If you look at the SF Bay Area’s Nifty Ninety list, you’ll find that there are a few parks/sites that have multiple Nifty Ninety peaks. In some cases, with a bit of planning (and an early start), it’s feasible to hit all the peaks within a park in one day.
Last weekend we tackled all the peaks in the Sierra Azul Preserve: Mount Umunhum, Mount El Sombroso and Bald Mountain. The preserve, which neither of us had heard of before, is located south of Los Gatos and covers a huge area. The Sierra Azul range is part of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Mount Umunhum, is one of the highest peaks.
In order to make this trifecta achievable, we had an early start from San Francisco and arrived at the Bald Mountain parking lot around 8:30 A.M. It was a beautiful drive and at that time of morning, there weren’t many other cars on Hicks Road or Mount Umunhum Road. However, we were not the first ones at the parking lot; there were at least another 6-8 cars already parked (out of 23 available spaces).
Our plan was to hike to El Sombroso first via Barlow and Woods Trail, and then make the short hike to Bald Mountain on our return. We would finish by driving up to the summit of Mount Umunhum. I’m sure a more ambitious person could have also hiked to Mount Umunhum’s peak, but I knew our 10+ mile hike to El Sombroso would be plenty for us.
We were done all with all three by 2:30 P.M., happy to be on the drive back home. It had been a great day of hiking, with absolutely perfect weather. All in all, I was really pleased at how well it had all worked out, mostly in terms of being able to find parking when we needed to. And, it felt good to be able to check off three more peaks!
To read more about our hike to each of Sierra Azul’s Nifty Ninety peaks, click on a peak below:
- #17 Mount El Sombroso, 2,999′
- #18 Bald Mountain, 2,387′
- #19 Mount Umunhum, 3,486′
Follow our progress bagging the Bay Area’s Nifty Ninety here.