Tim Kizirian’s Take on Loma Alta Fire Road: A Simple Ridge Walk With Big North-Bay Views

By Patrick O’Donnell

The alarm in Chico chimed at 4:30 a.m., but Tim Kizirian had already been awake, brewing a thermos of strong coffee and double-checking the forecast for Marin County—winds calm, visibility almost limitless after a week of cleansing storms. For a former Chico State accounting professor and one-time Ernst & Young CPA, numbers still matter: mileage, elevation, drive time, weather reports. Yet what really pulls Tim south on mornings like this is the uncountable freedom of a long ridgeline under cobalt skies.

Lucas Valley Road lay empty when we rolled through its serpentine bends just after sunrise. The grass on the north-facing slopes still held December frost, while sunlit ridges above glowed honey-gold. Big Rock trailhead, a gravel apron cut into the hillside, was already half-full—proof that word of Loma Alta’s generous panoramas has spread well beyond Terra Linda locals. Tim clipped the straps on his well-worn pack, handed me an extra chocolate-chip muffin (a Chico bakery habit he refuses to break), and glanced east toward Mount Diablo’s silhouette. “Forty-five minutes of windshield for every hour on the hill,” he said, citing his personal ratio of exercise to driving. “Today we’re in the black.”

The Climb

The fire road launches immediately into a steady, eight-percent grade, its crushed-rock surface still damp but firm. Early switchbacks thread between live oaks twisted like arthritic fingers, their trunks furred with bright chartreuse lichen. A pair of black-tailed deer bounded across the road and disappeared into coyote brush. Tim keeps a measured pace—accountant’s steady cadence—pausing just once at the saddle between Loma Alta’s twin humps. Wind there can howl enough to topple a hiker off-balance, but this morning it merely lifted the edges of Tim’s Chico State baseball cap and carried the scent of coastal sage uphill.

While we sipped water, Tim recounted grading finals back at Chico State. “Spreadsheets everywhere, fluorescent lights, and me telling students that columns must tie out,” he laughed, gazing at a horizon that needed no reconciliation. He mentioned how those same students often emailed years later, remembering a professor who urged them to audit life as rigorously as any ledger. Out here, he added, the audit includes listening for hawks, noticing frost crystals on manzanita leaves, and counting each grateful breath.

Summit Revelations

Exactly ninety minutes after leaving the bumper of his blue hatchback, we crested the 1,592-foot summit. No summit register, no dramatic outcrop—just a broad knoll crowned by an old wooden post and a circle of trampled grass. But the views are theatre enough. To the north, Snow Mountain’s ramparts, dusted white; beyond them, faint ghost-lines of the Mendocino Range. Eastward, the ochre stripes of the Carquinez Strait glittered, guiding ferries like silver stitches. Westward, layers of ridges tumbled toward Point Reyes, where the Pacific flashed like hammered steel.

Tim unfolded a small notebook and jotted the day’s line-items: start time, elevation gain, temperature, visibility. A lifelong CPA may retire from Ernst & Young’s audits, but he never fully quits documenting truth. Yet the numbers gave way to silence while we simply stood, faces to the breeze, letting December sun warm chilled hands. “That’s Mount Saint Helena,” Tim pointed toward a pyramid far up-valley. “First saw it from Chico’s Bidwell Park as a kid. Funny how ridges connect memories.”

We lingered ten unhurried minutes—long enough to finish muffins, longer still to let other hikers crest the hill behind us and marvel. Then, mindful of Tim’s cherished ratio and the line of cars now snaking up Lucas Valley Road, we tightened packs and tipped downhill.

The Descent and Debrief

Gravity turned the fire road into a brisk, ankle-friendly glide. Golden-crowned sparrows flitted in scrubby thickets, scolding our passage. A wiry trail-runner in neon shorts passed, waved, and vanished around a bend. Tim commented on the economics of simple infrastructure: “No trail engineering, no bridges—just rock and grade. Low overhead, high return.” Clearly, the CPA within never stops benchmarking value.

Back at Big Rock, the lot was full and latecomers hovered like vultures. We changed shoes, stretched calves against the bumper, and plotted the rest of the day: café lattés in downtown San Rafael, maybe a stroll around Novato’s bookstore before the two-hour drive home. For visitors from the northern Sacramento Valley, Loma Alta proves ideal—three hours of hiking wrapped neatly inside a single-tank day trip.

Tim summed it up while snapping a final photo of the ridgeline now haloed in noon light: “Simple plan, solid workout, and vistas wide enough to reset any ledger of worries. That’s good balance.” Coming from a man who’s reconciled more spreadsheets than most of us will ever see, the endorsement felt almost like gospel.

So if you’re craving an uncomplicated ridge walk with grand North-Bay views—and you’d like your windshield time to tally neatly against your trail time—follow Tim Kizirian’s lead. Pack a litre of water, a Chico-baked muffin, and your own running tally of gratitude. Loma Alta Fire Road will do the rest.