Bay Area Mountain Biking

The bay area has some of the best mountain biking trails in the USA and some of them are only a couple of miles from our house. We have been training all summer for the mother of all rides - Almaden Quicksilver park to Los Gatos. Well it's not really that bad if you only do it in one direction. It must have been at least 12 miles, although disputes arose as to whether it was not longer.  If yo looks carefully at the map below you can see the trail outlined in red.  It goes through two parks and the entire ride is on dirt roads.

We started off in early morning fog and climbed from Old Almaden Park to the top of the Guadalupe mines. You can still see the ruins of the mine shafts from the quicksilver mining days.

While the top of the hill was busy, within minutes we were alone on the trail. As we crossed from Almaden Quicksilver to Sierra Azul, the trail was deserted. Here Dave and Fred take on the first hill. How come the hills never look steep in the photos.
As the early morning fog rose, we got the first glimpse of Mount Umunhum, which is at 3486 feet. Thankfully we weren't going that high, but we did hit 2500 feet at the top of the Kennedy Trail.

 OK this is what it looks like on a sunny day!

A lot of huffing and puffing, we made it to the top of Woods Road Trail. The sun had come out and most of the cloud had cleared. Fred and Dave looked very fresh, and the worst of the climbing was behind us.

You can now see how high we have come, Mount Umunhum and the Airforce Radar station are rising out of the clouds.  We still haven't met another soul.  Who says that Bay area is too crowded.

Finally we crest to the Los Gatos side of the hill and get our first view of the Silicon Valley.  Now do you believe we are at 2500 feet?

Family portriat at the top.  Did I mention that this was my new Trek Bike's first major outing.

 The good news is that we have come 9.2 miles from Hicks Road, the bad news is that we still have at least 5 more miles in front of us.

Group portriate when we hit Kennedy trail

Finally  we catch sight of Lexington Resevoir which means it is all downhill to Los Gatos and a latte and blueberry scone are waiting at the Purple Onion Cafe.

The whole ride turned out to be a lot less nasty than we were led to believe.  Of course, it might be a different thing doing the ride in reverse as it is much steeper on the Los Gatos side.  Next time, we will do the entire out and back - right Dave?