A walk to a walker's house

The most recently completed segment of the Bay Area Ridge Trail presents an interesting new possibility for the weekend hiker: approaching, on foot, the Contra Costa County farmhouse of that more ambitious hiker John Muir. A tour of the historic home makes an appropriate midpoint respite on a 6-mile (round-trip) stroll.

On weekend days between 10 and 4:30, you can enter the John Muir National Historic Site through a rear gate, near a pleasant picnic spot in Muir's father-in-law's fruit orchard. (On Wednesdays, Thursday, and Fridays, you must walk another 3/4 mile to the main entrance on Alhambra Road; the site is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.)

You start at the Nejedly Staging Area in Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline. (From State 4 in Martinez, drive north on Alhambra Avenue; turn left on Escobar Street, then right on Talbart Street, and bear left onto Carquinez Scenic Drive.)

At the trailhead, pick up a park map--useful even though not yet revised to show the new trail. Head uphill through a creekside canyon thick with bays and live oaks. As you climb, look back over Carquinez Strait to Benicia Bridge and, to the east, the ghostly waterborne city of the mothball fleet.

At the hilltop, you intersect the northern strand of Franklin Ridge Loop Trail--itself a fine 3-mile circuit--with dramatic strait views. Walk southeast along what the map shows as an unlabeled dirt fire road, following emblems of the California Riding and Hiking Trail as well as those for the Ridge Trail. Do not take Rankin Park Trail, which goes east. The correct path leads past a windmill and privately owned house on your left and a hay barn on your right. Stay close to the barn, avoiding a gravel road leading toward the house.

Most of the terrain is rolling grassland. Before descending to the Muir site, you'll need to open and close a half-dozen gates.