Posted on 04/15/2022 12:46:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The miles of trails in Santa Teresa and Calero County Parks are some of the best in the Bay Area with challenging terrain leading to breathtaking views.
“This park here, every time I ride it I realize it’s just a jewel,” said cyclist Robert Lombardi.
Although both park’s boundaries are close to each other, they’ve always been separated by roads and private property causing users who ride or hike between them to brave McKean Road which has no bike lane and sometimes dangerous drivers.
“Sometimes people are passing each other and going much faster than they should,” Lombardi said.
But in a deal just approved by the Board of Supervisors this week, Santa Clara County will spend 8 million dollars to buy 47 acres of private property in between the two parks and join them up into one contiguous open space.
A safe over or underpass will also be built to allow users to safely cross McKean Road.
”The vision is to connect these two parks, possibly with a trail,” said County Park’s Robin Kohn. Kohn says the previous landowner planned to develop homes, but the passage of measures to preserve open space in Almaden Valley would have delayed that by decades so he sold to the county, which will now preserve it permanently.
”This is part of the county parks master plan to connect parks and connect to the Bay Area Ridge Trail,” Kohn said.
For outdoor enthusiasts it will boil down to getting two parks in one.
”It means we get a nice safe trail, we don’t have to get hit by a car, so I’m really excited,” said cyclist Sabrina Corelli.
Calero is already two parks in one, because it's trails go into Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space, which is kind of a hidden gem.
Calero has almost 20 miles of trails. Almaden Quicksilver has almost 34 miles of trails. Rancho Cañada del Oro has a little more than 8 miles, but you can't complete the loops without going on Calero trails.
It makes sense to connect Almaden Quicksilver to connect to Calero, because they practically touch, and that would be a nice corridor for hikers and bikers.
Plus, it would really extend further, because you can walk across Hicks Road, and enter Sierra Azul Open Space, and from there to St. Joseph's Open Space.
If they made that tiny connection, you could hike or bike from downtown Los Gatos to Rancho Canada, almost in Morgan Hill.
Santa Clara Open Space actually has further land, they might someday be able to make a trail from Rancho Canada to Uvas Canyon County Park, And you can hike from there to Nisene Marks State Park. So you could hike from downtown Los Gatos to the beach in Aptos. It would be pretty long for one day. (And Sierra Azul is very steep)
Santa Teresa is more of an urban hike, but I heard they have a pair of Bald Eagles there.
Ping
I logged MANY horse miles on those trails back in the 90s.
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