Monday, May 26, 2014

Biking Joseph D. Grant County Park

Today, I decided to sample multiple mountain biking trails at Joseph D. Grant County Park. When I arrived, I parked at the parking lot on Hamilton Road, a few hundred feet past the park's entrance (near Grant Lake).

I shot a short video on my GoPro Hero 3 Black here of my ride from Halls Valley Road to Canada de Pala and returning by Yerba Buena trail.



Most of the video shows the flat and downhill sections (as the ascent is not entertaining to watch).


From there, I assembled my Specialized Ground Control mountain bike and started riding toward Halls Valley trail. The tail started out flat, but it began to ascend slowly. There were a lot of bugs buzzing about and a lot of horse dung on the trail. I continued toward the junction with the Canada de Pala trail. From there, I took a right turn and stayed on the Canada de Pala trail.


The trail flattened out here somewhat, and the view of east San Jose was nice. Most of the trail has minimal tree cover, so it quickly gets hot. I was sweating a lot just to stay calm.


Most of the vegetation is looking instead of burned out.


The ride down to the parking lot along the Yerba Buena trail was a lot of fun (after all the exertion getting up here). On the trail, I only encountered one other mountain biker, so it's a relatively secluded park section.


I saw plenty of road bikers on Hamilton Ave, as this is a favorite section of the road for a steep climb to the Lick Observatory.

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