Old Briones Road to Lagoons and kind of to Lafayette Ridge Staging Area
The is not the real through ride that it should be, I'll "fix" it sometime by taking the proper route. Hank and I went biking Saturday morning. We parked Hanks car at Gloria Terrace and drove mine and the bikes up to the unofficial Briones Rd entrance. The total distance we did was 8.49 miles with a total elevation gain of 1351 feet. This trail includes single track trails that are not marked on normal Briones maps. You bike up Old Briones Road to the Maricich Lagoons, where you make your way on the single track trails that are on either side of the lagoons towards the woods. A small bench is just on the edge of the woods and on your right. You make your way along the single track trail through the woods. After less than half a mile you will go through a green grate and about .7 miles you will come to a cross trail also a single track. If you go right up the hill you will climb almost straight up to Briones Peak. If you go left the trail winds down to either Diablo View or the water tank by Spengler Trail. Continue straight and less than .35 you will exit on Table Top trail (really a fire road). From here we turned right up the road to Table Top. And instead of bearing right on Briones Crest Trail we went left along Table Top trail. We were supposed to loop around around Spengler Trail and back down the gully to the Blue Oak Trail. Somehow I missed the turn and we ended going down Briones Crest Trail, then down BuckEye Ranch Trail, where we jumped a dry stream bed onto Spring Road, where we road down to Pleasant Hill Road and then back along Reliez Valley Road to Gloria Terrace
(click for a larger version)