I’m scouting Skyline Ridge for a future column, and because you really can’t go wrong hiking there. It has ponds, easy trails, varied terrain, and a fair amount of wildflowers. Russian Ridge is far less sexy for the hiker purist…
Santa Clara County parks
Feedback on Grant Ranch article
by tom • April 4, 2008 • 0 Comments
This one arrived in today’s e-mail at work in regards to my profile of Joseph D. Grant County Park: Tom – Just a quick note to say that you did a good job on the Grant Ranch piece — I…
Latest Hikes column: Joseph D. Grant County Park
by tom • April 3, 2008 • 0 Comments
I focused on the park’s ranching heritage. Often called Grant Ranch in honor of Joseph Grant, who once owned this vast, mountainous tract east of San Jose, the park still has plentiful reminders of its ranching heritage: old windmills, rusty…
Santa Teresa County Park, a first look
by tom • March 31, 2008 • 3 Comments
So I told the gray-bearded mountain biker dude with the bike that probably cost more than my car, “I’d probably be a mountain biker but I have a this strange fear of flat tires.” “Well if that’s the only thing…
Latest Hikes column: Los Trancos Open Space Preserve
by tom • March 20, 2008 • 0 Comments
Check it out at www.mercurynews.com You don’t hike at Los Trancos Open Space Preserve hoping for an earth-shaking experience — not with the San Andreas Fault beneath your feet. The fault that flattened San Francisco in 1906 cuts through the…
Rattlesnake roundup
by tom • March 10, 2008 • 14 Comments
It’s good to know the rattlesnakes are out of hibernation. The best way to learn this is from your friendly neighborhood hiking blogger. The worst way is from the tips of their hypodermic fangs. My way was in the middle:…
Latest hike: Joseph D. Grant County Park
by tom • February 17, 2008 • 2 Comments
Grant Ranch wasn’t much to look at when I got there Sunday morning. All the better because it gave me an excuse to listen. The bird calls are remarkable when there’s no other distractions beyond the sound of the breeze…
Latest Hikes column: Rancho San Antonio
by tom • February 14, 2008 • 0 Comments
Just in time for Valentine’s Day: So you think he might be the One, but the real deal-killer question looms: What kind of hiker is he? Will he match your pace out of kindness, leave you behind out of rudeness…
The fault is mine: an earthquake hike at Los Trancos Open Space Preserve
by tom • February 11, 2008 • 2 Comments
If I had little kids, I’d bring ’em here and drive ’em batty with “did you feel that? … did you feel that …” — scarring them for life because that is a parent’s sacred duty. The San Andreas Fault…