Trail Rambles 

Coming soon!

With temperatures forecasted to jump into the 80s early next week, I decided it was worth taking advantage of the cooler weather and head out somewhere beyond my immediate backyard for a change and drive to Fairfax for a morning ride.  Despite growing up riding in and around Marin County, I had somehow missed riding Repack - often heralded as the location of the first ever mountain bike race. I headed out from Novato at 9:00a, stopped for gas, and eventually parked on a quiet side street adjacent to downtown Fairfax around 9:35a. Lucky for me, traffic on Fridays tends to be a bit more tame than the rest of the work week, so the drive wasn't too insufferable. I quickly switched my sandals and hat for bike cleats and a helmet and headed out of the hustle and bustle of town (as busy as a town of 7,000 can be).

You can get to Repack a few different ways. You can ride up Repack itself by heading west from Fairfax proper or you can take the more common route of riding up through Deer Park (a dirt road) or Bolinas-Fairfax Road (a paved road with a tight shoulder often called "BoFax") to reach Pine Mountain Fire Road. I opter for the later as I planned to ride down Repack itself. Deer Park Fire Road begins at the back end of the aptly named Deer Park. Not really the type of park you would sit at and have a picnic, Deer Park is more of parking lot for the nearby Fairfax San Anselmo Children's Center and a small set of picnic benches and porta-potties for hikers to use. The Fire Road itself winds up between Bald Hill and the woodlands above BoFax before popping out along Sky Oaks Road. Crossing over Sky Oaks, I headed down towards Bon Tempe and Alpine Lakes. These reservoirs are just 2 of 5 on Mt. Tam that supply 75% of the Marin Municipal Water District's supply. 

From Alpine Lake, I rode along Bullfrog Fire Road for a minute before reaching the trailhead of Liberty Gulch. This trail was illegal for bikes to ride until trail work was completed in 2025 that made it more multi-user friendly. Before this ride I had ridden Liberty Gulch a few times, but not since the rains we got this past winter. The trail follows Alpine Lake for a bit before beginning to climb the western flank of Azalea Hill. Healthy looking Douglas Fir and Live Oak were scattered across the first half of the trail before I reached the serpentine soils of the higher elevations. Serpentinite soils are too nutrient poor for many species to grow, often leaving the landscape looking like the surface of the moon to the untrained eye. This would be a mistake though, as rare and native plants have learned to adapt to the poisonous ground. Wildflowers and chaparral dominate this part of the trail, making for beautiful pops of color along the otherwise muted soils. The other benefit of serpentine soils on this part of the ride simply had to do with how fun it was climbing up through technical rock gardens and loose gravel patches. Unlike many well groomed fire roads and trails in other parts of Marin, this climb was extremely engaging. After following Liberty Gulch up Azalea Hill, I eventually popped onto BoFax for a minute before crossing over onto Pine Mountain Fire Road. The views in between these two sections were stunning with sweeping views of Bolinas Ridge, Mt. Tam and the lakes below. 

Pine Mountain Fire Road features similar terrain to the second half of Liberty Gulch, with serpentine outcroppings and loose gravel galore. While wider than Liberty Gulch, much of Pine Mountain Fire Road is rockier, looser and more rutted than its singletrack counterpart. Pine Mountain Fire Road isn't particularly steep (compared to other fire roads in Marin), but might be the most technical option by bike. It started to heat up a bit as I got closer to the junction between Pine Mountain Fire Road and San Geronimo Ridge Road - my next turnoff, especially with the lack of tall pines and oaks to shade me. What I did find plenty of along this part of the ride were the rare pygmy Sargent Cypress trees that appeared gnarled and stunted along the road. 

Shortly after turning onto San Geronimo Ridge Road, I completed the uphill section of my ride - a signpost making the beginning of Cascade Canyon Fire Road (with small print written "a.k.a Repack" below). I took advantage of a Cypress that not only was clear of brush, but had a perfectly placed boulder to sit on underneath and ate a bar and some water. The views from this point were even more impressive than what I had seen near the top of Liberty Gulch, with straight shot views of Mt. Tam and Mt. Diablo across the bay. Stretching for a minute and putting my helmet back on, I prepared to enjoy the fruits of my labor - a nearly 2 mile long trip down Repack. Steeper than I imagined in my head, Repack transitions from brushy and panoramic views near the top, into madrone and oak forests in the middle, before becoming damp and ferny (for mid-May) at its terminus. It took me nearly 7 minutes to get from top to bottom on Repack, an embarrassingly slow time compared to the 4:22 record that Gary Fisher set riding a modified 1940's klunker Schwinn bike in the 1970s. Despite my sluggish attempt, the ride down Repack felt like I was reliving history, truly a bucket list experience checked off. 

