San Leandro Hills HP
The San Leandro Hills are a small subset of the East Bay hills which in turn are a minor part of the Diablo Range. The highpoint of the San Leandro Hills is found just off Redwood Rd which runs along the crest of Anthony Chabot Regional Park. There is an unmarked TH just south of the summit off Redwood Dr, where one finds an old,
gated fire road and parking for a few cars.
This trail can be followed north to
where it connects with the MacDonald Trail after about a mile. The highpoint,
however, is found after only five minutes on the trail, just off to the east
in the brush. There is a 1950 EBMUD 
benchmark, but otherwise
little to see. I walked around to the north side a short distance to see if
there was any place higher, but found nothing much in 
the understory
aside from an old 
cache of bottles, probably left from a woodland
party amongst friends. I ran across a woman with her 
friendly dog on
the trail as I emerged from the brush - she
probably wondered what the hell I was doing in there...
Peak 1,180ft / Peak 1,175ft
These two ranked summits are found at the northeast side of the Upper San Leandro Reservoir, just south of the small town of Moraga. Lots of windy driving got me to
Rancho Laguna Park. An EBMUD trail system originates from the
park, through 
a gate on its south side. I had purchased a $10 pass
(good for a year) online
earlier in the morning, having done my homework on this one. What wasn't clear
was whether one could legally hike to the summits which aren't along the regular
trail system. Short answer is "No, not legally," but otherwise there isn't much
concern for getting caught. After passing through 
several more
gates on my way towards the Kings Canyon Loop Trail, I found
a sign indicating a trail forking
right shy of the first mile. This side trail leads about halfway up the east
side of the peak before starting back down at a fork (later I found this is
simply the return path of the Kings Canyon Loop Trail). The old ranch road
continuing up has a sign simply saying "Closed," but there is no fence or other
boundary marker. I went up anyways, soon finding 
the highpoint at
another EBMUD 
benchmark surrounded by 4 stakes in a small clearing.
Some views can be had by wandering out from under the summit trees,
but even then not all that great.
Peak 1,175ft lies to the south across King Canyon, now flooded by the
reservoir. I returned to a flat clearing between the two peaks along the trail
where 
a cattle yard is found. Currently empty, I walked through the
yard and across 
a fence found at the south side. I found no road or
any sort of trail leading higher, but luckily the slopes are mostly grass and
were still green to make the 
cross-country climb easy enough. Once I
reached 
the ridgeline, I picked up
a cow trail and eventually a little-used ranch road that headed west towards
the highpoint. Not quite reaching it, the road abruptly turns left to descend
another ridge, leaving the last quarter mile as a cross-country exercise through
more
tall grass. Unlike the previous two summits, Peak 1,175ft is open to
views in 
all directions including the town of Moraga to
the 
north. There is another EBMUD 
benchmark here, too. It took
less than 20min to descend back via much the same route and return to
Rancho Laguna Park where I'd started. Having covered just over five
miles, that seemed about as much as I should foist on my knee, so I called it a
day though it was just noon. It didn't do badly, though, and I would do a few
more similar outings as the week progressed...