Stanford Dish Trail (No Dogs Allowed) 2015-03-28

It was a beautiful spring day to hike a Bay Area classic that has so far eluded us – Stanford Dish Trail. Jaya and Jana were my hiking buddies today with Apollo chilling out at home after having a double breakfast. 

The paved blacktop trail takes you around the radio telescope that is still actively used and goes by the popular name of “the Dish.”

Neither dogs nor bicyclists are allowed here, making this trail - more a well paved road than a proper hiking trail - popular for joggers and walkers. The four mile trail is a completely exposed, so it's best done when it is not too hot. Street-side parking is available on Stanford Ave off Junipero Serra Blvd in Palo Alto.

The walk nevertheless offers panoramic views of Stanford, bay bridges, the East Bay, as well as Arastradero Preserve and beyond on the other side. 

View of the Dish, Stanford clock tower, Jaya and Jana debating

I’d recommend doing the hike as an anti-clockwise loop for to take in the best views offered on the hike, especially of Stanford University and the bay.

Our hike was especially interesting today with several engaging conversation topics between Jaya, me, and our fast maturing Wildcat daughter, Jana. 

With each of us standing on different ends of the spectrum on economic systems, we had a healthy debate on the merits and lack thereof between capitalism, socialism, and communism. We also put Jana in a spot to arbitrate between debates Jaya and I have all the time and she was ever so tactful in keeping both mom and dad happy :)

We covered 4.5 miles at a leisurely pace of about 3 mph. Here are some more pictures from the hike.

#StanfordDish

Pearson Arastradero Preserve, Palo Alto 2015-03-27

It was a beautiful spring day and we decided to hike at Pearson Arastradero Preserve in Palo Alto / Los Altos Hills. The parking lot at the trail head is located by Arastradero Road, a short distance from 280 / Page Mill Road exit. The bulk of the preserve and trails lie south of Arastradero Road, while a smaller 1.7 mile loop, Redtail Loop Trail, is right by the parking lot.

My older daughter, Sanjana, was home for her Spring Break and joined Apollo and I on the hike today! Apollo was quite glad to be led by her today, enjoying liberties that he normally wouldn’t get from me. Walking about 500 feet from the parking lot, we crossed Arastradero Road and started our hike with Juan Bautista de Anza Rrail. About half a mile of walking led us to Arastradero Lake on the left. We continued south by the Arastradero Creek Trail, walking for nearly a mile. Both the de Anza and Arastradero Creek trails are fire road / dirt trails that are quite exposed.

We turned right at Woodrat Trail, a narrow trail that required us to go single file, but provided some shade. Less than half a mile of hiking with some elevation led us to Meadowlark Trail. An immediate right took us to a vista point, providing awesome views of Felt Lake, Stanford Dish, and the bay.

At about 775 feet, this is the highest point in the preserve. From there, we came back to Meadowlark Trail, slowly turning around the preserve, continued north on Woodland Star Trail, Bay Laurel Trail, and Ohlone Trail to reach the de Anza Trail junction. During the first section, we walked very close to a neighbor who evidently had a sheep farm in his backyard!

As you can see, I’ve mentioned several trail names, each of relatively small distance. A map would come in handy for anyone choosing to visit the preserve, and you can choose to hike different trails and extend your hike by a mile or so. This is one of the smaller preserves I’ve hiked in. With gentle rolling grass hills, plenty of deciduous oak trees, easy elevations (less than 500 ft. of ascent, at best), and well maintained dirt trails, this would be a fine option for beginners.

We wrapped up by taking the Bonus Hill Trail and Meadowlark Trail, joining de Anza Trail again and retracing our way back to the parking lot. Our hike today was a 4.8 mile loop completed in a comfortable pace in 1½ hours.

More pictures from the hike.

