Harvey Bear County Park

This is a beautiful county park, especially in the spring. It’s about 45 minutes away by bike, or I can get there in less than 30 if I use electric assist, which I did today.

The ride there is nice and rural too, especially after we’ve had rains and the hills are green.

Entering the park, looking back towards Morgan Hill. The little pimple of a mountain to the right is El Toro, which dominates our view up close but is a lot smaller from here.

After hiking to the top of Willow Springs trail there’s a nice view of Coyote lake, a county reservoir. Some background on our reservoirs: All municipal water in our county comes from groundwater, and is managed by the Santa Clara County Water District. We have a series of reservoirs that are used to recharge the groundwater. When the water from our local reservoirs isn’t enough, we can also bring in more remote water from San Luis reservoir in Merced county, or from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, or from the Sierras.

Looking back towards civilization from the same spot:

The oaks are beautiful this time of year:

A panorama of the Santa Cruz mountains and San Martin, the little town just south of Morgan Hill:

A single cow enjoying the spring grass. Sometimes we see hundreds of them, in the summer they hang out under the oaks chewing their cuds and staring at the humans as we walk by.