Joseph D. Grant County Park


Hike Date: 10/02/11

Summer has just ended and fall was just starting. We chose secluded Joseph D. Grant County Park in eastern San Jose for hiking. We took Quimby Road in Evergreen area towards the hills. It goes over the hills and meets Mt. Hamilton drive (Route 130), where we took a right towards the park. We parked our car at the big parking lot near the picnic tables. The day was warm with temperatures in low 80s. The park has many trails. We decided to do a long loop hike towards Eagle Lake and returning around the hills via Yerba Buena Trail.

We started on Hotel trail and continued for next 3.2 miles. The park is little baron with no tree shade along the way. Most of the initial 1.5 miles walk is on a flat surface. After the Corral Circle, we crossed a dry creek. The trail starts ascending mildly around this place. We crossed a lazy garden snake that was sunbathing on the path. We reached the Eagle Lake in little over hour and half. Water was very quite and calm in the lake. We took left on Foothill Trail, where you get to see nice view of Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. This part of the trail is well shaded. After walking 1.1 miles we came to a crossing of Bonhoff Trail and Manzanita Trail. We took a left on Bonhoff Trail. Initial part of this trail ascends very steep; we reached the highest point of our hike around 2600 feet elevation.


After continuing for a mile or so we were supposed to cross over the Route 130. But we misread the map and took a left on Cañada de Pala Trail that descends towards the Hotel trail over 1.6 miles. We returned back to the Trailhead by Hotel Trail. Near the trailhead we saw a handsome Egret. Overall we hiked for 9.7 miles with elevation changes approximating 1400 feet.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Purisima Creek Redwoods, Half Moon Bay

Image
This week we decided to hike the Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, near Half Moon Bay. You can reach the park by taking 92 West to Half Moon Bay. Then you take Higgins Canyon exit at 1 South, which leads a very narrow road for 4.2 miles to the trailhead on the left side of the road. This park has 4 entrances. We chose the trailhead at Higgins Canyon entrance. This parking lot only caters for 8 cars at this entrance. There are many trails options within the park. We decided to do a loop hike including Bald Knob (2102 feet elevation). The trailhead is at 400 feet elevation. The weather was cloudy and little chillier with temperatures in mid 50s. We started our trek with a flat mile long Purisima Creek trail. The landscape was extremely green. This park gives you a feeling that you are hiking in a dense rain forest. The stroll was along the water stream was extremely pleasant. My son and me crossed a slippery fallen tree bridge over the water stream for fun.
Read more

Mt. Diablo State Park

Image
Surprisingly for the first time after summer break we had weather that was in the low 70s on the first Sunday of this fall. We decided to take advantage of good weather and hike up challenging Mt. Diablo Summit. Mt. Diablo height is 3849 feet. The hike starts at 400 ft level. We reached the North entrance of the park at 9.15 am. We checked the map at the ranger station, where the ranger suggested us to take gradual hike route Coulter pine trail instead of usual Mitchell Canyon route.   After stretching a bit, 3 of us started our 7-mile uphill hike. Since the weather was nice and initial slope was mild, we were covering the ground faster. Soon, we took the fire road, a downhill path; causing us to loose whatever height gain we had gained earlier. After a half-mile trail on fire road, we soon reached the back creek tail. This was a very steep uphill hike for next 2.5 miles. Even though this trail is in open, it is a very narrow trail through 5-6 feet tall shrubs.   As we
Read more

Lake Ilsanjo, Annadel State Park

Image
I happened to be in Santa Rosa and had few hours of free time. Hence, I looked around to see where my son and I could hike. Google showed that Annadel State park was nearby. We decided to give the place a vist. The park has many trails and loops. We decided to do combination of loop trail for Lake Ilsanjo. While entering the park we saw a parking lot where lot of cars were parked, and we also parked our car there. The actual entrance of the park was about half mile from there. We realized that most of bicyclists park their cars there and cycle around the park. At the park entrance, we checked out a map and decided our route. We started with Channel trail at the trailhead. This trail goes alongside the road. After we 0.3 miles the trail turns right and starts a gradual ascent. After another 0.7 miles, the path forks, where we decided to take a left on the North Burma trail. On this trail we saw many live oaks, black oaks, and madrones. Around the end of the Burma trail, we saw a big g
Read more