On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
SoupCatcher
These pictures were taken on the day after the election, 4 November 2020, using my older cel phone. As a bit of background, we live in South San Jose, up against the Santa Teresa Hills, which divide the Santa Clara Valley from the Almaden Valley. I’m originally from the hills of Northeast Los Angeles, and spent much of my childhood hiking around BillinGlendaleCA’s stomping grounds. Gaining elevation soothes me; my first instinct is generally to go up. As the vote counting stretched on, I felt the need to get out.
The Bernal Ranch entrance to Santa Teresa County Park is less than a fifteen minute walk from our house, and one of my favorite trails in the park goes to the top of the ridge, and then works up the ridge for a bit. We are looking down on the first part of the trail in this picture.
Here’s a zoom across the valley towards Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. The recent lightning fires burned all around the observatory, and destroyed at least one building, but all of the telescopes survived. If you ever get the chance, it’s a nice half-day trip from San Jose to drive out to Mount Hamilton. The observatory is coming up on its 150th birthday. Lovely craftsmanship; lots of beautiful woodwork. All the materials were brought by wagon up from San Jose, over a winding 25 mile road. They have a seismograph in the main building, and you can see the graph from the 1906 quake.
I like how these trees are kind of halfheartedly making way for the road. Nothing says Central California more to me than oaks on a hillside. The edge of the park is directly ahead, and the property on the other side is used for grazing. It’s not a large herd of cows. We can often see them from our kitchen window, and hear them talking to each other.
A California Buckeye tree, hanging out next to a transmission tower.
Here’s a close up on the buckeyes. They’re solid. Kind of like a nut. I wondered if they were ground up and eaten, but I learned (well, I googled) that it’s not a good idea unless you can leach out the poison. The Ohlone people would crush up the nut and sprinkle it on water to stupefy fish and make them easier to catch. Apparently, you can also treat your hemorrhoids by using the crushed pieces as a suppository. Hard pass. Though I am morbidly curious how someone figured that one out.
This grand old tree makes me happy each time I pass it.
This is looking towards the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Almaden Valley is behind the hill to the right, and there’s an IBM Research facility just below on a private road. To the left, you can see a tiny piece of the Calero Reservoir. The furthest peak is Loma Prieta, of 1989 earthquake fame. There’s a dirt road that runs down the ridge from Loma Prieta to Mount Madonna. It’s supposed to be public, but about halfway down someone has put up their own signs designating it a private road. I stumbled on the signs while on an exploration drive and, based on the fact that I had just driven past an abandoned motorhome that looked like it had been stomped to death from the top down, decided heading back the way I had come was a good idea.
Time to head home.
Van Buren
Very pretty & love the commentary. I’m a native Californian who has not been back since 1991, and even though it’s a part of Cali which I never been close to, it still makes me want to get out there.
Mary G
That’s home to me; valley oaks on brown hills with dusty trails may not have the bright fall foliage of other places, but just looking at these made my blood pressure go down. I didn’t know about the buckeyes at all. I guess if you knew they stunned fish and were desperately pained by hemorrhoids, you’d try it.
Love the last photo with the long legged shadow.
JPL
What a fun hike. Since you live so close, you were lucky the fires didn’t approach your home.
arrieve
I grew up in the Bay Area so that is my native landscape — brown hills with patches of green and yellow grasses. Until I moved to the East Coast I never realized that you could have green hills, but those hills are home in a way nothing else will ever be.
susanna
I’ve not been on trails in this area, but appreciate learning about California’s diverse landscapes. My immediate area is north of you, on the peninsula, but many times I’ve driven through your area on the way to the coastal areas. Thanks for these.
Xavier
I always figured “Golden State” was mean to refer to the hillsides too.
lashonharangue
We used to attend music concerts up at the Lick Observatory in the summer. I got a chance to look through the big old telescope. I think they stopped that because they couldn’t retrofit the building to current seismic standards. Amazing that they got the equipment up there.
kindness
Glad to see this section didn’t burn in this summer’s fires. Nice.
Origuy
I’ve only been to this park once, I think, but I’ve been to the ones around it many times when orienteering. Almaden Quicksilver, where miners once dug poisonous mercury out of the earth to use in silver and gold smelting; Calero, that runs from the reservoir up to the sides of Loma Prieta; and Joseph Grant Park, a third of the way up Mount Hamilton Road to the observatory. They’re all similar, until you look closely. Thanks for the photos and the commentary.
