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San Leandro Marsh at sunset

San Leandro Marsh

Swimming beach at Coyote Point Park, San Mateo

Coyote Point Beach

Coyote Hills, Regional Park, Fremont

Coyote Hills

Bay Trail in Shoreline at Mountain View Park The San Francisco Bay Trail is a proposed 500-mile network of trails around the shores of San Francisco Bay. The Bay Trail runs through the 9 counties that surround the Bay. Over 340 miles of the trail have been completed. (See here for Bay Trail General Facts.) The trails run along the bayshore, salt ponds, creeks and sloughs, and marshes. The trails are ideal for biking, walking, jogging, nature-watching, and other activities. The trails are mostly flat, so are suitable for people of all physical abilities. The trail surfaces range from gravel roads, dirt levees, to paved landscaped paths. The paved paths are suitable for roller skates, baby strollers, and wheelchairs.

The environments range from enormous lonely salt ponds, to popular developed parks, to narrow paths near busy streets and commercial areas. Wildlife abounds, particularly waterfowl. These are excellent places for bird-watching. Ducks, geese, herons, egrets, pelicans, gulls, marsh hawks, cormorants, and shorebirds abound in these areas. Two endangered species make their homes in the pickleweed marshes along the Bay: the clapper (now Ridgway's) rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse.

Near the airports, the Bay Trail is an ideal area for watching manmade birds land and take off. Access to the Bay also makes the shorelines along the Bay Trail popular places for water sports such as fishing, swimming, and wind surfing. There are many public parks and recreational facilties along the trail, as well as homes, businesses, hotels, restaurants, and stores. The trail can be used for travelling to recreational spots, going to shop or eat, or even commuting to work. These activities will become even more possible once the entire Bay Trail is complete. With the public purchase of the Cargill salt ponds in the South Bay, even more trails are possible.

I've been biking around the southern Bay Trails. I've taken pictures of the scenery and made notes on the routes. My goal is to cover the Bay Trail from San Francisco International Airport, down the Peninsula, around the South Bay, and up the East Bay to Oakland International Airport. Here are the Bay Trail pages I've developed or am working on. They include the main trunk of the Bay Trail as well as feeder trails. The oldest pages are on my Bay Area Biking pages. From 1998 to around 2003, I created guided photo tours for the Bay Trail Project, which were hosted on their website and include trail descriptions. Those pages are marked with * below. The pages made before 2001 have pictures taken with film cameras and scanned from prints at low resolution. Starting from the end of 2001, I started taking pictures with digital cameras and posted pictures at higher resolution. The more recent webpages, starting in 2007, are hosted on my website, rhorii.com. Some of the latest pictures are on Facebook albums. The webpages are listed below in geographic order, from north to south. The Facebook pages are in chronological order. All of these pages were developed strictly as a volunteer effort. If you would like to use any of these pictures, contact me.

My intent for doing these tours and pictures is to promote increased awareness and appreciation for the Bay Trail. Hopefully, as the Bay Trail brings more people in contact with the Bay, it will result in more support for preserving and restoring the Bay itself and its natural resources. Public and private support is needed to complete the Bay Trail. It is becoming one of the nations's truly great trail systems and will be a treasure for the Bay Area for years to come.

Update 2016: Note that my original Bay Trail guided photo tours are no longer available on the Bay Trail's website. They are available on the Internet Archive. The links below have been updated to point to the archived copies. Note that the internal page-to-page links, as well as many of the other links, on those pages may not work. These are archived copies, so I have no way to update them.

