Dan's Outside

Wood Road: A new trail

Yesterday my Almaden Quicksilver Park hike terminated at the start of the Wood Road trail at the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. Today I decided to drive straight up to this trailhead and explore this new (to me, at least) trail.

I hiked out about 3 miles to a small creek where I stopped for a snack before retracing my steps. This trail (a road, really) is wide and not very steep, at least on this first part – it provides very easy hiking. There are great views back towards Almaden Quicksilver Park (one can see the whole ridge), Santa Clara Valley, and back up towards the old radar station on top of Mt. Umunhum.

I’m curious why this road exists. It is fairly wide – in places cars could pass one another – and it is well graded. But why was it built? Was it used for logging at some early point in time? Is it connected in some way to the history of the New Almaden mines?

The next time I do this hike I’ll try to get to at least El Sombroso, the 2,999′ high point on the traverse to Los Gatos. Eventually I’d like to try the whole trail from New Almaden to Los Gatos via this route.

Leaves on the Wood Road trail, Sierra Azul Open Space. June 13, 2004.
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June 13, 2004 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary