While checking out KTVU’s Hiking Guide I came across this one I’ve never even heard of: Sibley Volcanic Preserve.
In the bowels of an ancient volcano where crude labyrinths materialized, humans and furry beasts wander through forests of eucalyptus and pine, exploring these strange convoluted paths…. This reads like the start of a supernatural novel, but it’s just a description of the daily routine at Sibley Volcanic Preserve. Sibley was one of the first three preserves created by the East Bay Regional Park District, founded way back in 1936. The preserve’s focal point, Round Top, was once a volcano. Ten million years or so passed, and surrounding Orinda Formation rocks eroded away, so when the land was quarried, cross sections of the caldera were exposed, as well as other volcanic features including basalt dikes and breccia outcrops. The labyrinths appeared in the scooped out quarried areas more than 10 years ago. Unlike a maze, which has a different entrance and exit, a labyrinth shares one path into and out of the center. They have been used traditionally as a means for meditation, and visitors do walk the labyrinths at Sibley hoping for spiritual succor.
Jane Huber of bahiker.com provides the text for the guide, which points to many of the usual suspects around here.
Here’s the East Bay Regional Parks’ Sibley page
Sibley is an old haunt, being located just above the Oakland hills off Claremont Canyon. . .it’s really a super-fine place, albeit smallish, but where you can take in great views high atop Round Peak – of Mt. Diablo looming eastward – and walk the sacred labyrinths, and generally enjoy a very nice nature get-away right on the doorstep of syphilization!
I grew up in Piedmont and know a ton about Sibley. Round Top is one thing, pretty short and sedate actually. The best parts are off a fork to the left, off a paved trail a couple hundred yards from the parking lot. Follow the trail until you reach a junction, take a right at the junction and you’ll quickly come to a downhill into a seasonal pond, beside a small canyon with a seasonal creek. If the pond doesn’t dry up before summer, it’s a favorite meeting place for Oakland Hills reptiles and amphibians, small frogs by the thousands. At least I hope it’s still that way. Been awhile since I hiked there. Maybe it’s time to go back…