Climbing out of the creek bed at the end of Cascade Drive,  I eventually rode back into BoFax and headed back into town around 11:00a. I packed my bike back into the truck and headed up sufficiently stoked with the diversity of tread, terrain and foliage on a ride that totaled just over 14 miles. A morning well spent.

Pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wpUswuK4k2SQw2XF6

I set out from the apartment around 2:00 in the afternoon, having made a half decent burrito, considering I forgot to include avocado or rice. Nonetheless, I had also forgotten to drop my friend’s headphones off at his house, so headed towards West Davis to start the ride. After that short detour, I headed out Russell Boulevard towards Stevenson Bridge, passing a lonely goat in a little pen as town faded behind me. It seemed especially green for early February, the almond trees seemed to be joining in too, blooming a week or 2 earlier than I remember last year. After turning onto Stevenson Bridge Road, I passed over its namesake bridge, and Putah Creek was flowing to put it mildly. 

Last week’s storms had the banks swollen a good 5 feet higher than normal this time of year. Leaving behind the dragonflies and frogs of Putah Creek, I went down Campbell Road before taking a left onto Sparks Ranch Road. I had scoped this stretch of road out on Google Street View before starting my ride, but was a bit weary of the condition of its gravel surface after all the rain we’ve gotten. To my surprise, Sparks Ranch ended up being the highlight of my ride, with mature almond trees blooming on each side, and a pleasant tailwind pushing me south. It hadn’t rained in something like 4 days, but big puddles sat between the rows of cruciferous vegetables being grown near the southernmost section of the road. I wasn’t sure whether to go once I got to the end of the gravel road but decided to head west towards Winters on Sievers Road. The shoulder on this road was not ideal, with the canal on my right significantly wider than the skinny lane I was balancing in. The crane and heron meditating in the canal largely made up for the shoulder though. As I trudged down the road, I decided to take Garnett Road, another (supposedly) gravel road that connected back to Campbell, only to be turned around by a “no outlet” sign, and washboarding that must have been half a foot deep at spots. 

Anyways, I ended up continuing down Sievers until I made an abrupt turn north up Halley Road. The next 3 roads blended together in my mind, Halley, Wolfskill and Boyce respectively. Quant farm houses, a few mobile homes, and a surprising amount of flowers dotted the side of the road in front of me, but nothing too noteworthy. Eventually I reached familiar territory (Putah Creek Road), just outside of Winters, deciding to head back towards Davis as the temperature started to drop a few degrees. A normally scenic road, today was especially beautiful with the creek being so animated to my left. I took my hands off the handlebars for a minute to grab a sip of water and pull a cookie from my jersey pocket. My roommate's grandma of sorts, makes these Greek, flattened-oval shaped cookies that are just sweet enough to provide a bit of energy, without leaving your mouth sticky like you just took a shot of syrup. I continued down Putah Creek Road until I met back up with Stevenson Bridge Road, retracing my pedal strokes back towards town. Nearing 4 p.m now, the sun was at that weird place in the sky where it didn’t spread shadows to their extremes, but just enough to cover most of the road back in the shape of roadside oaks. By the time I got back into the Davis city limits, I decided to just round the ride up to 40 miles by riding through campus and out towards The Cannery before heading home. I’m not sure if it was the chilly breeze, or just that most students had already headed back to their dorms for the day, but campus was surprisingly quiet for a sunny Monday. Riding through downtown, I felt like my previous meal was haunting me, the smells of Taqueria Davis’ asada and fried tortillas filling my noise. 

Resisting the urge to try a new burrito place near the tailend of my ride, I kept going, heading left up Pole Line Road before turning left again onto West Covell. Halfway up Pole Line, I was temporarily interrupted by a flock of turkeys protesting (car-centric city planning perhaps?) in the middle of the road. Eventually, I turned north onto the Cannery Loop. This new neighborhood that replaced the abandoned tomato cannery of the same name, has a nice U shaped path around it, with some nice views of a reed lined agricultural ditch on the edges of the trail. By the time I had reached the end of the path, I was ready for a snack (a spoonful of peanut butter sounded delightful) so I headed over the train tracks and down the longest downhill in town, the other side of the overpass I had just went up. At this point, I was half a mile from home, but I still took full advantage of the tailwind that had shifted, now coming from the west. I pulled up to the bottom of my apartment's stairs around 4:30ish, leaving me just enough time to grab a few groceries and enjoy my spoonful of peanut butter, at long last!