Magical Morning as the fog lifts   Photo/Christina Samuelson

Early morning is a great time for a three to five mile hike along Lake Chabot in the East Bay Regional Parks District. Immersing yourself in nature starts the day with bunnies and fawns crossing your path, the fog lifting from the water and skies waking up. Fishermen head out for their day’s catch and hikers take on the hill challenge. Each day presents a different painting and each painting is full of its own beauty.

How to get there:

Exiting off the 580 at the  Estudillo exit, take Estudillo east under the freeway for about a minute and you can park in San Leandro’s Chabot Park parking lot and head up the hill. Here’s the trail guide. Enjoy!

A bit of history from EBRPD website:

Lands that became Grass Valley Regional Park in 1952 (later Anthony Chabot Regional Park) were on territory east of what would become Oakland and San Leandro, an area where Native Americans collected acorns and other staples of their diet. Today the 5,069-acre park and its lake are named for Anthony Chabot, a pioneer California businessman and philanthropist who created Lake Chabot by building an earth-fill dam in 1874-75.

Lake Chabot Reservoir (served) as a primary source of water for the East Bay. The 315-acre lake was closed to recreation for 91 years. Legislation passed in the 1960s opened the lake for controlled recreational uses. Currently, the lake serves as a standby emergency water supply. For this reason, visitors are asked to observe certain necessary regulations to keep the waters pure. (Read more about the history)