Bothe-Napa State Park Section
Bay Area Ridge Trail Stats
Section: Bothe-Napa Valley State Park
Trail Mileage: 3.4 miles
My total miles to date: 51.9 miles
Date Hiked: 10.28.2022
Difficulty: Moderate
The Full Hike: Redwood Trail to Ritchey Canyon to Spring to Upper Ritchey Canyon. 6.8 miles.
Logistics & Parking
The great thing about this hike is that there are currently no logistics involved besides paying the state park fee of $10 per vehicle.
Parking is located at a dirt turnout on the right-hand side of the road as you are driving in. When you drive in from the entrance booth, you’ll immediately drive past the visitor center and keep driving straight, avoiding the road to the campground. After the road to the campground, you’ll see the parking area for the Ridge Trail. Currently, there are metal trash bins and an interpretive signboard with a Ridge Trail marker.
A word of caution about this trail that is semi-logistical: The trail kind of disappears once you hit the Upper Ritchey Canyon Trail. You’ll see more explanation and photos below, but you should know going into this trail that bushwhacking will be required, and if you are not used to off-trail travel, you may want to reconsider hiking this trail until it has been cleaned up.
Trail Notes
I’m not going to lie, this hike has been my least favorite BART section thus far. But, there are always moments of beauty and serenity outside.
My mom and I drove up to Bothe-Napa State Park from the Peninsula around mid-morning. We were camping inside the park for two nights in order to do some BART sections up in the Napa area! The weather was a little overcast and muggy, but we were eager to hit the trail and happy to be hiking in the fall knowing how hot it can get in this area during the summer.
We collected ourselves in our camper van at the Redwood Trail trailhead, and then hit the trail! The path was relatively flat for the first 2-ish miles, as it meandered along Ritchey Creek. We followed the BART signs and actually stayed on the Redwood Trail until the Spring Trail. The map on the Ridge Trail’s website shows that you should cross the creek earlier to hop on the Ritchey Canyon Trail, but I think either is fine for hiking on. We took the Ritchey Canyon trail on the way back to the car and I think it is slightly more pretty than the Redwood Trail.
Once we turned onto the Spring Trail, the climbing began. It was not a rough climb at all - shaded and on a fire road with a moderate incline. This area shows a lot of burned trees from the fire that tore through this area a couple of years ago. At the top of the Spring Trail, there is a clearing with a sign prohibiting bikes from continuing down the trail. And if you’re on a bike, trust me, you do not want to ride down the next part of the trail.
After this sign, the trail cuts through overgrown grasses, clearly stomped down by other hikers. After about a tenth of a mile, the trail reaches the sign indicating the Upper Ritchey Canyon Trail. This part of the trail must be done as an out-and-back as there are no other trails it connects with. After the sign, the trail looks to be in ok shape. Slightly overgrown, but not too bad. After 5-10 minutes of hiking though, the trail turns into more of an obstacle course than a hike. There were a decent amount of downed trees, washed away trail, and lots and lots of overgrown brush. We kept powering through, as there were some clear sections among the mess. But eventually, we came to a spot that seemed like a dead-end. The faint trail had faded, and seemed to just end at a stream washout.
We looked around this area for a little bit, and feeling frustrated and hungry, decided to turn around. But then we saw a faint path about 20 feet away, in the direction we had just come from. So, we figured we needed to give it a go since we’d come all this way anyways! I’m glad we attempted it, but this part of the hike was pretty miserable. The weeds were taller than me at some points (5’4”) and so overgrown that you couldn’t identify a path forward. I was permanently hiking with my hand and poles outstretched, trying to weave my way through the brush and minimize the burrs that were sticking to us, and keep my arm raised above the poison oak flanking the edges of the trail. Eventually, we gave up. We were probably within a quarter mile of the official end of the trail, but the brush had grown so thick that it seemed fruitless. I made a pledge to hike the tiny bit left once the adjacent section became a real, complete section.
We turned around and hustled out of there, barely talking. It wasn’t very enjoyable hiking, and we were hungry. There usually isn’t a good lunch spot on an overgrown trail, so we trudged along, back the way we came until we reached the clearing on the Spring Trail, where we sat down and ate our PB & Js and spent time picking the burrs off of our clothing.
After our lunch break, we continued down the way we came, opting for the Ritchey Canyon Trail over the Redwood Trail on the way back. This was a very pleasant trail with nice views of the creek and a cute little Redwood grove with a bench. After admiring the trees, we got back on the Redwood Trail and were pretty happy to reach the parking lot and our van.
Even though this was a rough hike, there were some sweet moments: seeing new green growth juxtaposed against fire-blackened tree trunks, peering up Ritchey Canyon, imagining the forest pre-burn, pretending to be a jungle explorer while bushwhacking, and listening to the babbling brook of Ritchey Creek - a relaxing way to end a hectic jaunt.
It is trails like these that remind me how lucky we are when trails are manicured and maintained. The Bay Area Ridge Trail organization has hundreds of miles of trail to oversee and maintain, and our public lands are severely underfunded. I know a little bit of the amount of work it takes to clear a trail like this since I’ve done a bit of trail work before. It’s hard work - I’m young and fit and my back always hurts after just a couple of hours of brush clearing!
So I hope that my overall negative tone for this hike doesn’t turn you off completely, or make you disdainful of the trail organization: there are so many factors that go into trail maintenance. Let’s always work on donating our time and money to places doing good, and remember to vote for individuals who care to keep our public lands well-funded and protected!