By Philip Kufeldt

Catching the Ridge Trail Bug

I have been running trails for over a decade. Leveraging the natural richness of the Bay Area, I tried to run new ground every time I went out. Slowly I started knocking down trails all over the South Bay, then reaching up the Peninsula and into the East Bay. It was on the Sierra Vista Open Space trail in September of 2016 that I first noticed a Ridge Trail sign and it left a bug in my head. What is the Bay Area Ridge Trail and where does it go? 

It wasn’t until January 2022, while scanning maps for new trails, that I realized I had run many of the Ridge Trail segments in the South Bay. The Ridge Trail could solve my need for new trails to run. So, my attention turned to formally circumnavigating the entire Bay Area Ridge Trail. Two years later and I have finished it. 

At the time of this writing, the Ridge Trail has 79 trail segments covering 413 miles (based on Ridge Trail Planning Navigator 2.0). It is over 150 miles by road from the southern tip of Ridge Trail to the northern tip.

 

Running the Ridge Trail

I am a solo trail runner. I run 25 to 30 miles a week and seek natural trails where I feel remote. During weekend runs, I like to cover 10 to 15 miles and upwards of 3000’ of vertical gain in a single run. The average Ridge Trail segment is 5.2 miles, so I stitched multiple together. 

Running solo and at longer distances made the logistics interesting. Sometimes I had to do out-and-backs to return to my car. Other times I ran extra miles to link segments together or to get to places where I could get a Lyft back. Once, I had to turn around halfway because I was so soaked from the rain, I felt it wouldn’t be fair to ask a Lyft driver to ferry me back. The best times were when my wife, friends, and/or the kids would act as my support crew – taking me to the trail, picking me up, and having lunch with me in towns we never knew existed. My trail angels reported that for them, it was a great opportunity to spend a day hiking new trails or exploring museums, shops, historical sites, wineries, and more.

Running trails requires you to focus on your surroundings, especially the trail surface. Many have raised roots, rocks, and mud (Mount Umunhum had snow). When running downhill, you don’t always have time to recover from a stumble. So, there are falls. I have been mostly fortunate with my falls, but on the Oat Hill Mine Trail running down the mostly volcanic path, I fell and separated a rib. That stopped me from running for a month. 

Many of the trails had significant elevation gain, some over 3,000′. I climbed many mountains from Mount Madonna in the south (Gilroy) to Mount Saint Helena in the north (Calistoga) – each one offering amazing unique views of the bay.

Running the Ridge Trail allows you to see the beautiful Bay Area like few do. So many trails are within 10 miles of approximately 10 million people yet you feel very remote. It is a blessing that the people of the Bay saw fit to protect so much land, and I couldn’t be more grateful. It was truly an adventure.

 

Planning and Logistics

Do not neglect planning. On many occasions, I found my route impeded by things I could have learned about at home. Several segments require permits. Others are closed during particular times of the week. At least one segment is restricted to docent-led access. So, spending time at home researching will save you trail time anxiety. 

Maps and Apps

All trail details are kept in PDF maps and web pages on the Ridge Trail website. 76 segments are listed on AllTrails.com with downloadable GPS tracks for each. The app not only guides you with offline maps but also records your activity while on the trail. It isn’t convenient to glance at your phone while running, but the app provides audible notifications if you leave the route. On too many occasions I ignored the notification because it sounded like a text and consequently found myself way off trail. I eventually changed the sound to a sinking submarine, which always grabbed my attention. 

The AllTrails website let me construct new maps based on existing Ridge Trail routes. This allowed me to stitch together multiple segments and any additional trails necessary to follow a single route so I didn’t have to stop and load different maps. You can find many of my custom maps on my AllTrails profile. Other useful features of AllTrails include sharing your planned route and driving directions to the trailhead. 

Safety

Since I am a solo runner, I carried emergency gear in case things went awry. In addition to a cell phone, I always had a GPS watch, GPS satellite communicator, first aid kit, latrine, extra layers and glasses, sunscreen, calories, electrolytes, water, and money. I always downloaded the maps, notified my family of my route before leaving, and let them know when I expected to be done. I also used a combination of devices and apps to record my runs, giving me redundant navigational support.

One of the questions I get frequently is, “Aren’t you afraid of being alone on the trail with rattlesnakes, cougars, and coyotes?” Although these creatures are very much here in the Bay, they avoid you. In fact, while running the Ridge Trail I never saw a cougar or rattlesnake and the coyotes did their best not to be seen. However, on one trail in the East Bay, I did encounter the largest coyote I have ever seen who gave me a second look before retreating into the brush. Cows were really the only troublemakers. On several occasions, I was chased by cows including some protective mommas, at least one rambunctious steer, and one small herd that thought it was fun to run after me for a mile. I followed badger tracks on one trail, but never saw him. I never had any issues with ticks but I was stung by a wasp and had multiple episodes of poison oak. But all-in-all I stayed pretty injury-free.

 

The Data

Finding Mileage and Pace

Over the years I have recorded more than 3,000 outside exercise routes that include running, walking, hiking, and stairs and cover over 10,000 miles. Since I started the circumnavigation very haphazardly, I needed to search through the thousands of routes to find the ones on the Ridge Trail. To do this I had to write some software. 

The results gave me 114 routes and showed that the first time I stepped onto a Ridge Trail trail was in 2014 – 10 years ago. I then wrote more software to find my average pace. I wanted to prove that I ran all 114 routes. There is one exception, the San Francisco Peninsula Watershed, a 16+ mile trail that requires docent-led access and I could only secure a hike. Even so, my average pace for the entire Ridge Trail was 14:15 minutes per mile, far below an average walking pace. 

Determining Elevation Gain

It was tough to get an accurate total altitude gain across the routes, as the primary GPS app I used over the last decade did a poor job of recording elevation change. I can’t use the elevation from Ridge Trail because I re-ran trails, ran point-to-point even when the trail section was an out-and-back, ran partial trails, did extra miles, and linked unconnected trails together. So, I had to calculate the gain from my matched routes. 

You can take a recorded GPS route (a GPX file) and use Google Earth (GE) to generate an elevation profile by overlaying it on a topographic map. Unfortunately, GE grossly overestimated the gain. My current watch does a much better job of recording elevation changes but only a fraction of my runs are recorded there. However, there were enough to compare against the GE numbers and create a statistical average error for the GE elevation. So, I ended up taking GE numbers and discounting based on that calculated error rate. The discounted number seems close as it averages out to 1400‘ per trail. 

Here is my final data:

Combined GPX tracks for all 114 outings: