Three of us enjoyed a lovely hike at Santa Teresa County park this last Saturday. We started the hike on the Rocky Ridge Trail and enjoyed the warm sun beating down on us with a gentle breeze to keep us from getting too toasty. We saw some wild turkeys with one male displaying his plumage. We also saw humming birds and lots of wild flowers.
At around 12:30 we reached Coyote Peak and had a nice lunch stop sitting on one of the conveniently situated benches! We watched a couple of birds of prey circling around off the peak and we enjoyed the views of the Santa Clara valley and the surrounding hills. After lunch we descended rapidly to a small trail that went past the golf course. This trail was challenging in that there was lots of poison oak so we had to keep a sharp eye out for it and avoid it.
We finished off our hike with a first for me as a trip leader. We came upon a swarm of bees right across the trail! Needless to say, none of us wanted to hike on the trail through the swarm. So we bushwacked up the hillside with our eyes peeled for poison oak and made our way around the swarm. We made it past the swarm safely and took a minute or two to marvel at the swarm some more and to check each other out for ticks after our short hike through the long grassy hillside. We avoided the ticks and as we hiked around the bend we finished our loop hike. It was a lovely day for the hike with lots of interesting and beautiful things to see.
Cathy