East Peak, Mt Tamalpais CA

• 4-star hike
• 0.6 mile out-and-back
• Medium difficulty | Gain 190 feet
• Mill Valley, CA | San Francisco Bay Area
• Driving Directions: Trailhead


Enjoying the Marin County views towards San Francisco.

Hikes don't get much shorter or much better than this half-mile round trip trail to top of Mt. Tamalpais, just North of San Francisco. Known to locals simply as Mt Tam, Mt. Tamalpais State Park is the perfect day-trip and once you're here it's hard to believe you're just a stone's throw away from the second biggest city on the West Coast.

The trail to the peak begins on an easy boardwalk and continues up timber steps before leading to a more rugged and rocky path towards the summit. We've labeled this as an easy hike, though there are some occasional isolated steep steps and scrambles which may challenge the less mobile.

East Peak Trail


East Peak Trail 4★
0.6 mi, Out & Back, Medium, Gain 190ft
Trailspotting Map at AllTrails

The views are what make this such a highly rated hike in our opinion, which stretch out across the entire northern part of the San Francisco Bay area in good weather.

Be sure to leave enough time for the free Gravity Railroad Museum which memorializes the historic scenic mountain railway and the free-wheeling return journey back to Mill Valley. It's nice to have the moutain free of heavy industrial equipment, but at the same time it must have been fun to coast down the mountain on a gravity train!


Former gravity train station under the East Peak lookout tower.

Tangents:
• Trail Links: Official, Public Map at AllTrails
• Facebook Group: Comment on this article

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