
Season:	year-round
Water:	bring your own
Maps:	USGS 7.5' Briones Valley, USGS 7.5' Walnut Creek
Information:	East Bay Regional Park District

Explore a creek and a pond, then climb Briones Peak for views of rolling hillsides, Mounts Diablo and Tamalpais, and San Pablo and Suisun Bays.

From Highway 24 in Lafayette, take the Pleasant Hill Boulevard exit, go north for 0.6 mile, then turn left on Reliez Valley Road. Drive 4.8 miles, turn left onto the road signed for Alhambra Creek Staging Area, then go 0.8 mile to the parking lot. From Highway 4, take the Alhambra Avenue exit south, then go right onto Alhambra Valley Road. Drive 1.7 miles, turn left on Reliez Valley Road for 0.5 mile to the staging area, then go right for 0.8 mile.

Take Alhambra Creek Trail past riparian habitat, buckeye, live oak, and blue oak to a signed trail junction at 0.9 mile, where you bear right onto Spengler Trail. Climb away from the creek past coast live oak, poison oak, coyote brush, and California laurel to two ponds called Maricich Lagoons at 1.6 miles, where you turn left onto Old Briones Road Trail. Climb gradually along gently rolling grassy hillsides that typify the Briones region to a signed trail junction at 1.9 miles, where you bear left on Briones Crest Trail.

Take the spur trail on the left at 2.5 miles to a bench marking the top of 1,483-foot Briones Peak, the highest spot in Briones Regional Park. To the north you can see the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers converge into Suisun Bay; San Pablo Bay sprawls northwesterly, Mount Tamalpais looms westward beyond the Berkeley hills, and Mount Diablo juts to the east.

Bear left at the next signed trail junction, then climb briefly and go right onto the signed Table Top Trail. Walk past chaparral and scattered coast live oak to a signed trail junction at 3.3 miles, where you turn left back onto Spengler Trail. This wide road plunges steeply at times through a canyon shaded by coast live oak, huge toyon, buckeye, California laurel, and the occasional bigleaf maple.

Ignore an unsigned trail junction near a water tank and continue left to a signed trail junction at 5.7 miles, where you turn right. Bear right at an unsigned trail junction and then left at a signed trail junction at 6.3 miles. Continue left on Spengler Trail at a three-way, unsigned trail junction 25 yards farther. The trail stays shaded while dropping 0.4 mile to an unsigned fork, where you bear left for a brief climb. Go right onto Diablo View Trail at 7.3 miles. Turn left at a signed trail junction 0.5 mile farther. After 100 yards the trail drops to the Alhambra Creek canyon and to the trailhead at 8.4 miles.