Windy Hill
Portola Valley, Peninsula · near Portola Valley · SF Bay Area
Hiking
At a glance
- Difficulty
- strenuous
- Route type
- loop
- Distance
- 7.2 miles
- Elevation gain
- 1,500 ft
- Time needed
- day
- Best season
- Spring (green hills, wildflowers) and fall · Hot in summer on the exposed grassland
Permits and booking
- Permit required
- No
- How the permit works
- Free MROSD preserve. Skyline roadside parking limited. Leashed dogs on designated trails only — read the trailhead map.
- How hard the permit is to get
- 0 of 5
What is here
- Features
- Twin grassy summits (~1,905 ft) · Iconic bay-and-ocean views · Redwood/oak Hamms Gulch · Sausal Pond · Hang-glider launch
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Allowed
- Good for a first timer
- No
Hiking detail
- Intl tip
- For the least effort, park on Skyline and walk the flat Anniversary Trail to the summit; for the classic loop, start low at the Portola Road lot and climb Hamms Gulch first to save the shade for the ascent.
The guide
A quintessential Peninsula skyline hike that pairs breezy open-grassland summits with a shaded creek-and-redwood descent throug…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Windy Hill — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.3702, -122.2445