Red Hills Loop Trail

It is finally starting to feel like summer here in Central California. Everything is blooming, and the temperatures get to 80s in the afternoon. This is not good for hiking, especially without shade.

Red Hills Loop Trail is almost entirely in the sun. Very rarely do you get to enjoy the coolness of shade. There is a large parking lot at the trail head where you can park at no cost. While you might have looked at the maps before starting the hike, consider bringing one of the topo maps, follow the rout on AllTrails or just use Gaia GPS app. All these additional tools are needed because there are dozens of forks that can take you in so many directions. Some volunteers kindly marked the trail with white paint on the ground, but even with it you can get lost (we did!).

I used Gaia GPS to find the way out by downloading the topo map of the area and visually figuring out the loop to the parking lot. Originally, we were planning to hike the Extended loop, but because we got off track at about mile 4, and awfully hot, we opted for a shorter trail.

I found this trail boring. I saw lots of wildflowers during this season, but besides that the landscape does not change much. It felt like I was hiking forever. I did, however enjoy the drive there from Fresno. There is something about driving through the fields and green rolling hills (the key word here is "green", because very soon it will be replaced by "golden" or how I call it, "yellow and dry").