Mt. Madonna County Park 2016-02-24

Mt. Madonna County Park is a scenic park located in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains, about 10 miles west of Gilroy by Hwy 152.  We used the Sprig Day Use Area as the staging area for our hike today. It is easy to miss the sign board on the winding mountain road; if you are traveling west on Hwy 152 from Gilroy, Spring Day Use Area is 3.4 miles west of Gilroy Gardens on Hwy 152.

Take a moment also to familiarize yourself with trail closures in the park as part of ongoing improvements in progress. The hike featured in this blog is not impacted by any work planned as part of the improvements to the trails this year.

We started our hike on Merry Go Round (MGR) trail. The trail head can be accessed from the horse & trailer parking area, across a bridge from where other automobiles are required to park. The wide dirt trail runs parallel to a creek for a while.

We stayed of MGR trail at the first junction with Ridge trail. From here, the trail starts ascending gradually over the next mile. Initially, the trail goes through heavy oak woodlands. Soon, it emerges out of the woods and starts alternating between redwood canopies and open spaces bordered by green hilltops. 

After gaining more than 600 feet over a mile, the trail passes through a level area in a meadow with sweeping views all around. Perfect spring hiking conditions with bright sunshine made the views all the impressive!

There is a 1/2 mile out & back side trip possible to a lookout point by Old Mine trail. Apollo & I did that, enjoying the scenic Santa Cruz mountains. If you do take this side trip, you will hopefully be able to enjoy the sights of a lake sitting amidst rolling green hills.

We were back on MGR trail which started climbing up once again after staying level for a brief while. Those intending to do a shorter loop with less climbing will have the option of taking Tie Camp trail. We continued up on MGR trail for another 1/2 mile and turned left on Loop trail.

Staying on Loop trail just briefly, we turned right on Loop Cut-off trail, all the while climbing steadily until we reached Miller House ruins. Home of Henry Miller in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we spent a while looking over this historic piece of information on the park. 

There is a nature trail that goes around here as well as Upper and Lower Miller trails running quite close to each other around the Miller ruins. There are multiple options to connect back to Loop trail, we used Lower Miller trail to do it after walking around the nature trail.

At the next junction, we took Ridge trail and pretty much stayed on Ridge trail all the way until it connected back to MGR trail near the trail head. However, Ridge trail does exhibit very different characteristics in the three segments we walked in it.

A gravel trail that possibly accommodated vehicular traffic in the past during the days of lumbering, the trail descends gradually, passing through redwood groves and occasional eucalyptus trees before coming up on Contour trail junction. It stays kind of similar in the next stretch where Ridge trail hits Tie Camp trail.

The last 1/2 mile by Ridge trail after Tie Camp trail junction is a veritable treat of Santa Cruz mountain range as well a distant peak that I don't know the name of. We wrapped up our hike, connecting back to MGR trail and reaching the trail head.

Our 6 mile hike involved climbing nearly 1400 feet. When the park re-opens Blackhawk trail, we most certainly will be back to hike that, creating a loop with Sprig trail from the same staging area.

More photos from our hike.
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