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Santa Teresa Park Hike 4/13/23 Part 1: Rocky Ridge Trail by Ronald Horii
The Rocky Ridge Trail in Santa Teresa County Park is one of the best wildflower trails in the County Parks. However, it's been closed for months, even to hikers, because of wet trail conditions. After seeing recent pictures on Facebook taken from the trail, I went to check it out on 4/13/23. The trail was open. It was a bit muddy on the lower sections, but passable. There were a lot of wildflowers out, but they were competing with the grasses, which were high. The Rocky Ridge Trail ascends up into hills that are covered with serpentine rock. The lower parts have more clay soil and have more grass. As the trail goes higher, it gets rockier, which is less hospitable to grasses, but the wildflowers are adapted to it, and they increase. Goldfields, which are low-growing, are especially susceptible to being crowded out by grasses. This year had the best display of goldfields I've ever seen on the trail. The hills around the trail are grazed by cattle, which also reduces the grasses, and helps the wildflowers. This is the last spring album I made of the Rocky Ridge Trail, on 4/30/17: https://tinyurl.com/29b8w6h4. Compare it to today's hike. The hike continues in this album: "Santa Teresa Park Hike 4/13/23 Part 2: Coyote Peak/Hidden Springs" https://tinyurl.com/3eahnzbv. Note that the pictures in these 2 albums (except for the picture of trail closure) were taken with my mirrorless camera, an Olympus OMD E-M10. It does a better job focusing on wildflowers than my phone or my travelzoom, which is what I usually use. Here are more of my pictures of Santa Teresa Park: http://www.stpfriends.org/#newpictures. Here's more information about Santa Teresa Park: https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/santa-teresa-county-park. Here's the park map: https://parks.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb961/files/documents/Santa%20Teresa%20Guide%20Map.pdf.
The Rocky Ridge Trail in Santa Teresa County Park is one of the best wildflower trails in the County Parks. However, it's been closed for months, even to hikers, because of wet trail conditions. After seeing recent pictures on Facebook taken from the trail, I went to check it out on 4/13/23. The trail was open. It was a bit muddy on the lower sections, but passable. There were a lot of wildflowers out, but they were competing with the grasses, which were high. The Rocky Ridge Trail ascends up into hills that are covered with serpentine rock. The lower parts have more clay soil and have more grass. As the trail goes higher, it gets rockier, which is less hospitable to grasses, but the wildflowers are adapted to it, and they increase. Goldfields, which are low-growing, are especially susceptible to being crowded out by grasses. This year had the best display of goldfields I've ever seen on the trail. The hills around the trail are grazed by cattle, which also reduces the grasses, and helps the wildflowers. This is the last spring album I made of the Rocky Ridge Trail, on 4/30/17: https://tinyurl.com/29b8w6h4. Compare it to today's hike. The hike continues in this album: "Santa Teresa Park Hike 4/13/23 Part 2: Coyote Peak/Hidden Springs" https://tinyurl.com/3eahnzbv. Note that the pictures in these 2 albums (except for the picture of trail closure) were taken with my mirrorless camera, an Olympus OMD E-M10. It does a better job focusing on wildflowers than my phone or my travelzoom, which is what I usually use. Here are more of my pictures of Santa Teresa Park: http://www.stpfriends.org/#newpictures. Here's more information about Santa Teresa Park: https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/santa-teresa-county-park. Here's the park map: https://parks.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb961/files/documents/Santa%20Teresa%20Guide%20Map.pdf.
