Hiking Trails and Trips
Trips
I took the day off and went up to my favorite park for a hike with my boxer dog Cody. It was foggy and after yesterday's rain, a little damp. Good hiking conditions as far as I'm concerned. We parked in the main parking lot and hiked over to the Dutch Flat trailhead. I was considering going north on the Heron trail and into the northwest corner of the park, but...
Sonol Wilderness - Little Yosemite and the Canyon View
Mission San Jose District, California, United States
Hiking | 5.3 miles
Hiking | 5.3 miles
Sunol Regional Wilderness – Little Yosemite
Valley and the Canyon View Trail
Sunol Regional
Wilderness website
The last of this week’s rain had passed through and I knew
it was going to be a gorgeous day so I played hooky and went for a hike at
Sunol Regional Wilderness. I got my
usual late start and took the scenic route to the park via the South end of Calavaras Road –
where it goes by Ed Levin Park. It’s...
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park – Down to the River
Camp Evers, California, United States
Hiking | 6.8 miles
Hiking | 6.8 miles
Almost 39 years a go, when I was still in high school, my
family moved to Santa Cruz and one of my first memories of the area was taking
my Schwinn Super Sport up Graham Hill Road to Henry Cowell Redwoods and riding
the (often rough) trails down to the river.
On Friday I took a vacation day and revisited some of that memory.
I could have parked for free down at the southwest corner of
the park,...
If you like sweeping vistas, wildflowers, and (ahem) squirrels, this is a hike you should consider. At eleven miles, its relatively lengthy (for me anyway), but starting at Twin Gates eliminates some of the elevation gain and makes it a little easier in that regard.
It was a perfect day to be hiking, cool sunny and relatively clear. The Canada de Pala trail goes up from the parking lot, past the upper end...
For a period of about five years in the early nineties I
used to hike Santa Teresa Park with my dog Lucky almost every week. We knew every of the park, especially between
the golf course and the Hidden Springs trail.
We would most often start out at the Archery range on the Ohlone trail,
cut up on the CoyotePeak trail, and then
across on the Ridge trail. Then Hidden
Springs back to CoyotePeak and back down.
I repeated...
javascript:nicTemp(); There's no place called Torineko Peak that I know of, but some little friends of mine passed last week, and I thought that in their honor I'd name a beautiful place that seems to have no name other than Scenic Overlook after them. Humor me if you will, they were very dear to me.Cody and I got to the park before nine and headed up Dutch Flat moving slow and stopping at...
javascript:nicTemp();OK, so you're probably thinking I'm kinda stuck on Grant Ranch and your right, but it's close and I like the place and I'll branch out a little one of these days...In any event, this is the bonus hike because the power was out all day at work and I came home at about 11 and it was just a gorgeous day and, well, who wants to clean the garage anyway.I didn't...
Pics at Picassa:javascript:nicTemp();This was supposed to be an easy trip to try and get some off the cobwebs off, but I ended up doing about six miles without too much elevation gain. I took the Snell trail to the White barn, cut over to the Corral trail on an unnamed trail, jogged over to the Eagle trail to Canada de Pala to the Hotel trail and back. There's nothing special about this track....
big slidewhow javascript:nicTemp();This was supposed to be at least a five mile hike winding
through the heart of the park, but due to exigent circumstances I had to cut it
short. I’ve been to Mt. Madonna park
many times, but most of the time I hiked from Mt. Madonna road along the Loop trail
(what an imaginative name) for a mile and then back with my dogs, so I really
don’t know the park very well.
I started in...
javascript:nicTemp();This was an excellent hike that included the full length of the Dutch Flat trail, the west end of the Canada de Pala trail, the Eagle trail and the San Felipe trail. If you don't want to do the full 8 miles, just hike to the scenic overlook, about two miles from the parking lot. The ridge at the overlook drops steeply off on either side of the trail affording magnificent views into both Halls Valley...
javascript:nicTemp();So I went back to Grant Tuesday to do the loop I intended to do on Sunday; Canada de Pala, Hotel, Foothill, Bonhoff. It was another nice day after Monday's rain and the trails to the west of the Twin Gates parking lot were closed to bikes and equestrians because of the rain.The lower part of Canada de Pala is all downhill and serpentine. It runs along the power lines from the road...
Big slideshow: http://picasaweb.google.com/brighto/GrantRanchSouthernScramble#I had never been to the Twin Gates trailhead or to what looks like a trailhead at the Smith Creek CDC and what I found out is that the CDC is gated off and there were a few no parking signs around the fence that encloses it. So I went back to Twin Gates and started from there. My plan was to loop on four trails; Bonhoff , Foothill, Hotel and...
Big slideshow at http://picasaweb.google.com/brighto/ChillyDayAtJDGrant#slideshow/5413889441722503186Wednesday 12/9 was cold and gray; cold for around here anyway. There was a dusting of snow at the top of Quimby Rd. and Mt. Hamilton Road was closed past the park entrance; they had a sheriff posted there to turn people back. I also found another hat. Is anyone missing a Spiderman hat?We parked in the central area of the park, right near the head of the Snell trail. Right...
I haven't been out hiking for a couple of weeks mostly due to a cold, so today's hike wasn't going to be a strenuous one. And I got a late start so it wasn't going to be a long one either.It was Grant again. I'm determined to know all the nooks and crannys in that park like I used to know Santa Teresa. The day was cloudy and cold; you can tell...
