Beautiful for hikers in the winter, a haven for cyclists in the dry months, alana-anne.net : Long Ridge Open Space Preserve can be entered at several points along Skyline Boulevard. The official Openspace.org site is available here. This link, which opens in a new browser window, has the usual Adobe Acrobat format map. These are very useful to me as a photographer because I tend to get lost and stay longer than I plan so I have a map in my back pocket to find the shortest route back when time is running out.

Long Ridge is mostly wooded with trails and fire roads running through the park. It shares a border with a couple of other parks, both Open Space and County.

The first time I was there I went in at Gate #10 along Skyline and headed down to Peters Creek and turned left towards the Pond. The sky was heavily overcast-- it rained 22 out of 29 days in February 2000.

Nice glowing light on overcast days. The Peters Creek Trail crosses Peters Creek at this stand of trees.

The fog was rolling in pretty thick that afternoon as I walked along Long Ridge Road after heading up the hill after the Pond.

Near the end of this road is a stone bench with a nice dedication to someone. On a clear day I am sure the view is spectacular. The end of Long Ridge Road is near the park boundary, so I headed down hill back into the woods parallel to Portola Heights Road. On the Long Ridge Trail I got treated to the sun shining for a short while on the way back to Peters Creek Trail:

February of the OhOhs was a wet one, so I waited until a dry day to go back and explore the same loop hike. The pond in particular is gorgeous and I came back early morning to catch first light, when the pond's surface is in shade and reflects the trees.

This page is getting long, so on to page two for the pond.