Is it beautiful? Well, Chris Martin would like it because it was all yellow…read more
There's quite a few places to start (Stonegate Park, Hellyer Park, Metcalf parking lot), but Google "Coyote Creek Visitor Center at Anderson Lake" if you want to start at the trail's most southern point. If you want photos of that intelligent but impish silver fox, Google "Coyote Creek Visitor Center at Anderson Cooper"
My experience that follows is based on starting from the south, but check my photos for updates. The Visitor Center has a huge parking lot (virtually empty at 2pm a hot September Saturday) that will leave everything it touches with a fine white dust. Your shoes and bike, and subsequently your floor mats, will look like they partied with John Belushi.
We made the mistake of riding out of the lot toward the creek, following a rocky dirt road for over half a mile. (See Photo). Until we intercepted the actual trail, I was angrily writing the Yelp review in my head in the voice of Inigo Montoya: "Paved? I do not think that word means what you think it means." (To avoid this, begin the trail on Eagle View Drive that borders the parking lot opposite the creek.)
With the honey-colored grass dotted with murky green oaks, standing in stunning contrast to the gold, the landscape reminded me of Napa Valley, but instead of wine, dog poop. I'm not saying there was a lot of dog poop, but there's more poop than shade.
The smooth, paved two-way trail is 22.1 miles long and has long stretches of seemingly straight paths but it's never static, thanks to a few sharp turns, blind curves, interruptions for utility roads, and various sites. In the 8.4 miles we rode north from the Visitor Center toward San Jose to Coyote Ranch, we would sometimes veer west where you'd feel like you're in the country. With the rolling green hills in the background, and intermittent low hanging trees among the super dry patches of grass, the landscape reminded my wife of Southern Oregon, but instead of award-winning breweries: dog poop. I'm not saying there was a lot of dog poop, but there were more poop to mistake for a family of motionless brown beetles than actual families.
But for every turn toward the hills, there was a turn back east toward the 101 to remind you that you're in a city (the 17th most expensive housing market in the US, to be exact) - the 101 is sometimes 4000 feet in the distance, sometimes within 500 feet, and even under it. One shady underpass made for a secret and sheltered shallow spot for kids to swim. Well, at least it WAS secret.
Yes, along the way, you'll see the 63-mile long Coyote Creek, a river that parallel a fault, running from Diablo Mtns east of Morgan Hill to Anderson Lake through Coyote Valley and San Jose that empties into the bay at Alviso. The creek is most often shielded by a row of trees: at some points it's a dry bed, at one point a water supply for a pair of deer, or you cross over it on a cool wooden bridge or two, or a reservoir, a designated fishing point, and if we ever get rain again, the trail could dip into the water itself like feels like the Universal Studios tram ride, but instead of staged interaction with a holographic cast of Fast & Furious: dog poop, which is basically the same thing.
It seems barren, but there are a few surprises. Besides numerous structures that either look like, depending on your level of cynicism: a) a treasure to an amateur photographer who makes you look at his pictures of random concrete tubes, old barns, and barely habitable shacks or b) a place where you'd find Lovely Bones. Also, a few pieces of graffiti (the only waterfowl I saw in the area was a spray-painted duck), some tree trunks that look like tractor engines. For some reason you'll pass fences that separate that patch of dry yellow grass from this patch of yellow grass.
Landmarks include: the Santa Clara Model Aircraft Skypark. Signs actually instruct you to keep moving and duck! Maybe that's what the spray-painted duck was for. Plus, Ogier Ponds, Coyote Creek Golf Club, and the Gene Simpson Memorial Dog Training Area. Crap, I didn't know he died. I love KISS!
We stopped at Coyote Ranch, which is (allegedly) "perfect for weddings". If you hate your bride. Had we gone one more mile, we would have made it to the Metcalf parking area after passing the "Tamienne Monument", an easy-to-overlook, extremely non-monumental plaque, which is said to be the geographical center of the Santa Clara Valley and not my co-worker Teresa who often thinks she is.
Visitor Center to Metcalf is 9.4 miles, I haven't gone north of Metcalf yet but the trail passes through a chain of city/county park, dipping under the 101/85 interchange, and through San Jose six miles to Cottonwood Lake. You can go an extra 3.3 miles to Tully Library (where it seems to end), but your money shot is likely Hellyer County Park, so named because, "Hell, yer probably meet some of the dogs that pooped on the trail at the dog park.
