Almaden Quicksilver County Park from the Hacienda Entrance

There are 4 entrances to Almaden Quicksilver County Park. My De Anza College field trip yesterday met at the Hacienda entrance which is along Almaden Road near the community of New Almaden. There is a large parking lot with restrooms.

This 3,977-acre Santa Clara County park, in the dry eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, is well known for its colorful mercury mining history and for its extraordinary display of spring wildflowers. Despite nearly 130 years of mining and settlement much of this land still feels wild. It is amazing how quickly this land has healed.

My De Anza class took a 6.1 mile loop that ascended the Mine Hill Trail, with a short side trip to the powder house, where we were surprised to see several bats flying around in daylight.  We continued uphill to the San Cristobal Mine for lunch. Unfortunately, visitors are no long allowed to enter a short distance into the mine. We continued our

long and steady uphill to Bull Run, where we paused to enjoy views of Mount Umunhum and Loma Prieta, which is the highest point in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We stopped to look at lots of beautiful wild flowers, including, fiesta flowers, blue dicks, Indian paintbrush, buttercups, shooting stars, wild cucumber, mule ear, blue eyed grass, Johny jump-ups, wild onion, and golden poppies.

From Bull Run we headed east on the Castillero Trail, where we viewed the abandoned rotary furnace, and then headed north to see the remains of English Camp. From there it is a steep downhill on the Deep Gulch Trail to a flat area at the bottom where there is old mining equipment to be seen.

After the field trip some of us stopped at nearby Casa Grande, which used to be the mine foreman's house and office, but which is now an excellent mining history museum.

TO GET THERE... From Highway 85 take Almaden Expressway south and turn right on Almaden Road to the Hacienda parking lot.