 #Hiking #HikingWithDogs #PearsonArastradero #ArastraderoPreserve #PearsonArastraderoPreserve #PaloAltoOpenSpace

Guadalupe River Trail 2015-03-20

We wanted a change of pace, scenery, and setting for our next hike. Guadalupe River Trail in San Jose bubbled up in the selection. Running along Guadalupe River, the 11 mile paved trail runs through San Jose all the way to Alviso. We started our hike today at Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, at the intersection of Autumn St. and Coleman Ave. We parked at the large shopping complex, but there is street-side parking available a little ahead, by the trail on W Taylor St.

The first 1¼ mile was through Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, with an option to follow the trail that hugs the river or the ones that meander in the gardens. When we crossed the 880 underpass, the scene changed. The trail ran right next to SJC airport on one side and the river on the other. While the section in the gardens was shaded, the trail became fully exposed from this point on. For the next two miles, the trail runs right by the airport. You’ll get to see flights landing and taking off and cars zipping by to the airport to send off and pick up people.

You may even get to see a pair of wild geese crossing the Airport Blvd. and causing a traffic situation! I couldn’t believe it when I saw the geese walking across a fairly busy road. The situation was tense for few minutes before a Good Samaritan driving a van decided to stop, get out of his van and shoo the birds. The thankless birds decided to fly away, leaving me wondering why they chose to waddle across the road on their webbed feet in the first place!

When you reach the end of the airport infrastructures, the trail moves over to the other side of the river and continues up north. Getting across the Hwy 101 underpass will provide a change of scene from the ultra-urban setting by SJC airport. We continued past Trimble Road and decided to turn around after about 4½ miles from where we started.

I got an opportunity to click a couple of great shots of Apollo by the Trimble Underpass. My boy was ever so willing to pose for a photo!

The entire section we hiked was completed and opened to public only in April 2013. Sections of the trail still looked new! There were more people on their bikes using this trail than people on foot. This wasn't a surprise, as the well-paved, level blacktop road running 9 miles with no interruption should be very enjoyable for biking. This trail will also attract hikers (I daresay I can call walkers and joggers that) who crave an urban setting or are looking for a trail that runs by an airport!

Near Airport Blvd, there is a section where the trail runs on both sides of the river. On the way back, we used the eastern section. We noticed that San Jose is well prepared for pumping storm waters - all along the trail, there were plenty of warning signs about Guadalupe River flooding. Today, though, the river was looking anemic, with water flow reduced to a trickle at best.

The 9 mile out and back walk took us nearly 2 hours and 25 minutes to complete. My tracking software crashed midway, so you will find the other map that completes the one on the right in the photo album below.

More pictures from the hike.

#Hiking #HikingWithDogs #GuadalupeRiverTrail

Almaden Quicksilver County Park 2015-03-16

Apollo and I were soon back at Almaden Quicksilver Park, a park with 34 miles of hiking trails and a depth of history. This time, we tried out the Hacienda entrance located off Almaden Road / Almaden Expwy in San Jose. Parking is free and there is plenty available in this lot too.

Almaden Quicksilver Park was home to mercury mining from the late 1800s until 1976. In fact, San Jose Mercury News owes its name to this bit of valley history.

The sky was cloudy when we started and it stayed that way through our hike. A half mile hike on Mine Hill Trail took us to English Camp Trail. This is the closest I've come to high voltage transmission lines - English Camp trail runs close to it for about a fourth of a mile. It was a steady climb of ~1000 ft. before we reached English Camp, one of the historic sites we visited. 

Apollo couldn’t have enough of the place! He checked out Church Hill, the school site, and picked up a couple of ticks along the process that I had get rid of.

Continuing on Castillero Trail, we stopped by Rotary Furnace, the second historic site in our chosen path. There was a nice description of the process of extracting Mercury from cinnabar (Mercury Sulphide ore). Unlike English Camp, our next historic site stop, Spanish Town, had all traces completely removed in the 1930s. We made our way to Hidalgo Cemetery Trail - a dead end, apparently!

There were a couple of spots providing great views of the valleys on this trail.

