Circle the Bay: Day 12: San Pablo Creek to Point Richmond

Day 12: San Pablo Creek to Point Richmond

(San Pablo to Richmond)

Circle The Bay Part 3

May 18th 2018

8.0 miles in 1 hrs 48 mins

(Total: 237.7 miles in 42 hrs 36 mins)

I took Caltrain then BART back to Richmond, and biked back out to the trail where it makes a loop around a landfill hill on the edge of the bay. This is a part of the trail I skipped when walking, and a part of the trail that made me glad I upgraded to gnarlier bicycle tires. Nowadays this hill is used for composting yard waste and generating methane gas. There was a point on the trail where that stomach acid smell of digestion was in the air.

But aesthetically, the hill is not a bad addition to the mountain ridges that poke their backs out of the bay's mud. It almost naturally pairs with the high ground of Point Richmond when viewed from the Richmond Parkway that swings by the bayshore at this point.

Mural in Richmond BART Station

Landfill Hill with Bay Trail Loop by San Pablo Creek

Pt. San Pablo to the Left, Landfill Hill to the Right

At what point does a zoomed photo become an oil painting?

It was already 2 PM when I made it to the small historic downtown of Point Richmond. The Bay Trail does extend from here out the end of Pt. San Pablo, but it is not a loop because of the reserved use of the northern side of the point by the other oil refinery that takes up prime scenic real estate on the bay. I haven't decided yet whether I like the orange tanks of this Chevron refinery over the white tanks of Phillips 66 north in Rodeo.

Either way I have to admit I am a consumer of their product still. But I look forward to a time when the only gas made in this part of the Bay Trail is from our composted yard and kitchen waste, and the Bay Trail can circle Richmond Point through a new bay park.