Peninsula Trails Oyster Cove	Original Bay Trail Guided Photo Tours South San Francisco to Brisbane: Oyster Cove to Sierra Point, 11/6/03 * South San Francisco: Point San Bruno to Oyster Point, 11/6/03 * South San Francisco: SamTrans Peninsula to Point San Bruno, 11/6/03 * San Mateo to Millbrae, 12/11/99 * Coyote Point, 12/14/99 * Foster City, 12/5/99 * Redwood Shores, 8/3/00 * Menlo Park, 6/11/00 * Dumbarton Bridge, 10/6/04 * New/Updated Webpages Redwood Shores, 7/5/13 Port of Redwood City, 9/26/07 Ravenswood, 10/21/10 Facebook Albums Along the Bay Trail, San Mateo, Foster City, 8/19/12 San Francisco Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge, 9/15/12 America's Cup Quest: Redwood City to Redwood Shores, 7/6/14 Port of Redwood City, 7/29/15 Bay Trail Menlo Park: Bayfront Park to Facebook, 7/29/15 Ravenswood Open Space Preserve, Menlo Park 7/29/15 Bay Trail: San Mateo to SFO, 8/15/15 San Mateo Bay Trail: Afternoon and Sunset, Coyote Point and South, 8/15/15 Facebook: Cooley Landing King Tides Walk by Acterra, 1/23/16 Facebook: Bair Island 2/6/16
South Bay Trails Sunnyvale Baylands	Original Bay Trail Guided Photo Tours and Old Pages Palo Alto Baylands to Shoreline at Mountain View 2/20/99 Palo Alto Baylands 8/25/00 * Palo Alto Baylands: Matadero Creek to Byxbee Park, 2/14/00 * Mountain View: Stevens Creek Trail, 11/22/02 * Shoreline at Mountain View, 10/22/02 * Sunnyvale Baylands biking page 11/27/98 Sunnyvale Baylands Part 1: The Bay Trail and Hills, 10/28/01 * Sunnyvale Baylands Part 2: The Baylands Ponds, 10/28/01 * Sunnyvale Baylands Part 3: Sunnyvale Baylands Park and Nearby Trails, 10/28/01 * San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge -Alviso, 11/27/98 Alviso: Town and Slough, 12/29/99 * Alviso: Mallard Slough & Environmental Education Center, 12/29/99 * New/Updated Webpages Palo Alto Baylands 10/17/10 update High Tide at the Palo Alto Baylands Preserve and Byxbee Park, 11/26/11 High Tide at the Palo Alto Baylands Preserve and Byxbee Park, 1/30/14 Stevens Creek Trail 2009 update The Stevens Creek Trail to Cooley Landing, 8/12/12 Shoreline at Mountain View, 7/9/09 update Moffett Bay Trail (Opening Ceremony 9/20/10) Sunnvale Baylands 2011 Update San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, Santa Clara, 7/6/10 Guadalupe River Trail: Hwy 101 to Alviso, 12/1/08 Alviso Marina County Park 11/27/10 Alviso King Tide Pictures, 2/9/13 Alviso Mallard Slough Trail Mobile Phone Tour, 10/26/14 Facebook Albums Stevens Creek Trail, 1/29/12 Bide ride from Guadalupe River Park to Alviso, 2/5/12 Shoreline at Mountain View, 7/1/12 San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail to 49'ers Stadium, 8/25/12 Levi's Stadium, San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, 8/2/14 Facebook: Stevens Creek Trail to San Francisco Bay, 10/5/14 Day on the Bay, Alviso, Alviso Slough Trail to San Francisco Bay, 10/12/14 Alviso Marina Inaugural Boat Tour, 5/29/15 Alviso Town Tour, 7/13/15 Around the Alviso Environmental Education Center, 7/13/15 On the Bay Trail in Mountain View and Palo Alto, 8/23/15 Bay Trail Tour, Alviso to Mountain View 8/27/15: Part 1: Alviso to Mountain View Part 2: Mountain View to Alviso Facebook: The Trail to the Super Bowl (the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail), 1/31/16 Facebook: Alviso EEC Wetlands Walk, 2/6/16 Facebook: Levi's Stadium and Vicinity After the Super Bowl, 2/8/16 Facebook: Sunnyvale Baylands Park, 2/8/16
East Bay Trails SF Bay Refuge HQ	Original Bay Trail Guided Photo Tours and Old Pages San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge - Newark, 11/27/98 Coyote Creek Lagoon - Fremont, 1/31/02 * Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge - Fremont, Part 1 - Tidelands Trail and Visitor Center, 2/4/02 * Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge - Fremont, Part 2 - Newark Slough and LaRiviere Marsh, 2/4/02 * Coyote Hills Regional Park, 11/27/98 Coyote Hills - Part 1: Apay Way to SF Bay (10/9/00) * Coyote Hills - Part 2: Hills, Marshes, and Trails (10/8/00) * The Alameda Creek Regional Trail, 11/26/98 Alameda Creek Trail (in 4 sections, 10/8/00) - Southwest--Coyote Hills to I880, Southeast--I880 to Niles Canyon, Northwest--I880 to SF Bay, Northeast--Niles Canyon to I880 * Hayward Shoreline, 12/5/99 * San Leandro: San Lorenzo Creek to Marina Park, 12/5/99 * Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, 4/9/00 * New/Updated Webpages Eden Landing, Hayward, 12/19/10 King Tide and Low Tide at the Hayward Regional Shoreline, 1/25/14 and 1/29/14 Facebook Albums King Tide at Don Edwards SFBNWR, Fremont, 1/31/14 King Tides at Alameda Creek and Coyote Hills, 1/31/14 Coyote Hills Regional Park bike tour, 6/25/15: Nectar Garden at the Coyote Hills Visitor Center Part 1: Coyote Hills to the Dumbarton Bridge Part 2: the Dumbarton Bridge to Coyote Hills Alameda Creek Trail Bike Ride Pt. 1, Union City to Niles, 8/31/15 Pt. 2, Niles to San Francisco Bay 8/31/15
	Disclaimer note: the Bay Trail's website is undergoing reconstruction. Many of the old guided photo tours are no longer accessible from the Bay Trail homepage, though the tours still exist and can be accessed from this page. However, the links and information on those pages may be outdated and cannot be updated at this point. (See the Bay Trail's disclaimer.) The older the pages are, the more likely they are to have outdated information and stale links. Some areas may now be inaccessible, while new areas may be accessible. Park rules and hours may have changed. All conditions and information on these pages represent a snapshot in time and are subject to change without notice. They should not be relied upon to be current. Consult the various park agencies for the most up-to-date information.