This post is for Travel Photo Thursday; I made a special trip to gather photos. If you have a moment, pop over to Nancie’s site to say hi.
San Antonio Park and Open Space Preserve are one of the more popular hiking areas in Silicon Valley. Still, from my experience, while there are tons of walkers and runners, it’s nowhere near as busy as Yosemite where long lines of cars wait to get into the park. This was an easy evening drive, park, hike, and drive out.
The hike started with a flock of Turkeys chasing me away from my vehicle. Be wary, I’m pretty sure these massive beasts control the parking lot. And, they’re not the only creatures around. Within a 2-mile radius, I ran into 2 separate groups of deer, tons of squirrels (tree and ground), quail, and cats. Posted signs also indicate that mountain lions, rattlesnakes, coyotes and bobcats are frequently encountered on the trail.
Combined, the park and open space total over 4000-acres of trails. The first mile into the preserve is easy and on pristine gravel. At the first mile point, you find Deer Hollow Farm (if you choose to, there is a bypass trail) and multiple paths heading west in differing directions.
Most of the trails west of the farm make for an easy evening outing. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the park and trails, however, this site lists three options for a runs/hikes and distance/grade.
I did a combo of Deer Hollow Farm, High Meadow Trail and Wildcat Loop for roughly 4-miles.
Note, the paths are marked and easy to follow. Because rattlesnakes are very prevalent and of attempts to rehabilitate parts of the preserve, wandering off the trails is a huge faux-pas. Horses, hiking, running and biking are allowed on marked paths. Dogs are not. And, the biking/hiking trails are kept separate.
Looks like this hike offers a lot. I always give wild turkeys their space – just in case. Love the stretching sign and could use a reminder like that at home.
This is a huge park! It’s nice that they have hiking/biking trails separate.
Funny, a friend of mine was just telling me about being chased from a cemetery parking lot by wild turkeys. We laughed, but it wasn’t funny. She was terrified.
Ok… so… the Turkeys. They actually reminded me of places in India where the monkeys will run at you so you will drop your food and they can feast. Except in this case I wasn’t carrying food!
Oh… and I forgot to add this to my post… photo #16 (the tree) is a photo of a California Bay tree…. from which bay leaves come from.