​Most of our hikes are in nature or at least out of doors. But thanks to a law in the City requiring large downtown commercial developments to include open space that is open to the public, a fine hike can be enjoyed by walking from lobby to lobby and from rooftop terrace to “sun terrace.”

Dave Weinstein led such a “Popos” tour on February 15, in alliance with the Albany senior Center and Friends of Five Creeks.

We didn’t quite get to every rooftop or hidden garden we had aimed for, but it was fun nonetheless. It’s great how some of these mysterious gardens are hidden away. City law requires that office towers display signs announcing that these spaces exist. But you have to look carefully to spot them.

Many are relaxing places well used by office workers for lunch. Many are filled with art, including work by important artists (Sol LeWitt, Ugo Rondinone).

New Popos (it stands for “privately owned public open spaces”) are opening every day thanks to bustling new development. We hope to do a variant of this hike later on.

— Dave Weinstein
If you want to go on this hike yourself,  click on the link below for a PDF of our route

Popos Hike route Feb. 15, 2018

July 2019: Trail Trekkers’ most recent hike, Trees and Climate, proved fascinating, with 20 people discussing the future of the Hillside Natural Area – and of the entire natural world – with tour leader David Ackerly.

Ackerly, who lives in El Cerrito, knows the topic well. He is the dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources and a scientist who has been studying climate change and its global and local effects for years.

For information, please email f5creeks@gmail.com. Groups of more than 5 please RSVP. Otherwise, just show up!

Tara’s interest in birds is much more than academic She loves them. Waxwings she calls “gorgeous, gorgeous birds.”

“The cutest birds,” she says of another bird we spot, the Bewick’s wren, “and they have attitude.”

During the two-hour stroll, young and old participants, binoculars in hand, saw many birds and learned much – including about the ethics of birding. Did you know not to point at small birds you spot in nearby bushes? A Canny crow may be watching and can swoop in to make that small bird its next meal.

During the three-day festival there were many such revelations. Our hike leaders are experts in their fields. Eddie Dunbar led a large group, mostly made up of young families but with some serious entomologists too, on a jaunt that brought to the fore tiny critters that delighted and amazed.

Eddie Dunbar; Insect Hike 25. Members of the tour got up close and personal with some tiny critters. None were harmed.
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Dave Gibson, the city’s fire marshal, led a tour that took in areas that were once filled with dangerously flammable brush but are now grasslands, where fires can be more easily tamed. He focused on how the city is reducing brush in the Hillside Nature Area to prevent tragedy. Neighbors who attended had plenty to say about the matter too.

The Dog Scouts, meanwhile entertained canine friends and their owners by running dogs through scent training.

We had not one but three geologists and two lively and informative geology hikes that ranged from the global to the local to the seismic in their reach.

Not every event had a serious or scientific purpose. Alina Constantinescu led a wonderful “evening ramble” whose purpose was to stretch your legs and get to chat with fellow hikers.

We had 15 events in all, attracted about 350 people, made new friends, and enjoyed a social gathering with a view – thanks to donations from Trader Joe’s and the El Cerrito Natural Grocery.

​People attended from Oakland, San Francisco, Fremont, and beyond – though most attendees were from El Cerrito, Berkeley, Albany, and thereabouts. We were pleased that Mayor Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto came on our wildflower hike.

​Every member of the Trail Trekkers board worked diligently to make this event happen. Our co-sponsor, the El Cerrito Environmental Quality Committee, helped publicize, and provided funding and inspiration and some legwork too. The El Cerrito Historical Society co-sponsored our history hike. We thank city staff for their cooperation and assistance.

We also heartily thank all of our hike leaders and other event organizers, and all of the Trekker volunteers who attended each event.

Please attend next year’s festival, which we project will again be the first weekend in May.

May 1, 2019: The area around the Madera to Julian Trail in the Hillside Natural Area was becoming dangerously overgrown, as drenching winter rains caused every plant in Northern California to grow quickly – including invasive broom.

 This yellow flowered, woody plant with thankfully shallow roots was overwhelming a wonderful trail in the Madera Open Space section of the Hillside that Trail Trekkers had laid out and built some years ago.

 So Trekkers sprung into action, working with the Environmental Quality Committee’s Green Teams, to save the trail from becoming completely overgrown, and to remove other large patches of broom from areas nearby.

 Howdy Goudey of the EQC lead the effort, with many volunteers from both groups. It was fun, deeply satisfying work. On April 28 – the last broom pull for the season – we found the ground growing hard, making it more difficult to pull.

Broom plants that in March and February (and during Earth Day in April) would come up easily, by hand, now required the use of weed wrenches that lever the plants from the earth.

 Broom is an oily plant that contributes to fire danger so removing it is valuable for that reason too.

We will return to the broom fight next year. Broom grows back, but it can be successfully removed. Many areas in the city that were once awash in the stuff – along Moeser lane, for example – are now free of it,  and thus provide better habitat for native plants and animals.

A number of people were using the trail last Sunday. Later a dad and his son with a metal detector finding treasure – three pennies!

​Good news: wonderful display of wildflowers

​Bad news: infinite seedlings of french broom sprouting everywhere.

