Joaquin Miller Park: Sunset Trail
Oh Sacramento, eat my shorts. If my previous feelings for the East Bay were purely lustful, I have recently graduated to a committed, true-love relationship with our new home. Why? There is a gorgeous trail run just 1 exit down from my school, literally on my way home from work.
I full heartedly recommend taking a run through Joaquin Miller Park, off Hwy 13 in Oakland. The first run I took through this park was with two of my coworkers (we’ve committed to a Monday night run together: run at 5:00 or owe $5). We were a bit disappointed as we finished a 1.5 mile loop on the fire road on our first trip to the park. We had started in the Community Center parking lot and didn’t know where else to go. The fire road was oh so steep and a bit of a death march. Luckily, we decided to look for a real trail before heading home.
And we found one! We took the Sunset trail around the side of a hill and found some beautiful views of Oakland and even the big city. On our way back, we kept control of our bladders despite almost running into a buck (male deer for you urbanites) on a corner.
A week later, I asked Dale to meet me there after one of his rides for another post-work run. While the first mile of our run was torturously steep, unlike the fire road we had found a gorgeous shaded redwood trail. After the heart-pumping first mile, the trail evened out and we enjoyed a few more beautiful miles and this time dodged a mountain bike or two instead of deer.
I hit the trail up again last week with sixth-grade teacher extraordinaire, Amy, as we followed the trail up to an equestrian arena. While we crossed paths with a high school cross-country meet towards the beginning and end of our run, we enjoyed quiet trails for the majority of the miles.
This is my new favorite place to run in the Bay. Check it out. Beautiful and easy to get to.
