The Story
All the way around.
A complete clockwise circumnavigation of the San Francisco Bay Trail, on foot, over 15 months — 102 outings, starting and finishing at MLK park in Oakland.
We made some rules.
- We will attempt to run or walk ALL dedicated sections of the trail and connect ALL gaps.
- Our source of truth reference will be the Bay Trail Navigational Map at the time we run that part of the trail. This map is not always accurate though, so we'll find a path that is in the spirit of what is drawn. If the official map is on one side of the road and we're on the other, that is fine.
- Start point (and finish point) is MLK park in Oakland. We started June 6th 2021 and finished the circumnavigation on Sept 11, 2022. We might run reopened trails or pieces we missed later.
- We will run or hike around the Bay Trail in a continuous spine, clockwise, picking each section up from the point where we left off before.
- Side loops and spurs will be filled in as we go, once the spine has progressed to, or beyond, those branches.
- Spine is determined by, in preference: Official Bay Trail, then Proposed Bay Trail, then closest legal/safe route across gaps, then whatever questionable route works. If there are multiple proposed routes across a gap, we'll probably only run one of them.
- Closed sections of the trail will be detoured around. If there's an official detour, we'll probably go with that. The trail is what it is when we run it. We won't enter personal private property.
- If there is a water hazard like a river, and no safe way across, we will paddle it.
From MLK Park, clockwise: down through Alameda and the south bay, up the peninsula and through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate, around Marin and Sonoma, across Napa and Carquinez, and back down to where we started. Some sections were paved, some were dirt, some required paddling. Many were repeated. One we never quite finished.
