Stevens Creek County Park 2015-04-13

Apollo and I were back at Stevens Creek County Park, this time prepared for the lack of maps at the southern end of the park. We started our hike today from the Sycamore picnic area at the Lookout Trail. This shaded, narrow dirt trail climbed uphill for a little more than half a mile before entering Fremont Older Open Preserve. 

We took the narrow dirt trail on our right, called Wedding Trail (which wasn't marked). This will take you right next to Garrod Farms, which offers horse riding classes. Sure enough, when we came to Garrod Farms, there was a group of young kids enjoying a riding lesson. The group continued on Coyote Ridge Trail, so we left them alone by taking the Vista Loop Trail and Fern Trail to catch Coyote Ridge Trail a little ahead.

We had hiked portions of these trails a while ago. The difference in scenery between Fremont Older Open Preserve and Stevens Creek County Park was quite stark! While the county park was largely green, with narrow dirt trails and plenty of shade, the open preserve trails were dirt/fire roads, largely exposed. We were back in the county park zone soon; we decided to skip the Chestnut parking area and head left towards the dam and reservoir.

Stevens Creek reservoir was a sight for sore eyes in this drought. It seemed very full to me, so I came home and checked the water levels - this reservoir is filled to 96% capacity! We were heading back south from here and the Stevens Creek Tony Look Trail provided us with awesome views of the reservoir as well as plenty of shade.

There was a 0.3 mile loop by the reservoir - I'd recommend not missing it. It took us right down to the reservoir waters.

Apollo was glad to jump in and wet his feet while I  kept him on leash. A couple of miles of hiking on Tony Look Trail had us back at the Madrone picnic area, right next to the Sycamore picnic area. I'd parked the car in Stevens Canyon Road where there were no parking restrictions. All picnic and parking areas were closed - cost-saving measures? 

Cell phone coverage was spotty in the park (AT&T last Friday, T-Mobile today). I ended up doing the map of the hike differently this time. You have to click on the link to see it, but it does allow you to zoom in and see more details than the .jpg images of hiking routes from Sports Tracker. 

This was a 6.5 mile hike that involved lots of climbing and took probably just shy of 2.5 hours. Not having a tool like Sports Tracker to constantly monitor the hike was somewhat liberating - while the total elapsed time was shy of 3 hours, I guess I must've spent the remaining time in a long conversation with a Santa Clara County park volunteer right at the beginning of my hike and once again near the dam. She was an older lady, happy to talk, and had a docile lab/pitbull mutt with her. 

More pictures from the hike. And a map of the hike.
#Hiking #HikingWithDogs #StevensCreekCountyPark #TonyLookTrail