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Sierra Azul Woods Trail Late Spring Wildflowers, 5/20/21 by Ronald Horii
Sierra Azul is the largest of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District's (Midpen) preserves. It covers over 18,000 acres and includes recently-opened Mt. Umunhum. The Woods Trail starts at the intersection of Hicks Road and Mt. Umunhum Road, across from the Wood Road Trail entrance to Almaden Quicksilver County Park. It is part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail and runs to the ridge line of the Sierra Azul Range. The trail is a wide service road that was once used to bring cut-down trees to feed the furnaces of the New Almaden Mines. The first part of the trail, up to Guadalupe Creek is relatively flat. I hiked the trail a little past that, almost to Barlow Road. There were lots of late-spring wildflowers growing. The Woods Trail is one of the best wildflower trails in Santa Clara County, not so much for the quantity of wildflowers, but for the variety of species. It's like walking through an arboretum. Each bend in the trail seems to reveal a different plant, and most of them are natives.
Links:
Bay Nature article about Sierra Azul OSP: https://baynature.org/article/out-of-the-blue/ Sierra Azul Preserve: https://www.openspace.org/preserves/sierra-azul
Bay Area Ridge Trail Map of the Sierra Azul Trails: https://ridgetrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2019_SantaClara_SierraAzulandLexingtonReservoir.pdf
My pictures of Mid-Pen preserves, including Sierra Azul: http://www.rhorii.com/#MROSD
Sierra Azul is the largest of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District's (Midpen) preserves. It covers over 18,000 acres and includes recently-opened Mt. Umunhum. The Woods Trail starts at the intersection of Hicks Road and Mt. Umunhum Road, across from the Wood Road Trail entrance to Almaden Quicksilver County Park. It is part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail and runs to the ridge line of the Sierra Azul Range. The trail is a wide service road that was once used to bring cut-down trees to feed the furnaces of the New Almaden Mines. The first part of the trail, up to Guadalupe Creek is relatively flat. I hiked the trail a little past that, almost to Barlow Road. There were lots of late-spring wildflowers growing. The Woods Trail is one of the best wildflower trails in Santa Clara County, not so much for the quantity of wildflowers, but for the variety of species. It's like walking through an arboretum. Each bend in the trail seems to reveal a different plant, and most of them are natives.
Links:
Bay Nature article about Sierra Azul OSP: https://baynature.org/article/out-of-the-blue/ Sierra Azul Preserve: https://www.openspace.org/preserves/sierra-azul
Bay Area Ridge Trail Map of the Sierra Azul Trails: https://ridgetrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2019_SantaClara_SierraAzulandLexingtonReservoir.pdf
My pictures of Mid-Pen preserves, including Sierra Azul: http://www.rhorii.com/#MROSD
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