HIke with Maggie

Hiked in Redwood Park today starting at Big Bear staging area. Took Toyon Trail to the West Ridge Trail to Baccharis Trail to Dunn and the Monteiro to Golden Spike, a total of 3.92 miles. The weather has been cool, so seemed comparatively easy.
The Toyon Trail, a fairly gentle, narrow, sheltered uphill, needs poison oak abatement, although not as badly as Chabot's Buckeye Trail, which still has the worst poison oak intrusion into a trail I've seen. The juncos were active in the shrubby trees, and one had fallen dead on the trail.
Once we reached the West Ridge Trail, a repurposed fire trail, we had fairly level and unsheltered walking. If the sun had been out, it might have been overly warm, but we were walking through a thick fog bank, and as we neared Baccharis Trail, we passed through a grove of eucalyptus that caught the fog and rained on the trail below, creating mud. Upon leaving the grove we were again on a dry trail, proving the rain in question was caused by the trees.
The Baccharis Trail was wide, gentle, often sandy and sometimes rocky. We continued through mostly shrubby trees and eucalyptus until we got a little way down the Monteiro Trail, where a grove of redwoods broke the trend. As we descended out of the fog on this wide, less gently sloping trail I sometimes walked backwards to alleviate the effect on my knees.
At the Monteiro/Golden Spike junction, I was confused, as the map showed the Golden Spike extending in both directions when we intersected it; instead there was only a downhill, and I wasn't sure if that was the westward or eastward direction. I guessed eastward and continued on Monteiro, and after a while we saw another, unmarked trail leading off to the left. I'm guessing that was the eastward part of the Golden Spike trail, but didn't go that way.
The Monteiro Trail descends all the way to the road near the Piedmont stables, and we picked up the Golden Spike trail there. As we followed this narrow, sheltered trail, we could see and hear the road for most of the way back to the car. The entire walk took about an hour and a half at an ambling pace.

Maggie weighs 54.6 pounds this morning.