Pinole Creek Trail

This is a great little trail to walk at in Pinole. It is located behind the park and baseball field. There is a creek next to it which supposedly flooded but because of the lack of rain you wouldn’t even known there was a creek there. The trail is quite long and goes all the way down to the train tracks and connects to another trail running along the train tracks. The area doesn’t get really busy but you can find more people on the weekend or really nice days. You can find people with their kids running with jogging strollers, people and their dogs and solo runners. Like on any running trail, you should be aware of your surroundings and carrying pepper spray wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Not saying that this place isn’t safe but better to be safe than sorry.

This is one of my favorite easy hikes. However, this would be much more useful to us folks on the Hercules side if a few gates could be opened up in the ugly chain-​link fence now isolating the trail from the community. Part of the reason this hasn’t happened, I think, is that some residents have concerns that the Forces of Evil (up to and including the Golden Horde, Imperial Storm Troopers, and the foul Orcs of Sauron) would promptly swarm through any such openings, rustling our womenfolk and raping our livestock. I don’t know why they think this; there don’t seem to have been any such problems on the Pinole side, which has much better community access to the trail on that side of the creek.

Since the first recorded flood in 1862, Pinole Creek had periodically flood downtown Pinole. In 1965, the Army Corps of Engineers responded by installing a flood control project on the creek. Their handy work can be seen on each side of San Pablo Ave.
This 10 mile creek runs all year and is free flowing after it goes under San Pablo Ave.; the trail is a delightful place to walk. The first section is just a few blocks. The second section is about ½ mile and goes from San Pablo Ave to the bay where it connects with the Bay Trail.
Both sections are flat and easy to walk. The vegetation is vastly different, the upper portion is tree lined, and the lower section is more barren, but it is more popular. It passes the park, and goes under the historic wooden railroad trestle that trains still rumble over.
I see joggers, old folks, young people, dog walkers, and people with baby strollers. There is even a person on horseback who rides here. Steelhead and rainbow trout swim upstream, and I did see an egret catch a fish that just might have been a trout. There are also little birds, ducks, grebes, coots, and abandon cats. The trail ends at the railroad tracks at the bay. After passing under the railroad bridge the creek then empties into the bay.