SoupCatcher
Glad you all enjoyed the pictures and words!
@Van Buren: I’ve only lived outside of California for five years, of my 48, and I missed it the entire time.
@Mary G: In the shadow picture, you can see the 101 threading along the base of the hills. That stretch probably carries hundreds of thousands of people a day (or did, in the Before). I am thankful for the ethic of protecting open space around/within large population centers.
@JPL and @kindness: Aside from a summer of poor air quality, we weren’t affected by the lightning fires. But parts of the South Bay on the east side were evacuated (the SCU fire burned 370,000+ acres), and the Santa Cruz environs were threatened (the CZU fire burned 86,000+ acres). We were bracketed by those two fires.
@arrieve: For me, from growing up in Southern California, it’s the smell of sage on a hot day that reminds me of home. I don’t really smell that up here.
@susanna: I lived mid-Peninsula for a decade, and love the back roads going up to Skyline and over to the coast.
@Xavier: When the wind is up, and the yellow grass is flowing on the hillsides, I think of the “amber waves of grain.”
@lashonharangue: I love the room with the big old telescope; how the floor can be raised; the pattern of the wood strips on the walls; the joining of the metal work. I could stay in the room all day.
@Origuy: Calero County Park is a favorite when the wildflowers are blooming. There’s so many entrances to Almaden County Park, and such a large number of trails, that I never get tired of hiking there. We don’t often get out to Grant; the last time I drove out there a good-sized bobcat crossed the road right in front of my truck. Middle of the day and not in a hurry.
Sister Golden Bear
It’s surprising how many parts of the world resemble California, due to similar latitudes and climates, but the suede hills here always feel like “home.” (Peninsula, and former Angeleno, girl here).
way2blue
I remembering visiting the observatory at night with a group of undergrads (someone knew someone who worked there). We were supposed to look at planets, but no one knew the coordinates, so we ended up looking at the moon (hard to miss). But most of all, we figured out that if you whispered into the wall, your voice carried somehow over to the other side. So everyone got distracted and a little silly…
JanieM
Beautiful pics, yet again taking me to places I’ve never been. I’m a native midwesterner and now a New Englander, so it would be a big adjustment for me to live among brown hills. Probably for the first year or so I’d be reminding myself daily that yes, they’re fine that way. :-)
My first trip to Ireland was in the springtime, and I came back to Boston and said to my friends, “It’s so green over there!” And they said “Wait, it’s green here!” That made me stop and think a little more carefully, and I realized that between Ireland and my home landscape there was a different balance between green from trees and green from fields. Not to mention that in Ireland, all those little green jewel-like fields, edged by stone walls or hedges, look the way they do because they’re constantly being grazed, not mowed.
So many beautiful places — so nice that BJ makes them available for us to dream about. Happy Thanksgiving!
hotshoe
@JanieM:
The countryside in Soupcatcher’s photos is as green as Ireland — for a month or two in early spring. ?
We get a little winter rain in December and January, and by February there’s enough sunlight for the hillside grass to grow. It looks exactly as you described the fields of Ireland, jewel-like.
Indeed, our “wild” grasses are mostly European grasses, transported here in livestock feed when the first immigrants brought their horses and oxen. Now, many of the large parks like Santa Teresa (and Calero, and Grant, which others mentioned) have leased cattle-grazing operations which keep the grass down — because of course it can’t be mowed on those hillsides.
Then the rain stops; we don’t usually get any measurable rain from April through October. The grasses dry up and set seed before dying, but mostly remain standing which gives the hills that soft tan-suede appearance.
It seems to me to be a special privilege to be able to see the hills themselves, not a dramatic peak of bare rocks, and not a mound of obscuring trees and bushes through which the mountain outline can only be guessed …
I guess it could be hard for visitors – who aren’t attuned to the long dry season – to appreciate this brown scenery, but the last photo above shares my sense of fascination of being able to see forever across the fields.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
When I lived in the South Bay I spent a LOT of time on a bicycle in and around these hills. One of my favorite rides was the climb up to Mt Hamilton — 22 of 25 miles are inclines and it’s a grind in places, but there’s no better feeling than a 40 minute pedal-free descent in the warm California sun.
Happy Tday to all jackals!
delosgatos
Good stuff! One of these days I need to submit some of my pictures from hiking and geocaching in Almaden Quicksilver. Another angle on Loma Prieta, old mine remains, an abandoned graveyard, etc.
BigJimSlade
Soupcatcher, you got some long legs there!