​Our most recent work party, the Madera Open Space broom pull, proved a great success despite its timing – just after the fiercest rains we’ve seen in a while, and with downpours and hail forecasted for that day.

Still, 11 people showed up on Saturday February 16 for this event, spearheaded by the city’s Environmental Quality Committee’s Green Teams and organized by Howdy Goudey. Trekkers co-sponsored.

Broom, a bully of an invasive plant that has in the past decades taken over acres and acres of the Hillside Natural Area, is threatening to reclaim the Madera-Julian Trail, which connects Madera Open Space to the Julian Steps and thus to Motorcycle Hill.

This is a crucial and historic trail in the Hillside Natural Area. It is – so far – the only direct link via trail between the southern and northern areas of the Hillside Area.

When Trekkers and the El Cerrito High Mountain Biking Team won the support of Trust for Public Land back in 2013 on plans to buy the Madera Open Space, Trust bought in because the purchase would link the two sections of the Hillside.

If Trust hadn’t helped us, the city would never have been able to acquire Madera Open Space and add it to the publicly owned Hillside Natural Area.

Hence, we’d better do what we can to keep this trail passable. (It is a trail that Trekkers created back circa 2012, 2013.)

Watch this space and keep an eye on your email in-box. Green Teams and Trekkers plan another work party at this spot soon.

In two hours on February 16, our crew – a mix of longtime volunteers and welcome newcomers – managed to remove stacks of broom – by the roots of course. Working up close to plants – freeing new live oaks that had been engulfed by broom – is a much more intimate way to enjoy the Hillside than just walking through it.

The views were great as clouds scudded by and the sun came out, and the creek was cascading wildly.

We were careful, of course, to watch out for poison oak, which is starting to leaf.

Then, just past noon, our anointed quitting time, the sky darkened but it didn’t rain. It hailed.

See you at our next broom pull.

​As always, the various Trail Trekkers who worked our information booth at the city’s annual July 4 festival spread the word about our mission and events to hundreds of people on Wednesday.

We got 71 signups and many more people stopped by. We also gave away 50 trail maps, asking for small donations. We will soon have a more complete map, one listing all the trails.

I particularly enjoy this festival because it is such a good way to meet people from all walks of life who live in El Cerrito or nearby. Many young families stopped by the booth to ask about the trails. Some are using them regularly. Others, even some people who have lived in the city for years, said they are not familiar with the trails of the Hillside.

World One organizer Corey Mason did a great job with the musical programming, as he always does. I only caught one band, being too busy on the Trekker and EC Historical Society tables. But it was a good one, Sharon Gilchrist and Friends, featuring El Cerrito resident Chad Manning on fiddle. Chad’s son Jason made a guest appearance!

I thank Trekkers Pam Austin, Mollie Hazen, John Norikane, Tim Aaronson, Tom Gehling, Jenny Hammer, Hansa Jacob-Martin, Wade Huntley, Barbara Lass, Jim and Andia Rasmussen, Aimee Haire, and Clare Sheridan for helping at the table or planning and equipping the event. I believe others may have helped too while I was not there. If so, please accept my thanks!

​Just to show members of El Cerrito Trail Trekkers how much we appreciate them — and to encourage more to join — we threw a members appreciation party in late February.

About 50 people rsvp’d and 42 attended. Mary Barkey supplied wonderful, homemade, vegetarian pizza. Not one slice remained at the end of the night. Pam Austin, our treasurer, brought roasted vegetables. Mais Jafari brought treats of Jordanian cuisine. Others contributed food and drinks as well.

Oh yes, Mary’s lemon cake and cookies.

The entire Trekkers board was there — Pam, our treasurer and VP, Mollie Hazen, our communications director, and Mark Miner, secretary and web master and chief trail builder.

We met people new to us, and some who were new to Trekkers. We believe many people at the party will remain involved with our dynamic group, which needs more people for increased dynamism!

Many long-timers were there as well, including several former and founding Trekker board members. People were at the party who have been working in the East Bay for decades to improve the community, along with newcomers who are sure to be part of the community’s future.

Trekkers plans further social events, maybe some at local watering holes. We also plan an outdoors members event in the spring or summer. Watch for it. And join!

Dave Weinstein

​It’s amazing how much work three dedicated volunteers can do in just over two hours. On Saturday morning Terrace Cutoff Trail was impassable. By early afternoon it was passable.

Mark Miner, who is Trail Trekkers’ trail building chief, Dave Weinstein, and a new volunteer with us, Mark Carraher, who is active with the Boy Scouts, removed many cubic yards of dead live oak limbs that had been blocking this trail and posing a fire hazard.

This was the first of Trail Trekkers new once-a-month trail work parties, which occur on the third Saturday of the month. Join us for future parties. They are satisfying!

Although Terrace Cutoff Trail is shown on our maps as an impassable trail (because a series of treads are needed to make it, well, truly safe and civilized), intrepid hikers can make it down this trail, which can be found between 8231 and 8239 Terrace Drive, and which connects to the well used Stockton-to-King Trail.

Within the year we hope to install treads to make this a fully functional part of our city’s wonderful network of trails and urban stairways.

— Dave Weinstein, Trail Trekkers president