EAST BAY: Hike to 1900s Mansion Ruins + Towering Palms (Feb. 8-9)

EVENT UPDATE: There are no upcoming events known for this event series - please check the organizer website for any updates.

Here’s a great free weekend hike idea from SFGATE’s Sam Mauhay-Moore.

Along with a crumbling stone foundation, huge palms trees are the last vestiges of the Belgum Sanitarium, a once-opulent mansion where 1900s Bay Area elite would send their family members who were struggling with mental illness. The ruins are tucked away in what is now Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, and you can reach them via a short, beautiful hike through the hills and into the forested grove where the mansion once sat.

Getting There:
Wildcat Canyon Regional Park’s Belgum Trail is accessed from the Alvarado Staging Area, 5845-5967 Park Ave., Richmond. Open daily, sunrise to sunset.

Patients of the sanitarium largely came from the wealthy families of San Francisco and Piedmont, and they were sent there by their relatives “to keep them out of sight,” a sign on the trail states. It sat deserted for several years and was eventually burned to the ground in 1977 by vandals. The property was acquired by the East Bay Regional Park District the following year.

The towering Sabal palms were planted during the sanitarium’s golden days. Today, you can sit underneath them on the mansion’s one remaining stone wall.

For more hikes in the Bay Area and around California, check out SFGATE Outdoors.