Alum Rock Park (San Jose / CA) ~ Nice trail in wild flowers

Nice trail in wild flowers

Alum Rock Park (San Jose / CA)

This weekend, I went hiking in Alum Rock Park in San Jose when I was waiting for kids in Japanese school.  The park is  located east San Jose.   From Berryessa Rd Exit on I680, the park is about 2.5 miles away.
There is a gate at the entrance of the park and people needs to pay USD$ 6 for a day use.  However, many people park on a street before the gate to save some money.   When I was there around 9:30am on last Saturday, there were many cars parked on the street.

Once getting into the park, there were many empty parking spots in the park.  It seems that there is no problem if people are willing to pay the fee.

I parked Rustic Lands Parking and started hiking from the parking lot.   There is a trail head post and it shows overall trails in the park.  However, the map was running out.  It is better to download a map from the web site of the park and print it just in case.

Hiking

This time I took North Rim Trail and Eagle Rock Trail to get a vista point.  From the vista point, we can see South part of Silicon valley.  Since this is short hiking, there were so many people on the vista point.  After that, I took Todd Quick Trail, then getting into Santa Clara Country Open Space Authority and took Boccardo Trail to get a top of a hill.

 Still many wild flowers were blooming

The trail is nice.  There were many wild flowers along the trail.   Since there are only low height grasses and we can see the southern part of Silicon Valley almost all the time.  Some part of trail is a bit steep, it seems that people who were riding mountain bike had a hard time to climb the hills.  Some people enjoy trail running.

We can see San Jose down town from the trails

There were many people hiked in the bottom part of trails.  However, once trail is getting steeper, I did not see many people any more and it was really quite and enjoy the nice view.  Since there is almost no shade on the trail, it might be too hot in summer time.   I guess it is the best season in spring.

Other Park activity

Since this is my first time to visit this park, after hiking, I took a walk in the park what else we can try in the park.   There are many picnic tables along a creek.  Also, there is a flat trail along the creek.  It might be very nice just short walk along the creek and enjoy picnic.
Some of picnic sites require to make a reservation to use.  However, there are also many tables just walk in to enjoy picnic.   Actually, there were many people along the creek other than the trails I walked.

It might be better to pay the fee if people try to enjoy picnic.   If people try hiking, I guess it might be better to park outside of the park.  It may need to walk extra a few miles, but people can save some money.

I think it is still good season to see wild flows in the park.  You may want to tray this park some time soon!