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Dick Collins Firetrails continues at Cull Canyon Regional Park, which is about a 5-minute drive from the old start/finish at Lake Chabot but on foot, it’s a spectacular climb on the Bay Area Ridge Trail that many never see! The Firetrails 50 mile now turns around at Skyline Gate. The net elevation of the new course is 8,500 feet.
For you nerdlings, here is where you can download the gpx file here. Also here is an interactive version of the course in Strava.
Maps 1 and 2: Cull Canyon
Click on Map to see (and print!) bigger version. Red is outbound. Blue is returning. Print in landscape for better legibility.
The Dick Collins 50 mile starts at the Maple picnic area inside of Cull Canyon Regional Park. You’ll be able to enter the parking lot starting at 5 am. Bring your drop bags and after-race bags to the picnic area and we’ll have things there for you or out at the aid stations, as you request. Drop bags are available at Skyline Gate and Lake Chabot Marina on the return.
Outbound: Start to Lake Chabot Staging Area. The race leaves Cull Canyon and runs out the front gate of the park. You bear left on Cull Canyon Rd and enter the Garin to Chabot Trail to the left right after you cross Columbia Road. Once you’re on course, it’s all single-track to the first aid station at Bellhurst Lane. This will be a hydration and gel-only aid station in the morning.
At Bellhurst Lane Aid, runners will enter a gated area that contains horses during the year. A course monitor will help with this gate on the way out. At the far end of the pasture is another gate. If a course monitor is not in position, runners will need to open and close the gate themselves. Runners continue through EBMUD land, along fireroads that offer a panoramic view of San Francisco Bay and Contra Costa County on a rarely-run section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail. The trail descends down sharply and rolls into Lake Chabot Staging Area.
Returning: Race returns along the same route to Bellhurst Lane. On return to the finish line, runners will cross Columbia Road and make an immediate hard right onto a trail that parallels the parking lot, crosses a dry creed bed and enters the Maple Picnic Area.
Map 3: Anthony Chabot and Lake Chabot Regional Parks
Click on Map to see (and print!) bigger version. Red is outbound. Blue is returning. Print in landscape for better legibility.
On leaving Chabot Staging Area, runners will continue onto the Bay Area Ridge Trail, underneath Redwood Road onto the Willow View Trail. This beautiful single track weaves uphill to Brandon Trail, where you’ll make a hard left, down the hill, and through the entrance to the Golf Course. At Proctor Trail, bear right.
Runners proceed to Ten Hills and turn right, then quickly bear right on Cameron Loop Trail, which runs by the streams and past the bridge that for many years was in the first part of the race. Cameron Loop becomes the East Shore Trail. Runners proceed into the Chabot Marina, the traditional start/finish of the Dick Collins 50 mile.
After aid, you’ll proceed out West Shore Trail and onto Grass Valley Aid, then down Jackson Grade to Brandon Trail and onto Bort Meadow. From Bort Meadow, you’ll proceed up and over MacDonald Grade to Big Bear.
You will return on this same route.
Map 4: Redwood Regional Park
Click on Map to see (and print!) bigger version. Red is outbound. Blue is returning. Print in landscape for better legibility.
From Big Bear, you’ll be in for a special treat, up rolling trails on Golden Spike Trail, then up to West Ridge, then down onto the Stream Trail which winds up a watershed under tall redwoods. You’ll enter Skyline Gate Aid at the top of the valley. This is the turnaround point to the race.
You will return by the same route.