Chickadee Nature Trail-Huddart Park
(scroll to bottom for photo gallery)
Location: Huddart Park is noted as being at 1100 Kings Mountain Road, Woodside, CA. From Kings Mountain Road, look for the sign for Huddart Park to turn onto Huddart Park Road, which leads to the entry gate.
Starting Point: The parking lot near the Huddart Park entry gate is close to the trailhead for the Chickadee Nature Trail.
Info links:
For all web links, if a link doesn’t jump directly, copy and paste into browser. (Information links may change. We do our best to update.)
Huddart Park information link (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/huddart-park
Huddart Park Trail map (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/sites/parks.smcgov.org/files/HuddartMap-Nov2018-FINAL-web.pdf
Huddart Park brochure link (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/documents/huddart-park-brochure
Distance:
The Chickadee Nature Trail is noted as an easy trail, covering 0.5 miles of trail without a lot of rise and fall in elevation. Once at the end of the 0.5-mile Chickadee Nature Trail, walkers can take the 0.1-mile connector trail to the Redwood Picnic Shelter area where the views open up. That makes for a 1.2 mile out-and-back hike. Huddart Park is a large complex of many connecting trails, so visitors looking for a longer hike can create a several mile hike by following the trail maps noted in the links.
Considerations:
• Huddart Park is quite large, and has many trails, parking and picnic areas. Though there are many trail markers, it is still advisable to have a copy of their brochure/trail map, preferably downloaded onto your mobile device as all paper copies were gone on our recent visit.
• There is a small per vehicle fee, pay info at main entrance.
• There are toilet facilities at several locations around Huddart Park, usually adjacent to named picnic and parking areas. One close to the main parking lot is at the Zwierlein Parking Lot.
• Pay attention to posted notices, including info on mountain lions, ticks, poison oak, and rattlesnakes.
• Dogs are not allowed at Huddart Park.
• Allow time to find your way around the trails, with plenty of time to make your way back to your trailhead. If in doubt, find one of the service roads that leads back to the main entrance.
The trail:
Huddart Park is a large county park set in what was formerly redwood logging territory, logged to fill the voracious need for lumber starting in the Gold Rush Era. Fortunately, new redwood trees have grown where others were felled long ago, and this county park offers many trails over a broad area to enjoy not only coast redwood trees but also live oak, madrone, and Douglas firs.
There are many trails, long and short, to explore in Huddart Park. The Chickadee Nature Trail is noted as one of the easy trails, 0.5 miles from the trailhead to the short connector trail that goes to the Redwood Picnic Shelter for a more open sky view. The Chickadee Nature Trail trailhead is right by the park entrance parking lot, so is a great beginner’s walk. We added an extra 0.3 miles out and 0.3 miles back to the Zwierlein picnic and parking area for a toilet stop, but of course driving is also an option.
The start of the Chickadee Nature Trail is dark and woodsy lined by redwoods starting out. Over the course of the trail, other trees include California laurel and madrone, with its distinctive brownish-red bark. The tree coverage keeps full sun off walkers for most of the trail, but the more deciduous tree areas let more light in.
One of the nice additions to the Chickadee Nature Trail is the information signs describing the varied terrain: coastal redwood forest, mixed evergreen forest, and chaparral. I learned that the bright red berries I enjoy seeing are from the Toyon plant, and that bright yellow banana slugs inhabit this area. Wooden benches and stretches of wooden fencing add to the charm of this short trail.
There’s a trail marker at the end of the 0.5-mile Chickadee Nature Trail indicating a further 0.1 miles to reach the Redwood Picnic Shelter area. The short 0.1-mile connector was a nice little stretch of trail, which then broadened into the open-sky area near the Redwood Picnic area. Resting there and turning back would make for an easy-to-navigate out-and-back hike.
This post covers only the Chickadee Nature Trail, but we originally combined this with the Bay Tree Trail. (See Bay Tree Trail-Huddart Park for a description of that hike.) For those exploring beyond the simple out-and-back Chickadee Nature Trail walk, it is important to have a paper trail map or a downloaded electronic trail map on hand. Despite the many trail markers and signs at Huddart Park, which we were impressed by, there are some areas that are difficult to make a connection between to reach a slightly distant trailhead. We not only used a map but a compass to find one of our trails, because key information was missing on some trail markers. Maps are our friends!
We’re looking forward to trying some of the longer trails at Huddart Park for future hikes.
(Chickadee Nature Trail-Huddart Park Hike Notes were originally paired with the “Just Show Up” Insights post.)
Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes on the main Hikes page or on the Hike Search by Area page. Check out selected articles and interviews under Media. Click World Walks to see or share favorite family-friendly walks! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. See products with inspiring designs that support the efforts of HikingAutism under Support/Shop. The Links page lists a loose collection of helpful information links.