On the return, we took the Yellow Kid Trail to reach English Camp again and continued on Deep Gulch Trail to the Hacienda parking lot. At 5.7 miles, this was one of our shortest hikes. We ascended some 1100 feet in the first 3 miles and gave it all up on the return. Our route today was Mine Hill Trail -> English Camp Trail -> Castillero Trail -> Hidalgo Cemetery Trail -> Yellow Kid Trail -> Deep Gulch Trail from the Hacienda parking lot trail head.

There is plenty more to explore at this park - and at its neighbor, Sierra Azul Open Preserve. Although the scenery in these two neighboring places is similar, each trail provides its own unique charm.  After a break, we will be bound to explore more trails at these two locations.

Update 2015-06-20

Apollo and I were back at the Hacienda staging area and did about 5.5 miles this morning with my friend Shubho Nag and three of his friends, Ethan, Farhana, and Sridhar. We did a slightly different loop from what I'd done earlier and made our way to English Camp by starting off on Deep Gulch Trail and connecting to English Camp Trail. From English Camp, we took Castillero Trail and turned around at Mine Hill Rd towards the Hacienda parking lot.

Our early morning hike was at a leisurely pace and interspersed with conversations on various topics from workplace diversity, gender equality, regulated monopolies, and sharing stories of my SF Bay Walkabout and hikes with Apollo.  

More pictures from the hike.

#Hiking #HikingWithDogs #AlmadenQuicksilverCountyPark #AlmadenQuicksilverPark #EnglishCamp

Almaden Quicksilver County Park 2015-03-02

Almaden Quicksilver County Park has more than 34 miles of hiking trails! The park has three entrances. This time, we chose the one on Mockingbird Hill Lane, off of Almaden Road and Almaden Expwy. Plenty of parking is available here. The park has several trail systems – I’d recommend having a map with you just so you can follow the highly interconnected trail system properly.

Our hike today was 8 miles long and the route we took was as follows. Hacienda Trail -> Capehorn Pass Trail -> Mine Hill Trail -> Great Eastern Trail -> Mine Hill Trail -> Prospect #3 Trail -> New Almaden Trail. While Hacienda and Mine Hill Trails were dirt roads, Great Eastern, Prospect #3 and New Almaden Trails were narrow hiking trails just wide enough for one person. 

We ascended some 1100 ft. by the time we were out of the Great Eastern Trail over the first 3 miles and gave up most of it during the next 2 miles on Mine Hill & Prospect #3. The last 3 miles on New Almaden had some ups and downs, but nothing as intense as the first 3 miles.

Hacienda, Capehorn Pass, and the first section of Mine Hill trails reminded me of the Sierra Azul hike. They were broad, dirt/fire roads ascending steadily with views of the bay unfolding gradually. They are multi-use trails, so expect to encounter mountain bikers and the occasional horse rider. However, the scene changed when we entered Great Eastern Trail. The heavily shaded path will lead you up the mountains and into the forests. We skipped the section to April Tunnel; in retrospect, we should’ve checked it out. About a mile of extra hiking would let you do that once you come out of Great Eastern Trail.

The next section of Mine Hill Trail, even though it's a fire road, was more shaded and cooler. Don’t miss the short detour to Catherine Tunnel and view from the top. From Catherine Tunnel, the hike becomes downhill and the Prospect #3 Trail is quite steep.

The best part of the hike today was the final 3 miles on New Almaden Trail. This largely downhill trail is quite scenic. We crossed several creeks along the way, although all but one had no water flowing through them.

A couple of grass hills will provide a change of scenery before a gentle climb in the last half mile that gets you to the Mockingbird Hill parking lot.

It's going to take a few more visits to cover the breadth of the trails in this beautiful county park bordering Sierra Azul Open Preserve. With a rich history in mining, this park has a lot of interesting things to offer.

More pictures from the hike.

#Hiking #HikingWithDogs #AlmadenQuicksilverCountyPark #AlmadenQuicksilverPark