RedHills park is located about 45-60 minutes East/ SouthEast from Stockton, CA (Map). From Stockton take Mariposa road east into Escalon and then turn East (left) on Hiway 108. About 15 minutes out of Escalon you will pass through the town of Oakdale, pay attention, about half way through town you need to make a left turn to stay on 108. About 10 minutes out of Oakdale you will pass by the exit for Knights Ferry. If you have the time stop by it's worth the detour. Nights Knights Ferry is a nice park with one of the oldest covered bridges in the state. There are often small fairs and civil war re-enactments held there. Otherwise, continue down 108 for about another 15-20 miles to La Grange Road and turn right. After about 1-2 miles turn left on RedHills Road. The parking area is on the right about 1 mile into the park.

When we arrived there were several people unloading horses and they were rude and blocked the road with their overgrown critters. I don't mind horses and feel we can share the trails with horse folks, but rude is rude. The parking lot was also rife with Horse stench.

We did manage to grab the one shady parking spot. The facilities include a restroom and picnick tables, but no water so come prepared. On the trail there is a decent amount of shade, but this is a hot dusty trail so make certain you brought plenty of water. Over the 1:45 we rode I managed to chug about 30-40 Oz, and ran dry. Next time I'll top of my 70 Oz waterpack.

After we unloaded our bikes we set out down an 'easy' warm up trail. A word of warning here, I have yet to find a decent loop at RedHills which doesnt require a significant amount of Hike-A-bike. I am going to describe the route we took, then I will talk about the route which we are going to try next time :) which we think will be a little better.

From the parking lot there are several trailheads, we took the one across the street from the Eastern end of the parking lot. This trail follows RedHill Road East and is about the only section you can start from the parking lot that doesn't require getting off and pushing. The trail goes up a short hill then forks. The left fork goes straight uphill and requires pushing. We took the right fork which takes you over some moderate rolling hills which will get your blood flowing. There are also some very fun fast downhills on this trail (but there are much better ones later on).

After about 1.5 miles on the singletrack following RedHills road we crossed a fireroad. We turned a little to the left and proceded up the trail. At this point we had to intermittently get off and push our bikes for most of the uphill (I suggest avoiding pushing your bike and taking the fireroad to RedHills Road, there are more rewarding routes on this trail). After we climbed up the hill we were rewarded with a fun and challenging downhill over rocky trails with plenty of loose rocks. At this point we were left in the bottom of a creek bed with the choice of continuing forward and hiking or hiking back up the downhill we just completed. Rather than hiking uphill again we followed the creekbed back to RedHills Road to try and find some more interesting trails.

We wound up backtracking down RedHills road for about 2/3 of a mile, we passed the fire road I suggested taking earlier and turned down some singletrack on the left hand side of the road (oposite where we were riding earlier). The trail forks here, we took the left fork hoping it curved around the outside of the hill rather than going straight up it. There is a short nearly unridable uphill and then the trail curves off to the left and following the parks property line (marked by some nasty looking barbed wire). There is a stretch of some really rocky fun technical trail and a short downhill deposited us in a small valley.