My High Sierra Extreme Challenge: Running Ohlone Wilderness

I received text message from our No. 1 local and retired celebrity rock climber "running Ohlone tomorrow, are you in ?". It was a short notice but whenever Tim Berger says he is doing something epic, I usually tried to open my calendar.

I did not pay attention to the details of this run. All I know was I have not been in that part of East Bay trails and that Tim knows where we are going :)

Left the valley early to make it to TH before 8AM. We started just after 8AM. The start was already relentless incline. Oh well it was actually relentless up and down. We had to pass 3 mountains to make our way to Sunol. I told Tim, that next time he takes me to a trail I never been, I have to do my own research as Ohlone run is not easy.

Not far to our turn-around, we stopped for refuelling in "Little Yosemite". We had lunch but then decided that we are not going all the way to Sunol's Rangers office. We headed back up. What comes down must go back up. The 3000 ft of downhill is now our ascent back to Del Valle. I think I prefer the uphill, even if its slow but it wont be impacting my knees :( Well Tim was not feeling well. Tim wanted to turnaround but the trouble is, who are we going to call, because there is no mobile signal at all. Tim had no choice but to continue to run back to where we started, a painstakingly another 18 miles of hard running.

We took a detour to bag "The Everest by the Sea" called Rose Peak, since we are already there anyway. Its the highest in Ohlone. I signed the register and to my surprise, I saw Hank Z.'s name. The Norcal Peak Hikers were there earlier than us.

There are many hikers but all sparsely spread out. Only 2 trailrunners I met, one was slow and the other was hard-core.

We arrived late, it was already past 8PM and we had to rush before the Rangers close the gate. Overall, it was a fun run and scenic. Its the best time of the year (March) to run Ohlone, not that hot and not too cold. Doing this during summer - you are asking yourselves some trouble because you can easily be dehydrated to exposed sun-baked fire roads. Water is available but in only 2 spots.

The Ohlone run made my 50 miler a training run :) Its steep in some sections and too much of downhill. However it is all worth it. If you love being out in the wilderness and wanted to have the 360 view of East Bay California, going up to Rose Peak is the way to go.