When I left the Bay Area after 4 beautiful years, I didn’t leave my heart in San Francisco: I left her in the Oakland Hills in the heart -shaped labyrinth.
The labyrinth is a small, slightly squeezed heart -shaped labyrinth of rocks that are hidden at the foot of an abandoned quarry pit in the Sibley Vulcanic Regional Preserve, one of the crown jewels of the East Bay Regional Park System.
Sibley is only 15 minutes away from the city center of Oakland by car, but feels like another world.
In winter, the lush green hills feel like Scotland, summarized with fog and littered with cows. But in contrast to Scotlands, the air smells of Eucalytpus and Monterey Pine with occasional tips from the sea breeze from the Bay of San Francisco below.
In spring, the poppies and lupins burst out like weeds and blow up the steep hills with color. (More than 90 wildflower species call Sibley home.) Carded butterflies flow over the head, dozens of per minute during their lace hike.
And in summer, the hills bleached blonde like real California girls and brown their pegs in the mighty sunshine of the sunshine state (together with every hiker without SPF) until the winter rain and fog return.
I hiked at least a hundred times in my life in Oakland in Sibley, sometimes five or six times in a single week. It was the closest, inadequate dog park in my house, which, after a cramped, apparently filled day in our office in San Francisco, burned steam. No matter how stressful the work or how overcrowded the city was below, we always had the highlight for ourselves at sunset.
(Sibley is really the best friend of a dog. On a summer sitting on the hill on a summer, you could see half a dozen unleashed dogs that are freely on the way and about the meadows without owners in sight, which gives the short illusion that Sibley is a park for wild dogs to drive freely without human interference.))
From round top, the summit of the extinct volcano, which gives Sibley Vulcanic Park its name, we looked at dozens of nightly explosions in the sky – some of the best sunsers I have ever seen, in a state that was silly with spectacular sunsets.
From there you can see all the lights from Oakland and Berkeley, from the campus of the Redwood-Crested University of California to the busy harbor. But you can also see the bridges of bridges, which Oakland connect to San Francisco and the Golden Hills Beyond, which are reflected in the shimmering waters of the bay.
Red brake lights on the Oakland Bridge, the glittering silver of the skyline of San Francisco, golden headlights at the Golden Gate and directly beyond the rays of light hits the Pacific … Everything visible from a grass -covered hill above the heart -shaped labyrinth.
Ah yes. The heart -shaped labyrinth!
Where can you find the heart -shaped labyrinth
There are so many hiking trails in the Sibley Vulcanic Regional Preserve, which in so many directions in zigzagging that most people completely miss the labyrinth – although there are at least five.
My personal favorite labyrinth, the heart-shaped one, is about a mile from the Staging area of Sibley. Start with the path to the right of the toilets when you look at them from the parking lot from the parking lot.
After about 50 feet you can reach the sign “Dogs allowed from a leash” – Inhou! – and know that you are going in the right direction.
Follow the paved path until you see a cattle gate and go through him. Make sure you close the gate behind you. From here it is gravel and dirt.
When you reach a street, turn up and right onto the quarry path. You will see the Geologic Marker No. 4 (see here for the full self -managed geological tour) and then see the labyrinth!
The heart becomes mushy after a downpour, like all fragile hearts, but it never stays that way. Someone always comes along to repair it.
If you want, you can fall into the base of the quarry pit and go to meditation or prayer even the labyrinth. It doesn’t take long so you can stop to contrast the tiny offers of former visitors with the huge silhouette of the Mount Diablo in the background.
Where can you find the Mazaziallo Labyrinth
The largest, most famous labyrinth in the Oakland Hills is the Mazzariello Labyrinth, which was created in 1990 as a “gift to the world”.
It inspired several smaller imitators near Sibley, such as the heart-shaped, where hikers meditate and leave small talismans or prayers in the middle.
There are at least five separate labyrinths at Sibley on Google Earth, although I only managed to recognize four when hiking. (The last could now be overgrown or swept away by sludge avalanches: We had to stop more than once on the way from a hike in Sibley, while the road crews cleared a mini-Mudside from the street.)
The Mazzariello Labyrinth is on Google Maps, which makes it a little easier. You can start in the same way that you take for the heart-shaped labyrinth, but earlier in the direction of the round top trail.
A love letter to Sibley
As I already mentioned, I visited the heart -shaped labyrinth at least a hundred times when I lived in California between the ages of 23 and 27. Like most people in her mid -20s, it was the best times and it was the worst times. I had friends that I mostly loved, and jobs that I mainly hated had healed with many hikes who had healed uncertainty and self -doubt through moving meditation.
Juno and I visited Sibley in every mood of mother nature and in every mood. When I was amazed and fried like the burned grass, when I was as calm and calm as eucalyptus that dripped after the rain when I was light and happy like a fresh -faced Californian poppy that opened up to the sun.
I would look down from the San Francisco skyline from the top of the round top. When I crouched, I could see my office building, at least to the giant Salesforce Tower (which I observed from nothing to the highest building in the city over three years).
I would stare into the city, so small from our 10-mile route through a bay and fear, the next time I had to drive a train under the water and an elevator up to the 8th floor to my desk. I would like to stay there forever, with the soft grass and the wildflower and Juno until the blue sky was in a perfect, oversaturated sunset, the lights over the ocean and Juno howled the moon.
Afternoon a hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay
I will be happy
Under the sun.
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not to struggle.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With calm eyes,
Watch the wind bowed down in the grass,
And the grass rises.
And when lights start to show
From the city,
I will Traveller Tale what needs to belong to me
And then they start.
Note: Sibley is one of the best places near San Francisco to catch sunset, but pay attention to mountain lions! We never saw one, but we definitely heard one-and Juno once found a cache of a mountain lion with a half-eaten deer carada.
Questions about visiting the heart -shaped labyrinth in the Oakland Hills? Let me know below!
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