Sierra Club Nifty Ninety Peaks
and Bay Area Ridge Trail Links
1. susandalcorn.com/nifty-ninety-peaks-challenge . Read
2. sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce-authors/u1054/Nifty%2090.pdf – Print.
3. Peakbagger.com – free – essential. Get id, logon, navigate to Peak Lists, then to Club Lists, then scroll down to Sierra Club, and from there scroll to San Francisco Bay Area Nifty Ninety and click to list peaks in elevation order. The peak names are all clickable. Clicking one gives details about the peak, where it is, ascent reports, sometimes with gps tracks, etc. It is important to look at the ascent reports, and also the full screen version of the peak map on that page. The full screen version has many more map types you can use. I suggest Open Topo Map (it is very slow to come up). As you do the peaks, frequently you will see Bay Area Ridge Trail signs. Our recommendation is do a peak as part of a Ridge Trail segment when possible. There is a peakbagger app. Get it.
4. The Bay Area Ridge Trail is fairly well documented. Start with ridgetrail.org/trip-planning-tools/ and download their planning navigator. Mandatory.
5. Guidebook locally, REI, or online amazon.com/Bay-Area-Ridge-Trail-Equestrians/dp/089997905X/ Get it.
6. The guide is as of 2019, so some sections aren’t in it and can only be found on the ridgetrail.org/trip-planning-tools/ navigator or Alltrails app or Outerspatial or maps.me . For alltrails the name must be exactly right to find a segment – i.e. Bay Area Ridge Trail: Sanborn County Park John Nicolas Trail. Pay for alltrails.
7. Like the PCT and JMT, quite often you will lack cell service, so you will need apps that work in airplane mode with preloaded maps such as Alltrails, Organic Maps, Gaia GPS. Sometimes we use mapometer.com to draw our routes.
8. If you want a Nifty Ninety peak list as a spreadsheet, this Google Drive folder has a couple of variations, including one with UTM numbers: tinyurl.com/NiftyNinetyUTMQuads
9. You can print this handout from Susan’s susandalcorn.com website blog post