In the second of two parts of Jasmine’s and my revisit of our local parks in Santa Clara, we went to Alviso Slough. It is another park on the south of the San Francisco Bay, right on the water. This park was also a salt pond back in the day and it still has a number of very odd coloured ponds. Apparently, different microbes live in the different salinity ponds and they are all different colours.

This park has the advantage of being a short bike ride away, only about a 6 mile trip each way. And then we get to take the 9 mile circuit around the ponds and wetland. I was very disappointed in my last visit to Alviso as they were doing a fair bit of construction to the paths, which always destroys the feel of the park. But the park is all put back together and quite worth the pleasant, and very flat, walk.

The hike has a variety of flat water views. This one is somewhat railroady.

The icebergs are actually salt deposits. This whole area was pretty and surreal.

And this is what the average path looked like in the park. As you can imagine, hiking this is not recommended on hot days as the lack of trees can be a killer.

There is something about mountains reflecting in water that is majestic.

One of the Santa Clara County Parks that we used to go to a fair bit, but haven’t been to in a while is Alviso. We tried kayaking down the Alviso Slough once; it was a 10 mile round trip in effectively a swampy ditch, not recommended. Most of the time we used it as a nice flat running circuit when we were training for a marathon.

We went back this weekend for a nice cycle and hike trip. It was an interesting day of a 20 mile bike there and back and a pleasant 10 mile hike when we were there. The park is one of the prettiest on the bay; you are walking on top of dikes surrounded by salt ponds and marshes. It is a bit hidden at the base of the bay, but worth finding.

The only issue is that they appear to be doing a lot of construction in the park itself now, and the main circuit trail is blocked up with construction equipment. Hopefully that will be finished soon and the park will go back to its serene self.

Construction :(

The marshes are very full of birds, but they are usually impossible to see till they all pop out at once.

The salt ponds change colors based on what angle you see them from. This angle is a beautiful mirror blue.

In the what currently feels like a never ending quest to go to all of the Santa Clara County Parks, we picked up another one this weekend – Santa Teresa.  I can honestly say that there is not much to report: it was sort of bland.  It was a pretty reasonable place to hike with the standard fields of golden grass and patches of green scrub oaks.  I think it is mainly used by mountain bikers and horses and it looks OK for that, if a little small (only 20 miles of trail total), and not too hilly.  So, in recap, good for locals but not really worth a long trip to go see.

Look! Its a trail that could be anywhere in the Bay Area.

There is something pretty in the spareness of the flora.

And, as always, you can see San Jose from any local high point – this time Coyote Peak.

In the seemingly never ending series of better known county parks, we went on a hike this weekend to Coyote Lake.  It is a little on the dry side of the county by Gilroy, but the weather was going to be cooler – only in the 80s and supposedly partly cloudy – so we thought we would do it while the weather was cooperating as much as possible.

Given our previous lakes allowing powerboats experience, we weren’t too psyched about the park till we got there and were pleasantly surprised.  It was a nice and peaceful hike through the standard dry California wheat and live oak hilly landscape with the obligatory turkeys and deer. Nothing spectacular about the park; no stunning vistas, but everything was pleasant and nice enough. Probably a good spot to take family hikes, not that most families would do our 11 mile circuit…

This is about what you get on the trail: pleasant partial desolation.

The lake was really blue in the sun. We were rather happy to be taking a break in the shade.

Cow, I win. As is often the case on our county park hikes, we shared the park with some browsing bovines.

So this Sunday we went out to another of the Santa Clara County Parks, this time Villa Montalvo. As it turns out, the park was the estate of some early 20th century politician that turned it into a park on his death. The park was mostly a mansion with some sculpture gardens in the fake romantic style. I’m not that much of a fan of the Neoclasiccal style, so I could pass on it and there were only a couple of miles of not overly interesting trails.  I don’t think we will be going back to the park.

The massive mansion. It is not open to go inside.

There were some artist residences on site in some really bizarre looking buildings.

The view from the boringly named Lookout Point was rather pretty of San Jose from the west.

In an attempt to salvage a fun day out, we looked around and found another garden – this time a Japanese style garden also built in the early 20th century called Hakone. It was a small estate, but it was rather well laid out and also rather pretty.  I think overall we were rather more of a fan of the Japanese garden, but I can let you decide via the pictures.

A couple of the Japanese Maples were starting to change color a bit. I think they are confused about the climate around here.

The center of the garden was a beautiful koi pond. Next place, I live I’m putting in a pond.

They had a trellised wisteria walkway next to the main house. One again, something I am doing at the next house, maybe with grapes or roses depending on the climate.