Check the Home page for the broader background story. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photo galleries at the bottom of each hike page! Feel free to share and follow on Facebook at HikingAutism, follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism and Instagram at lisalouis777
(scroll to bottom for photo gallery)
Location: Huddart Park is noted as being at 1100 Kings Mountain Road, Woodside, CA. From Kings Mountain Road, look for the sign for Huddart Park to turn onto Huddart Park Road, which leads to the entry gate.
Starting Point: The parking lot near the Huddart Park entry gate is close to the trailhead for the Chickadee Nature Trail.
Info links:
For all web links, if a link doesn’t jump directly, copy and paste into browser. (Information links may change. We do our best to update.)
Huddart Park information link (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/huddart-park
Huddart Park Trail map (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/sites/parks.smcgov.org/files/HuddartMap-Nov2018-FINAL-web.pdf
Huddart Park brochure link (San Mateo County Parks):
https://parks.smcgov.org/documents/huddart-park-brochure
Distance:
The Chickadee Nature Trail is noted as an easy trail, covering 0.5 miles of trail without a lot of rise and fall in elevation. Once at the end of the 0.5-mile Chickadee Nature Trail, walkers can take the 0.1-mile connector trail to the Redwood Picnic Shelter area where the views open up. That makes for a 1.2 mile out-and-back hike. Huddart Park is a large complex of many connecting trails, so visitors looking for a longer hike can create a several mile hike by following the trail maps noted in the links.
Considerations:
• Huddart Park is quite large, and has many trails, parking and picnic areas. Though there are many trail markers, it is still advisable to have a copy of their brochure/trail map, preferably downloaded onto your mobile device as all paper copies were gone on our recent visit.
• There is a small per vehicle fee, pay info at main entrance.
• There are toilet facilities at several locations around Huddart Park, usually adjacent to named picnic and parking areas. One close to the main parking lot is at the Zwierlein Parking Lot.
• Pay attention to posted notices, including info on mountain lions, ticks, poison oak, and rattlesnakes.
• Dogs are not allowed at Huddart Park.
• Allow time to find your way around the trails, with plenty of time to make your way back to your trailhead. If in doubt, find one of the service roads that leads back to the main entrance.
The trail:
Huddart Park is a large county park set in what was formerly redwood logging territory, logged to fill the voracious need for lumber starting in the Gold Rush Era. Fortunately, new redwood trees have grown where others were felled long ago, and this county park offers many trails over a broad area to enjoy not only coast redwood trees but also live oak, madrone, and Douglas firs.
There are many trails, long and short, to explore in Huddart Park. The Chickadee Nature Trail is noted as one of the easy trails, 0.5 miles from the trailhead to the short connector trail that goes to the Redwood Picnic Shelter for a more open sky view. The Chickadee Nature Trail trailhead is right by the park entrance parking lot, so is a great beginner’s walk. We added an extra 0.3 miles out and 0.3 miles back to the Zwierlein picnic and parking area for a toilet stop, but of course driving is also an option.
The start of the Chickadee Nature Trail is dark and woodsy lined by redwoods starting out. Over the course of the trail, other trees include California laurel and madrone, with its distinctive brownish-red bark. The tree coverage keeps full sun off walkers for most of the trail, but the more deciduous tree areas let more light in.
One of the nice additions to the Chickadee Nature Trail is the information signs describing the varied terrain: coastal redwood forest, mixed evergreen forest, and chaparral. I learned that the bright red berries I enjoy seeing are from the Toyon plant, and that bright yellow banana slugs inhabit this area. Wooden benches and stretches of wooden fencing add to the charm of this short trail.
There’s a trail marker at the end of the 0.5-mile Chickadee Nature Trail indicating a further 0.1 miles to reach the Redwood Picnic Shelter area. The short 0.1-mile connector was a nice little stretch of trail, which then broadened into the open-sky area near the Redwood Picnic area. Resting there and turning back would make for an easy-to-navigate out-and-back hike.
This post covers only the Chickadee Nature Trail, but we originally combined this with the Bay Tree Trail. (See Bay Tree Trail-Huddart Park for a description of that hike.) For those exploring beyond the simple out-and-back Chickadee Nature Trail walk, it is important to have a paper trail map or a downloaded electronic trail map on hand. Despite the many trail markers and signs at Huddart Park, which we were impressed by, there are some areas that are difficult to make a connection between to reach a slightly distant trailhead. We not only used a map but a compass to find one of our trails, because key information was missing on some trail markers. Maps are our friends!
We’re looking forward to trying some of the longer trails at Huddart Park for future hikes.
(Chickadee Nature Trail-Huddart Park Hike Notes were originally paired with the “Just Show Up” Insights post.)
Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes on the main Hikes page or on the Hike Search by Area page. Check out selected articles and interviews under Media. Click World Walks to see or share favorite family-friendly walks! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. See products with inspiring designs that support the efforts of HikingAutism under Support/Shop. The Links page lists a loose collection of helpful information links.
Check the Home page for the broader background story. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photo galleries at the bottom of each hike page! Feel free to share and follow on Facebook at HikingAutism, follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism and Instagram at lisalouis777