My outdoor adventures continued on Tuesday and Wednesday when Julie and I met in the South Bay to hike sections of the ridge trail. First part was hiking to the top of Coyote Peak and then through Santa Teresa County Park. We had fantastic views of the South Bay, unfortunately, it was a little too smoggy to see up to San Francisco. We found that some of the ridge trail signs were hard to see because of the weeds growing up around them so we made sure to stomp them down so that it would be easier for others to find their way.
At the end of our 9+ mile hike we had some lunch, then decided we had enough energy to tackle a shorter 4 1/2 mile hike, which proved to be much more challenging than we had expected as we ended up walking in the afternoon heat. For that part of the trail we went from Sierra Azul Preserve down to Almaden Quicksilver County Park. The downhill parts were very steep and challenging, but we were rewarded with gorgeous views of Mount Umunhum and the surrounding area. We were both very happy to shed our hiking boots at the end!
To make it easier to get more hikes done in the area we stayed overnight at the Los Gatos Lodge, a great old-school place near downtown Los Gatos. We had a suite with a large living area, gas fireplace and a nice little patio, it was a great place to relax after our hike. After taking showers (heaven!), we headed to a local Mexican place for Taco Tuesday. It’s obviously very popular, and we found out why when we had their scrumptious homemade tortilla chips and street tacos. We celebrated our hikes with margaritas, sooo refreshing! It was the perfect end to a wonderful day outdoors.
After a very good nights sleep, we headed out for the days hikes. We started at the top of Mount Umunhum. The view from the summit was absolutely stunning, it was a clearer morning so we could see both Mount Tam and Mount Diablo in the distance. We realized that we have hiked on three of the four tallest mountains in the Bay Area in the last week – Mount Tam, Mount Diablo, and now Mount Umunhum. After a good look around the top, we headed down the trail through endless switchbacks amongst towering oaks and wildflowers. It was a beautifully made trail, apparently relatively new.
After completing the Mount Umunhum trail, we decided to finish a short 3.7 mile segment of the ridge trail that was down on the flat area in San Jose from Alum Rock Park to the Berryessa BART station. After all of the elevation gain and loss we had had over the last two days we were grateful to be walking on a flat path, though most of it was paved, which was not ideal. It reminded us of some parts of the Contra Costa Canal Trail.
It was really nice to be able to hang out together after hiking, something we have not been able to do very often. We had a lovely couple of days chatting about all sorts of things. Now we’re very motivated to do more of the South Bay Ridge Trail hikes.
I managed to avoid almost all of the commute traffic both when I headed down on Tuesday morning, and when I returned home on Wednesday afternoon, what a blessing. On my drive I listened to a fantastic podcast about happiness and charitable giving. A wealthy tech family wanted to support a happiness researcher and donated $2 million for a study that she put together where 200 people in different parts of the world were given $10,000 each to do with whatever they wanted. Half of the group were told to let others know about the money that they had unexpectedly received and the other half were told not to tell anybody about the money, while a third group of 100 people were the control group and didn’t receive anything. All three groups filled out surveys about happiness levels throughout the study period. They found that most people gave a lot of the money they received as charitable donations and that those that did were happier than people who had used the money on themselves. The average rate of charitable giving is about 2% of peoples income, but people in this study gave considerably more. I’m sure it was in part that it was money that the study participants weren’t expecting and didn’t have to use to pay bills and other things, but it was wonderful to hear that they gave a lot of it away instead of spending it on themselves and to hear the positive impact of that giving not just on the organizations, but on the people who did the giving.