It's a trap!

It started out as a plan to add a little more trail to the round trip to home from either Redwood/Joaquin or Lake Chabot parks. When returning from any of those I'd been using the (paved) Skyline Boulevard. Leona Canyon open space looked like it was a good way to get back down the hill on dirt instead of pavement.

Paying a little closer attention to the map might have helped me out in two ways. 1) It is pretty obvious Leona is in a bowl and you have to climb back out if you go in, and you might avoid a little pavement but you might also sweat an extra bucket. 2) The trail that looked most convenient to use as the exit point from the park is landlocked by recent private development. I got within about 50 feet of the exit to the road that was supposed to be the final leg home but had to double back and drop into and climb out of the canyon one more time. What's one more 300ft climb among friends?

The trailhead comes out onto a private drive behind a gate:

Here's the whole route:

Data graph showing pretty clearly how no matter which way you exit Leona, you are climbing out to about 900ft.

At least I saw the yellowjackets swarming in and out of a hole in the ground right at the junction of the Artemisia and Leona trails before they saw me.