Santa Teresa County Park Loop trail

There is this absolute beauty of a trail right in Santa Teresa area. It is the hills next to IBM Almaden. There is a loop trail that starts from Joice trail and goes through Mine trail and Coyote trail, Hidden springs and Bernal Hill to the Vista loop trail. 

It is 8+ mile and pretty steep at places and takes around 4+ hours (by our standards). It is also ~2000 feet elevation gain. A decent workout and a "moderate" trail if you listen to the internet.. if you pace yourself! 

There is a part of this trail at the end that has zero cover. So it is best to do this as a very early morning or late evening hike. The sun setting over the valley is beautiful to watch from the ridge!

The flowers have started blooming across the hillsides.. the poppies should be there in a week or two to add a ton of orange to the yellows.. 

Strongly recommend this provided you have the right hiking shoes!

There is a one mile stretch on the way back where you are just walking on rocks and gravel. Not much of a path and the feet don't land evenly. Many of us almost twisted our ankles, but would still recommend it. 

Here are more pictures.. 

Thoroughly enjoyed this hike.. and the chai at the top of the summit! That is one good thing that has become tradition already over a year and a half of hiking! 

COVID got us started on hiking every weekend to a new trail in the local area. The fact that we have plenty of unexplored trails for months to come says a lot about the natural beauty of this area, the resources used to maintain these places and our luck in ending up in a place like this, in a time like this!

More trails to follow...

John McLaren Park and the Philosophers walk

Having stared at the screen too much with powerpoint and also thanks to the blooming white stinky flowers all around Cupertino, the last week has been interesting. In short, the migraines were back. So here are a few overdue blog posts now that I can look at the screen and edit pictures for longer times.

Went with San to SFO for a morning. Had seen posts from a friend who had visited John McLaren park in SFO and taken some photos of the SFO skyline from this park. Wanted to put it on the list on the next visit. Most people in the park don't want to touch your phone to take a photo! COVID has put that fear in people in SFO to a higher level than in Cupertino! Finally a passing Chinese uncle obliged and took this photo for us! 

This park is awesome! They had a beautiful walkway, plenty of benches, manicured scenery, a nice pond with a large trees in the middle with birds, a decent restroom (very important), and trails that took us to a gorgeous view. 

Here are some pictures..

they had things for kids to play, but we saw almost Asian seniors as the only demographic. We stuck out like sore thumbs among the Tai-Chi folks. They knew were were tourists to this park and gave us a silent nod and a smile. Maybe they built this park to be so perfect for seniors? I loved it! 

On the way out we stopped at this cul-de-sac to take this photo of the ocean view! 

A lovely way to spend a few hours. The trail is across the street from the Philosophers walk..it is called Coyote trail and you get an amazing view from the top. If you happen to be in this area and have a few hours to spend, strongly recommend this.

It is one thing to have nice parks in the suburbs. Having something like this in the middle of a bustling city is just amazing!

Yosemite in pictures

The Firefall experience was the highlight.. but the entire day, we were treated to some amazing nature scenes. 

Yosemite is amazing in February! The colors are so vidid and there is a lot of water everywhere and the snow adds enough contrast to the lightshow.

here are two slideshows of all the nature photos from the day..

and the portrait format photos..

Not sure when we will visit the place again.. maybe next year or even later this summer! 

Would love to go back in a time where the roads are not slippery and we can hike all the way to the top of the falls!