Just like the Bay Area Ridge Trail, the San Francisco Bay Trail is another amazing undertaking to link up 500 miles of biking and hiking (and well, running) trails that encircle the San Francisco and the San Pablo Bay. Once done, the bay trail will connect all nine Bay Area counties, 47 cities and cross the major toll bridges in that area. This is the second trail that I’m documenting as part of the Bay Area Trail Running series that includes interactive maps, elevation gains, fun routes and lots of pictures.

Shoreline Lake to Bay Trail

The Shoreline Lake park in Mountain View is a very convenient location for me to hit up the Bay Trail since it’s just minutes from where I drop my kids off to school. On many weekday mornings, I can get a quick 5-7 mile run here before the day begins. This particular route starts from the Shoreline Lake and is an out and back for a total of a 7.1 miles. It’s mostly flat and a great trail for speed work and endurance runs. The other huge aspect of this trail is the convenient location of water fountains. As long as you have a few Clif Shots with you, you can run pretty far here without carrying much water.

 

During the day, this trail is teeming with wildlife and you can see Seagulls, Cormorants, Pelicans, Black Bird with Red Shoulders and over 150 species of shore birds. I even ran into a garden snake once on the Adobe Creek Trail. Here’s the route:

• Start at Shoreline Lake
• Take the back side of the Lake to Coast Casey Forebay
• Enter Bay Trail through Adobe Creek Loop Trail (water fountain here)
• Run past Charleston Slough
• And then Mayfield Slough
• Turn around point is near Water Quality Control Plant (water fountain here)
• When you exit the gravel trail on the way back, loop around the marshes
• Return to start line along the eastern shore of the Lake

I love this trail because, depending on where you start, you can easily construct out and back runs that can span from 5 miles to 22 miles. For example, on the southern side, moving the starting point to the kite area makes this a 10 miler. Starting from the Steven Creek trail next to Microsoft campus makes this a 12 miler. For an 18 mile out and back run, start your run from the beginning of the Stevens Creek trail at Yuba Drive.

Do you run here? What’s your favorite route through Bay Trail?

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