Alameda Creek - Sept. 13, '11

Walking Distance: 4.1 miles
Walking Time: 1 hr., 30 min. (5:58 - 7:28 p.m.)
Start and End Point: Street parking on Arizona St. (and Copa Del Oro), Union City, CA

This evening I continued to work my way up the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. I started at Arizona Street in Union City - near a small bridge over the creek, where I'd left off last week.

I walked east on the paved (asphalt) trail (shown as purple lines on the Bay Trail map). Some parts of this trail (underpasses) were packed dirt, but it was a nice broad trail for shared foot and bicycle traffic.

Alameda Creek is actually a large/broad creek bed that is bolstered with rocks on either side in many places. The rocks are less intrusive than walls of solid concrete and allow for some hiding places for lizards, ground squirrels and other small living things, and allow winter rains to percolate a bit more slowly into the ground I would imagine.

There is a slightly elevated path on both sides of Alameda Creek, and several over- and under-pass crossings. I saw several walkers, runners, bicycle riders, and dogs out for a walk with their owners this evening on both sides of the creek channel, and a few local denizens, like this squirrel up on a fence.

Wildlife Sightings:
7 dragonflies; 14 little brown jobs (LBJs); sound of woodpecker in tree, but couldn't see it; 1 mockingbird; 1 blue jay; 10 Canada geese; 2 hummingbirds; 1 black-crowned night heron; 2 crows; 16 sea gulls; 6 starlings; 4 red-winged blackbirds; 12 pigeons; 2 fuzzy caterpillars; 7 ducks; 1 bumblebee; 1 ground squirrel; 1 great egret

Alameda Creek, cont. - Sept. 8, 2011

Walking Distance: 3.6 miles
Walking Time: 1 hr., 43 min. (5:43 - 7:26 p.m.)
Start and End Point: Peregrine Way and Falcon Dr., Fremont, CA

This evening I walked another section of the Alameda Creek Regional Trail and, in the process, went from Union City to Fremont and back to the Union City area again. I started in an adjacent residential block, and followed a dirt path up to a short hill to get to this trail. (The eastern section of this trail is shown as a purple, solid line/trail on the Bay Trail Map.)

While not technically part of the Bay Trail, I'm following this trail toward Niles Canyon area because I following Alameda Creek further up into the hills to its source looked interesting, and also because a section of the Alameda Creek trail down toward Coyote Hills was closed until next month.

I found out later in the walk this evening that I was walking on a closed section here as well. Oops. What was my first clue? Probably the recently rearranged dirt and the earth movers. I failed to see the closed trail sign, as I entered this trail mid-way through this section.

However, once started, not easily stopped. So, I continued east to a section of the Alameda Creek trail that was open -- and followed this trail until a bridge, near the intersection of Arizona St. and Copa del Oro, in Union City.

Along the way I stopped to take some pictures under the Highway 880 underpass; not something I would normally see if I were driving along on top. This area, with pillars reflected in the creek, had the stillness of a cathedral.

The first leaves are starting to turn colors, a sure sign that summer is in retreat. I'll miss the light that has made evening walks possible in the past several months.

On the wildlife front, I saw a hawk; some lizards soaking up the last rays of sun on the rocky creek bank; swallows darting about before the sun slipped below the trees; and a housecat stalking a duck. I couldn't resist warning the duck.

Wildlife Sightings:
6 swallows; 5 little brown jobs (LBJs); 1 ground squirrels; 1 hawk/kestrel/; 3 pigeons; 22 Canada geese; 1 dove; 1 blue jay; 1 ball; 6 lizards; 2 dragonflies; 3 crows; 11 ducks; 1 orange and brown butterfly; 1 cat (I'm guessing it was a domestic cat)

Alameda Creek NE - Sept. 5, '11

Walking Distance: 1.7 mi.
Walking Time: 1 hr., 10 min. (4:38 - 5:48 p.m.)
Start and End Point: Public Parking lot, Alameda Creek Regional Trail, off Union City Blvd./Lowry Rd., Union City, CA

The bulk of my round-the-bay-revolution is drawing to a close this month (Sept. '11); however, today I revisited Alameda Creek Regional Trail to see if the piece on the south side of the Alameda Flood Control Channel near/in Coyote Hills Regional Park (solid red line on map) was open. It was still closed due to some construction, so a friend and I walked an alternate segment -- on the North side of this trail (shown as a solid purple line on the Bay Trail map).

We started and ended our walk, on this fine Labor Day holiday Monday afternoon, from a public parking lot (located off Union City Blvd. and Lowry Rd.). We climbed up a small embankment up to the trail, and walked northeast toward the trail's end in Niles. We stopped to view some white pelicans, ducks, egrets and other birds in the wide channel bordered by marsh grasses; and we later paused again to gaze upon some mini "rapids" in another section. A snowy egret and a cormorant hovered around the shoals in search of dinner. There is something very relaxing about the sounds of flowing water over rocks.

I plan to return, to finish this purple (connecting) trail -- following the channel, past quarry lakes, up to the base of the hills in the east and the Old (Niles) Canyon Bridge and back.

Wildlife Sightings:
1 lizard; 3 cormorants; 11 ducks; 5 white pelicans; 1 great blue heron; 24 unidentified brownish shorebirds (UBBs); 1 great egret and 4 snowy egrets; 7 pigeons; 2 doves; 1 blue jay; 4 crows, 2 swallows