2022 in Review: The Year's Most Popular Hikes, Stories and More

We’re pleased to be wrapping up another successful year here at POST. What’s more, we’d never have made it without you! We’re endlessly grateful for the dedicated community members who support our work protecting open spaces on the Peninsula and in the South Bay.

In honor of the year’s end, we’ve compiled 2022’s most popular hikes, stories and big wins for local conservation. It’s an opportunity to reflect on all that we’ve been through, accomplished and experienced together. It’s also a chance to catch up on any POST news you might’ve missed! Before we take a deeper dive, let’s take a quick look back at some of the year’s conservation highlights:

You make it possible – thank you.

We cannot thank you enough for everything you do to support our organization. We appreciate your generous donations and attendance at our events (both virtual and in person). We are grateful, too, for every person who reads our newsletter, watches our videos, checks out the recreational activities we recommend or follows along on Facebook and Instagram. We are devoted to bringing you more useful tips, news and stories in the year to come, and have many exciting ideas in the works!

Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the year’s most popular hiking trails, activities, stories and more.

Our Most Popular Hikes in 2022

As a land trust, POST works to protect land on the Peninsula and in the South Bay for the benefit of all. Many of these landscapes have since been transferred to public agencies for long term management and are open to the public for you to visit.

We have many of these destinations listed in our collection of local trails to keep even the most avid hiker, walker and casual stroller busy for a long time. All these trails are great places to visit, but here are the 10 hikes people viewed the most on our website in 2022.

Stories You Don’t Want to Miss

It’s been a busy year and we’re proud of what we achieved — for our local landscapes and in planning for the future of our organization. The stories below offer a small sampling of these efforts, the combined work of many collaborators at POST and in the conservation community.

Since our founding in 1977, we have protected more than 80,000 acres of open space on the Peninsula and in the South Bay. These landscapes now span San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, a growing network of protected open spaces. This year’s accomplishments build upon our past success and are rooted in the many lessons we’ve learned over the years.

Top Posts from POST

We’d be remiss to not also share some of our top performing blog posts from 2022. Although some of these stories are from years past, they are among the most visited pages on our site — and for good reason. Below, you’ll find hiking tips, day trip itineraries, the story of an old growth redwood tree and much more. If you live here in the Bay Area, you need take a closer look these:

The Road Ahead

By now you’re probably catching on that our work at POST is about more than protecting land from the threat of development. It’s also about:

• Safeguarding the open spaces wildlife need to roam, adapt and colonize as climate change pushes them to new territories.
• Preserving the agricultural heritage of the San Mateo Coast, key to our region’s local food system.
• Stewarding our redwood forests, some of the best trees on the planet at trapping greenhouse gases.
• Striving for equitable, public access to nature for all and tending to the places where generations can safely reconnect with nature and with one another.

And our new strategic plan lays the groundwork for how we’ll approach our work — centering climate change resilience, biodiversity and equitable access in everything we do.

None of this is possible without the generous support of people like you. Thank you again for another great year. Looking forward to what lies ahead.

See you down the trail.