Hilly overlook of Benicia, Vallejo and beyond

The Vallejo-Benecia Buffer Trail name conjures up images of no man lands between belligerant nations.  Thankfully, that does not apply to this trail.  Coppertone and I parked on the street along Rose Drive.  Though there is a parking lot right at the trailhead it appears to be parking for the businesses there.

A gravel path starts off from the Rose Drive sidewalk.  Once past the business buildings the trail surface morphs into hard packed dirt and the trail gets steep right away.  There will be switchbacks galore on our trail.

As we ascend a very large housing development downslope to the left of the trail scars our initial impression of the outing.  There will be a lot of new homes there in the future.  During our hike there was lot of large construction equipment moving the dirt around to its proper location.  Later, distance and rolling terrain will thankfully banish it from our senses.  To the right of the trail, an occassional small cluster of homes appears.  Far less jarring.

The trail follows a rolling ridge that quickly ascends above Vallejo and Benicia.  Because it's rolling terrain that means some elevation gain worked for is quickly returned.  But the views improve with every foot gained.

The steepness of the terrain calls for switchbacks and there are plenty of those here.  We avoided all shortcuts through the switchbacks and encourage everyone else to do the same.  Shortcuts on steep terrain lead to horrible erosion problems.  I'm happy to say that every single person we observed during our hike used the switchbacks as intended.  Great job!

We topped out just short of 700 feet above sea level.  It doesn't sound terribly high, but the view from the peak was impressive none the less.  From this location we could easily spot the Mothball Fleet ships in Suisun Bay, Mount Diablo, Carquinez Bridge, Mount Tam, Mare Island and the Napa-Sonoma Marshes to name just a few.

Time constraints compelled us to call it quits after summiting.  We doubled back down the trail to return to our trailhead.  In the end we logged almost exactly 4 miles of hilly hiking.  There are a number of connecting trails, particularly those leading in the direction of Benicia that will draw us back to the area in the future.