Redwood Road and Pinehurst Road

This is the classic run through the East Bay hills, and it feels a long way from the cities on either side. Redwood Road leaves the north edge of Castro Valley and winds north through grassy, oak-covered hills past Anthony Chabot Regional Park, on the watershed lands around Upper San Leandro Reservoir.

Then the drive turns onto Pinehurst Road, which runs along the upper reservoir and into Canyon, a tiny community of about 200 people tucked into the upper canyon of San Leandro Creek. It was a rowdy logging camp in the 1800s; now its homes sit off narrow lanes among redwood groves and ferns. Past Canyon, Pinehurst climbs out of the shade through oak, bay and madrone, with a hairpin on the way, to the ridge at Skyline Boulevard above Oakland.

It's driven north from Castro Valley and finishes with the climb up Pinehurst to Skyline.