moderate
Activities
Huddart Park Information
This scenic wooded hike offers a great combination of elevation change, length, and beauty, and is the access point to gorgeous trails at Phleger Estate.
Watch for:
This property is home to bobcats, black-tailed deer, eagles, newts and banana slugs
Details for Huddart Park Hike
Distance: 4.6 miles round trip
Elevation change: 400′ elevation gain
Hiking time: 2-3 hours
Trail surface: Uneven, dirt trail
Best Season: Year round
Managing agency: San Mateo County Parks
Parking lot location: Click here for directions
Overview: Huddart Park, just a few miles from Highway 84, offers many great trails with varying amounts of elevation change and length. It also offers access to the lush Phleger Estate, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
For a fun, moderate 4.6-mile hike take the path from the Huddart Park entrance. Hike from the Crystal Springs Trail past the Zwierlein picnic area. Bear right on the Spur Trail and Left on Richard’s Road Trail. Then turn right on the Miramontes Trail. Turn around at the junction with the Mt. Redondo and Raymundo Trails.
The shaded hike wanders through redwoods, oaks, manzanita, California coffeeberry, Douglas-fir and many kinds of ferns. A downhill section flattens out to follow Union Creek as it winds through second-growth redwoods.
Huddart Park Photo Gallery
More About Huddart Park and the neighboring Phleger Estate
This hike begins within Huddart park on Crystal Springs trail, and continues along shady Union Creek onto the POST-protected Phleger Estate.
Huddart Park was named after James Huddart, a wealthy lumberman who was raised in an orphanage. Huddart’s difficult childhood inspired him to do something for the local youth, so before he died in 1935, he deeded 900 acres of his property to the County of San Francisco, with instructions that it be developed into a public park. A few years later the property was transferred to San Mateo County, who has owned and operated the land as a public park since 1944.
Once known as Mountain Meadow, the historic Phleger Estate is a former logging site where redwoods and wildlife habitat are now protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. POST protected this 1,252-acre estate in 1994 with the help of Save-the-Redwoods League and private donors. It opened to the public in 1995 after POST secured $10.5 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and transferred the land to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
