Almaden Quicksilver County Park 2015-06-10

Senador Mine Trail

Apollo and I had hiked Almaden Quicksilver County Park twice in March, on the 2nd and the 16th. We had focused on the southeastern portions of this 4,152 acre park. Today, we returned to the northern part of the beautiful park. The McAbee entrance does not have a parking lot, but street-side parking is available in the neighborhood. You can reach this entrance from Camden Ave and then turning right on McAbee Rd.

Senador Mine

For Apollo's sake, I'd decided to keep this a 5 mile-ish hike, given the hot, humid, tropical weather pattern we were experiencing. A quick walk from the McAbee entrance crossing a circa-1924 bridge will get you to the park entrance. We started at Senador Mine Trail, a wide dirt trail. In about half a mile, you will come across the remnants from the Senador Mine itself.

We continued our hike by Guadalupe Trail. This trail borders Guadalupe Creek for a good portion and at one point is right by the creek. This is a nice spot - shaded with a picnic table by the creek. 

Guadalupe Reservoir

From here, the trail continues further to the Guadalupe Resevoir, which was standing at less than 60% capacity today. Apollo was happy to wet his feet in the reservoir, although I was uncomfortable to let him off-leash here.

New Almaden Trail

We continued further on Mine Hill Trail and Cinnabar Trail to connect to New Almaden Trail. New Almaden Trail is a single-track, shaded trail, much like our earlier experience hiking a portion of it. Except this one mile segment, there was reasonably heavy traffic today, especially for a weekday! 

We wrapped up our hike, connecting yet again to Mine Hill Trail and reaching the trail head. Our 5.4 mile hike today took us little more than an hour and 45 minutes. And involved some 800 feet of climbing. 

I suspect with one more trip, we'll be done with most of the trails in this park, though not the entire 34 miles of it!


More pictures from our hike today.
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