Richards Fire Road is a 3.5 mile moderately trafficked loop trail located near Redwood City, California that features beautiful wild flowers and is good for all skill levels. The trail offers a number of activity options and is accessible year-round. Horses are also able to use this trail.
Richards Fire Road Trail circumnavigates Huddart park on the North and East Sides. This all purpose trail is a great way to explore the park and to interact with nature.
Park at the Main Entrance Parking Area
Trailhead tricky to find. It’s across the street from main parking lot behind some trees. All shade. Ppl wear masks. Lotsa fallen trees on trails due to recent storms. This hike was almost 6 mile loop. Come early for good parking or you’ll need to park on skyline.
Lovely trail and my 5 year old was able to do the whole loop (though we took a slight, steeper shortcut at the end). Trail is actually within Huddart Park and trailhead can be a bit tough to spot as you come from Skyline (just pop through the trees). Come early and you won’t see many people but after 10:00 there will be more. Most hikers were masked or at least pulled their shirts up. Narrow trail at times. The most confusing part of this trail is in the description (facilities). When it says park in “main parking area,” we had thought it meant Huddart Park entrance but that is NOT the case. There is a small parking lot called “south parking, Purisima Creek” but it fills up very quickly so we parked on Skyline Blvd.
Good distance, not strenuous hills, and mostly shaded! Took about 1.5 hours for two 30 year olds!
Starts you walking all the way down the mountain side to a beautiful creek but be prepared to hall it 3.7 miles back up the mountain at the end!
I agree with another poster that said this is closer to 4 miles if not more. We even took a shortcut and it logged 4 miles. It is a super shaded hike and not too steep. It’s not super heavily trafficked (went on a holiday weekend) and it wasn’t hard to find parking. There are a lot of various trail offshoots to explore if you get bored of the loop. There are signs to watch out for ticks but we didn’t come across any. Saw one banana slug.
This loop should be slightly more than 4 miles. 95% shaded with good forest view which I like. Hiked today in mid December sunny day but the temperature is really cold (below 50). The trail is muddy due to the rain but not that bad, will come back again soon!