# Mt Umunhum: Sept 16-17 opening



## akropilot (May 22, 2007)

From the base of Hicks, it's roughly 7mi and 2500 feet to the top of Mt Umunhum, which will add it as one of the epic (and toughest) road climbs in the Bay Area.

Mark Sept 16-17 2017 as the grand opening. There appears to be some sort of signup to gain access that weekend, so keep an eye out for procedures.

Mount Umunhum | Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District


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## jetdog9 (Jul 12, 2007)

Link to a thread from here back in 2009 and 2012 that discusses Umunhum... 

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/northern-california/mount-umunum-road-what%92s-deal-169111.html

Well it's taken a long time but finally. I live in East Bay but work in South Bay, will have to ride this at some point once the road is fully open. Good thing everything got signed off before Trump?


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## bobf (Apr 3, 2015)

From what I can tell on Google Earth, the old air force base has all been torn down except for the concrete cube that supported the giant radar antenna. That's too bad. The old base included a generator building with big diesel engines and a couple of steel towers for the smaller elevation radars. A friend and I snuck up there a few years ago (following Guadalupe Creek) and it was very interesting to see. The view to the NE was pretty spectacular, as the mountaintop drops off very steeply on that side. We were able to climb a stairway up one of the steel towers. It looks like people had even climbed onto the roof of the shack at the top, but we demurred. It felt like if you fell from there you'd land in downtown San Jose, about 2/3 vertical mile below. 

Maybe the old AF buildings were considered beyond repair. There certainly was plenty of rat poop on their floors. Luckily no rangers came along while we were there. Later on I heard we could have been ticketed and fined.

This will indeed be a heck of a climb when the road is open to the top, not to mention a hairy descent. 'Twould be fun if Mt Umunhum Loma Prieta Road would open too. Maybe it was paved years ago, but today I think it's just an obscure gravel track that runs between the two peaks, mostly at about 3000' elevation. I tried to ride it many years ago, starting NW from Loma Prieta and feeling very much like a tresspasser. What finally turned me back was rounding a corner and coming face to face with a llama.


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