Sears Point to Ramal Trailhead

Start/End: Start car Tolay Creek Rd, basically at the intersection of Hwy 37 and Hwy 121. Finish car at Ramal Rd. There's a trailhead here (but I'm not sure it has a name): goo.gl/maps/zN3pRbRy2oY5ZZYi8

Notes: After quite a bit of official trail on the south side of Hwy 37 a couple of weeks ago, today was the opposite story (google "felony trespassing"). We were at a bit of crossroads. The Bay Trail's proposed route takes it along Hwy 37 and then north through Skaggs Island. The Hwy 37 part is possibly doable, at least legally, though a little terrifying, while the Skaggs Island section is a closed formal Naval Communication Station that's now under the NWR. North of Skaggs Island some small sections of Bay Trail reappear headed generally towards Napa. So the plan was to run country roads to get to these and give up on the proposed sections through here. At least for now.

So, we drove two cars almost an hour up to the trailhead off Ramal Rd at the start of a small piece of Bay Trail along a slough, then drove our start car down to Sears Point where we'd left off a couple of weeks ago. This is when doubts crept in. Hwy 121 had little shoulder and cars were moving at 60+mph. Instead of running this section we decided to walk the railway line instead (which is an old Northwestern Railway track that isn't used). Turned out to be the right decision. It wasn't as hard to walk on as we imagined and as it passes through some wildlife areas it was quite pretty. There was even a small ghost town that used to be a steamship stop.

(Special note: we didn't see a no trespassing sign until after we had finished the railroad section, but this route probably isn't perfectly legal. Also walking train tracks can be a bad idea, so be careful if you follow our path. Conditions change and this line might one day be part of SMART. Anyway, we did not die on the highway, so that counts for a lot, in our book.)

Once we reached the Hwy again, after about 7 miles of train track walking, we had a mile stretch of busy road until we could turn off onto quieter country roads and make our way a few miles through some nice vineyards to our car.