Completed: March 11, 2023 | Elevation: 4,213′ | Trail: n/a | Distance: n/a
March is typically still a rainy month for the Bay Area, but I hadn’t really factored in this years atmospheric rivers, which seemed to hit on the weekends, would impact our ability to tackle the Nifty Nineties.
We had the clever idea on Saturday to pick a peak we could just drive to since the forecast called for rain. That’s how we found ourselves headed to the South Bay in the hopes of tackling both peaks in Joseph D. Grant County Park: Antler Point and Mount Hamilton. Our plan was to hike to Antler Point from Grant Lake before the rain hit, and then drive to Mount Hamilton.
When we arrived at the Main Entrance and told the ranger what we were trying to do, she suggested we start from the Twin Gates staging area; it was a slightly shorter trail but more importantly, would avoid a 1,000-foot-plus elevation gain. After 3 miles we reached Twin Gates and it was…CLOSED! Great. Rather than turn around and do the hike per our original plan, we decided to continue our drive to Mount Hamilton given we were about a 1/3 of the way up already.
It was a beautiful drive up the twisty road with the fog bank getting progressively thicker the further up we went. Larger patches of snow appeared and in some places it felt like we were on a drive to Tahoe.
As we rounded the final bend to make our way to Lick Observatory we were stopped dead in our tracks by a gate. WHAT?!
We debated what to do. In the end, there was nothing we could do but turn around and drive back down. As we emerged from the fog blanketing the top, we could see the dark clouds hanging above San Jose.
It was definitely disappointing. Under normal circumstances it would have been entirely feasible to do the hike to Antler Point and drive up to Mount Hamilton, conquering both peaks in a day. Instead, we were thwarted twice!
Follow our progress bagging the Bay Area’s Nifty Ninety here.
Coda
Chris and I discussed whether to claim Mount Hamilton as a success or not. We got as close as we could under the circumstances. The truth, however, is we’ve done the drive to the top before, the last time being June 2022. Even back then it wasn’t a cloudless sky. In the end we decided to count it, but given that we’d have to drive back this way to do Antler Point, there’s a possibility that we’ll be back up there again another time.
