Where to hike with a dog in Yolo County: Blue Ridge Trail to Fiske Peak

This is the second hike I’ve done in the Cache Creek Recreation Area and I can’t recommend either enough.

Near Cache Creek with Blue Ridge and Fiske Peak in the background. 

The first was the Redbud Trail in Lake County, which I understand is particularly gorgeous in the spring, and earlier this winter I hiked up to Fiske Peak on the Blue Ridge Trail in the Yolo County section of Cache Creek.

Neither trail would be much fun in summer, and certainly not the hike up to Fiske Peak, which even in mid-January had me wishing I had brought twice as much water, especially for the dog.

The trail begins close to the parking lot for the Lower Yolo County Park off Highway 16 in the Capay Valley. There are pit toilets to use before you hike down to the water and cross the creek using a cement bridge that is no longer open to vehicles. Up the hill to left begins the trail.

Photo credit for this and above: Nathan DeHart.

The first part through the trees is flat, then you being a gradual climb up a narrow trail barely carved into the hillside (shown to the left), then you move into the rocks and keep going up and up!

Up so steeply, in fact, that there are many sections of the trail that seem to disappear into the rocks, and during the rainy season those sections can’t be fun.

It is about eight miles if you hike to the top of Fiske Peak and back, but I only made it to the top of a smaller hill near the peak. The views were still extraordinary, though, as we saw a snow-covered mountain to the northeast that could have been Mount Shasta!

Words to the wise:

The views were amazing less than halfway up!

• I did not see any signs explaining the leash rules, but many sections of the trail are so narrow and curvy that it’s best to have your dog on leash unless they are very good at sharing the trail.

Two more good reasons to keep your dog on leash, except for maybe the sections when you need both hands free for rock climbing, are the ticks and horses. My dog’s head was covered in ticks after romping off the trail, and I was very glad she was on leash when we ran into some people on horseback at the bottom near the creek. Unless your dog is very well-behaved around horses, it’s probably best to keep them on leash in that section.

• This trail is VERY steep and tricky to navigate in parts, and my legs were definitely shaking on the way down.

• Again, bring LOTS of water!