Digital Guide to 30 Local Hikes

30 Best Hikes in the South Bay and Peninsula

You like to hike? You like discovering trails you didn’t know about? Then you’ve gotta download this amazing new guide to 30 of the Bay Area’s best hiking trails in the South Bay and Peninsula. (It’s free.) Discover trails you didn’t know existed and learn more about your favorites. Ascend to incredible views of the coastline on the Spine Ridge Trail.

Go long—11.7-miles!—and savor second-growth redwoods on the Canyon Rim Route. Take the short and sweet Waterfall Hike in Coal Creek Open Space Preserve. Thank the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) for this complimentary digital hiking guide. Their conservation work protects some of the Bay Area’s most precious open space, farms, and parkland.

The guide is easy to read, visually beautiful, and contains all the beta you need for each of the 30 hikes, with short and easy descriptions, including mileage, highlights, and best season to do it, so you can decide which ones to do this weekend, and every weekend! Ready, set, hike!

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  2. Keough's Hot Springs

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    When you slide into the soothing water of Keough’s Hot Springs, you’re bathing in a piece of Owens Valley history.

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    Tucked back beyond the residential ranch-style homes and golf courses of Novato in the North Bay is a wild and wondrous 30-foot waterfall that springs to life in the rainy season. Buck Gulch Falls in Novato’s Ignacio Valley Preserve is in peak flow right now, and it’s a short and Middle-earthy hike to reach it.

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  4. Grover Hot Springs

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  1. A woman stands at Dante's View in Death Valley, looking out to Telescope Peak and Manly Lake, Badwater Basin below.

    Sunset Hike at Dante's View

    It’s one of the world’s best places to watch a sunset. Dante’s View is a 5,476-foot vantage of the whole southern basin of Death Valley from the top of the Black Mountains. Right now there's a banner and bonus view of a rare lake formation that appears only after big rains.

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  2. Hot, Wet, and Wild!

    At Wild Willy’s Hot Springs, you can soak up a primeval landscape that’s amazingly close to Mammoth Lakes and Highway 395—it just feels a few geological epochs away.

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  3. It's a Waterfall Life

    Tahquitz Canyon’s crystalline stream and lush stands of desert lavender, honey mesquite, and leafy sycamores is home to an easy day hike with a big bonus: a 60-foot waterfall that runs with remarkable gusto after winter rains.

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  4. Oh Snow Nice

    Live in California long enough, and you’ll come to know the rite of passage called “going to the snow”–when we ditch our fair-weather cities and towns in search of winter weather. Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks deliver a winter wonderland worth a visit if there’s been a good dose of snow.

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