Calero County Park 2015-07-13

Calero County Park in San Jose is bordered by Almaden Quicksilver Park on the west and Santa Teresa Park on the north. Dogs are allowed on all trails including and north of Bald Peaks Trail. The main entrance to the park and trail heads are located on McKean Rd, half a mile south of the Bailey Ave intersection in San Jose. 

Los Cerritos trail

From the parking lot, we took the Access Trail and turned right on Los Cerritos Trail. You will see Los Cerritos Pond on your left from the dirt trail / fire road. We continued north on this trail towards Calero Reservoir. The dirt trail is muddy and we were kicking up lot of dust as we hiked up. 

The trail goes up through rolling brown hills before reaching Calero Reservoir about 1.5 miles from the start. The reservoir level was low (46% of capacity). Still, there is something charming about water fronts, especially with greenery around it. 

As we continued our hike with the lake on our right, we came up on three Turkey Vultures flying not very high. They eventually settled down on a tree. With the sun directly, it was hard to capture a good picture of them. That didn't stop me from trying!

Over the next mile, Los Cerritos Trail climbs about 500 feet, leaving the lake behind. Apart from occasional trees providing some shade, the first 3 miles of our hike today were quite exposed. At the Pena Trail intersection, we turned right and walked toward the Serpentine Loop junction. 

We walked less than half a mile on Pena trail today. Nevertheless, this stretch provided great views of both Almaden Quicksilver Park (Mt. Umunhum) and Santa Teresa Park (Coyote Peak). I decided not to do the Serpentine Loop today and we took Figueroa Trail back towards the entrance.

Figueroa Trail

Figueroa Trail runs by a creek and provided us with some much needed shade for the next two miles. As with the other trails we hiked today, this was also a wide dirt trail, although not as dusty as Los Cerritos Trail. Descending gently and giving up the 500 feet elevation, we made our way to the parking lot.

I am sure we will be back at this park for a couple of more hikes as most of the 18+ miles of trails are dog friendly. I suspect the best time to hike this park is in the spring, but not after rains, although that seems like a distant possibility in the midst of our drought!

Our 5.75 mile hike took us nearly 2 hours. Here are more pictures from the hike.
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