Coyote Hills Bike Trail 8/15/2011

Coyote Hills Regional Park   The Coyote Hills look like a small group of mountain peaks that got lost on their way to join the Diablo Range. The hills seem to pop straight up out of the Bay, surrounded as they are by flat expanses of water and marshland. Actually, they are remnants of an ancient mountain range. At one time, they were islands, but the channel to the east of the hills gradually filled in and became marshland.

Coyote Hills Regional Park, which encompasses most of the Coyote Hills, is at the northwest corner of Fremont, south of Hayward and Union City and north of Newark, right at the edge of San Francisco Bay. It is just north of Hwy 84 leading to the Dumbarton Bridge. The park, part of the East
Bay Regional Park District, consists of 976 acres of rolling rocky
hills, meadows, freshwater marshes, salt ponds, and Indian shell mounds
and village sites. It got its name in the 1880's for the coyotes that howled
when they heard the whistles from the trains that ran by here. You won't
find many coyotes here anymore, but there's still a tremendous variety
of birds and plants to be found among the hills, meadows, and wetlands. Alameda Creek runs along its northern boundary, flowing into San Francisco Bay. The Alameda Creek Regional Trail follows along the creek banks east to the historic town of Niles. Trails lead south from
Coyote Hills to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which also has trails throug
the hills and along levees near the Bay. The combined network of trails

makes for many miles of bike riding and hiking along mostly flat (if not
always paved) paths, away from automobile traffic. If you like hill-climbing
with a mountain bike, there are some challenging hill trails here too.

The guided photo tour below runs from the southern end of the park at
the Quarry Trail entrance, crosses Hwy 84, follows the unpaved Apay Way
Trail to the paved Bayview Trail, and then to the paved Alameda Creek Trail
to San Francisco Bay.

The official Bay Trail route runs along the Apay Way Trail to the Baylands
Trail and on both sides of Alameda Creek from Union City Blvd./Ardenwood
Blvd. to San Francisco Bay. The
Dumbarton Bridge and Marshlands Road are Bay Trail routes from the
West, which lead to the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife headquarters
in Newark. East of Coyote Hills, along Ardenwood Blvd. is Ardenwood
Regional Preserve, an historic farm. Together these parks and trails
make this area one of the jewels of the Bay Trail. Unfortunately, it is
an isolated jewel. So far, there are no completed Bay Trails segments along
the Bay or any body of water for several miles north of Alameda Creek or
south of the refuge headquarters..

From San Francisco Bay Trails

This is one of our favorite places, it's so lush and beautiful. Donna loves
to bird watch in this park, there are so many varieties to look for.