Indian Joe Creek Trail to Cerro Este Overlook via the Canyon View Trail, Sunol
It is spring!
Spring in the Bay Area is when the rolling hills turn (almost) emerald green. All over the East Bay, the rolling hills come alive. There are many great hikes in the East Bay. I have written about Del Valle, Flag Hill in Sunol, Briones, Round Valley, Morgan Territory and the Diablo summit hikes before. I routinely hike the Pleasanton Ridge area, although frequent mountain lion sightings there have made me stick to crowded trails. (Note to self: write about the Pleasanton ridge trails).
Last weekend, my friend, my daughter and I hiked the Indian Joe Creek trail to the summit of Cerro Este Overlook in Sunol Regional Wilderness.
Broadly speaking this is the trail we took: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/california/indian-joe-creek-trail-to-canyon-view-trail.
The view from the summit of Cerro Este Overlook is absolutely stunning as the above picture shows. You get grand views of the Calavaras reservoir on one side and the sprawling green hills of Sunol, including Flag hill in the other direction.
The hike starts near the main parking area / staging area in Sunol regional wilderness. Very quickly, you face the expected Sunol rolling hills:
Wild flowers are starting to bloom all over the park. The climb is reasonably steep with some loose gravel, but there is plenty of shade during the ascent and you are meandering through the forest, so it is a very pleasant hike, at least this time of the year.
If you are up for a longer hike, you can hike the Indian Joe Creek, Vista Grande, Eagle View and Canyon View loop where you take a longer route to get to Cerro Este Overlook. We started the hike at 2:30pm, so felt that the shorter (~5.5mile) hike was ideal to return before it was dark. The fork towards Cerro Este is unmarked, so make sure you are carrying a paper map or downloaded trail maps before you hit the trail. As with all hikes in Sunol, the only time you will have phone signal is near the summits and nowhere else.
As you near the summit, you get to see Wool Ranch from a different perspective (than what you see from the Flag Hill hike) and eventually we get to see Flag Hill as well.
The view from the summit is absolutely worth the hike.
The descent from the summit is sharp and steep and we eventually catch up with McCorkle trail which we routinely hike during our Sunol backpacker camp hikes. I don’t know what I dislike more, the descent on McCorkle or the ascent with the fully loaded pack, most likely the former. The anterior tibialis and calf muscles were getting a full workout, but the views kept us going.
This time of the year, you won’t go wrong with any of the Sunol hikes, but this one in particular was not crowded at all, the crowds were on the Flag Hill hike. One of these years, I need to hike from Sunol to Del Valle and from Sunol to Mission Peak. That’s a great 2-3 day backpacking trip to be done in Spring. Popularly known as the Ohlone Wilderness 50K trail race, this can be backpacked over 3 days as well. Fun fact, apparently this was the only official marathon the late Galen Rowell used to run.
Happy trails!