Rural Treasures East of Gilroy

My last ride during my stayventures. This one was on June 10th. Time for me to start blogging about new adventures. Fortunately I’m healed up enough to go hiking again (carefully!) and should be cleared to ride outside in a couple of weeks (carefully!).

Today I rode out New avenue which hugs the eastern foothills past San Martin and on to Gilroy. Turning left on Roop road, I headed up to the hills, eventually proceeding out Gilroy Hot Springs road. Roop road leads to two southern entrances of “Coyote Lake Harvey Bear Ranch County Park“, the Mendoza ranch entrance which leads to nice hiking, and the Coyote Lake entrance, which leads to the lake for boating and to the campgrounds, and to more hiking. Gilroy Hot Springs road leads to the Hunting Hollow entrance to Henry Coe state park, the second largest state park in California at 87000 acres (136 square miles, or 35000 hectares). It also leads to Gilroy Yamato Hot Springs itself, which has an interesting history as a resort for the elite from San Francisco in bygone days (including prohibition), and is still open for special events.

One of multiple ranches off Roop Road:

Some of the scenery on Gilroy Hot Springs road:

The Hunting Hollow entrance to Henry Coe Park:

The start of many trails in the park:

It would take days to hike all the trails. But it was pretty hot out today (this is a better park to visit in spring or fall) so I decided to continue on biking because the self-generated breeze makes it cooler. More scenery in the Hunting Hollow area on my way out:

Some of the views from Gilroy Hot Springs road on the way back:

Now I’m back on Roop road. This is the Coyote Lake entrance to Harvey Bear County park:

Ok Smokey, I’ll be careful. Hope nobody throws cigarette butts out their windows today:

A little further up Roop, at the Mendoza ranch entrance to Harvey Bear:

This is the start of the Mendoza trail. I’ve described hiking in Harvey Bear previously but that was at the northern end. There is a lot of nice hiking at the southern end too. You could cover the whole park in one strenuous day:

The Mendoza trail goes around “Mummy mountain” shown here to the left, and there are nice trails up and over the mountain:

On the way home I took a side trip off Roop road on Estates road:

The road is aptly named. This is Gilroy horse country. Somebody’s new estate will be going in by the orange fencing on the right:

This was a nice 3 hour trip. I got back home by about 11:15, before it got a chance to heat up too much.