Joseph D Grant County Park 2015-09-01

The biggest park in Santa Clara County, Joseph D Grant Park, is located up the east bay hills, on Mt. Hamilton Rd. in San Jose. Whether you choose to drive by Mt. Hamilton Rd. from Alum Rock Ave or by Quimby Rd, be prepared for 6~8 miles of windy, hilly roads to reach the park entrance. The park has an extensive 52 miles of hiking trails and is best visited in spring or fall. I parked at the Grant Lake staging area in Mt. Hamilton Rd., less than 1/4 mile from the main entrance (fee charged at the main entrance).

Grant Lake is quite close to the parking lot and can be reached by a quick walk. Continuing on Bernal trail would allow you to explore the shores of the lake. Apollo and I started off our hike exploring the Grant Lake area. There is an island in the lake and couple of birds, including a blue heron by the island. It was calming watching the still waters against the backdrop of mountains, marking a cool start to our day.

With several miles of trails, I decided to do a loop with Halls Valley & Los Huecos trails. Halls Valley trail starts close to Grant lake. This is a nice double track dirt trail, which stays at the lake level for a while before ascending gradually. Surprisingly, this was quite shaded for a good part making it a not so difficult hike today; it was also high 60s and quite cool for the most part. 

Halls Valley trail goes up the mountains in an easterly direction for about 2 miles. After a mile or so into the trail, the shade gives way to open hill side with some great views of hills all around. To the west, I could make out the hills of Sierra Azul & Almaden Quicksilver park and the now very familiar tower on Mt. Umunhum. We were also treated to some gorgeous gorges in this section.

Halls Valley trail meets Canada de Pala trail, a long trail that travels north-south. The northern section will take you to Antler point standing tall at 3000 feet. I had decided to turn south and walk for about 1/2 mile to connect to Los Huecos trail. By this time, we had climbed little more than 1000 feet. 

Just before turning right (and west) to Los Huecos trail, Lick observatory will be clearly visible from Canada de Pala trail. Both these trails are also double track dirt trails, although Los Huecos was narrowing in width every now and then. The next mile and a half was an easy descend, giving up the 1000 feet elevation we gained earlier. The gorges by Los Huecos trail were equally breathtaking as the ones we saw before. While Los Huecos trail is totally exposed, we were fortunate to have a gently wind blowing our way, making it a breeze to complete the descend.

On our way back, I decided to check out McCreery lake, taking the McCreery Lake trail, a single track dirt trail. Much smaller than Grant lake, there is a trail that loops around McCreery lake. Apollo was quite happy to check out the area and relax in the shade by the lake.

From here, we took the Lake View trail to reach the parking lot. We covered 6.5 miles today in more than two hours, climbing over 1000 feet. Joseph D Grant park presented a classic summer, dry, brown hillside to us today. And I expect it to be lush green rolling hills in spring, especially after some good rains.

More pictures from our hike today.
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