My Go-To Local Hike: Almaden Quicksilver 11 Mile Loop

Hacienda View from Umunum to Silicon Valley

The closest place to hike near my house is a county park called Almaden Quicksilver. A mere ten minute drive from my front door, it offers enough to keep me interested and going back over and over again. Wildflowers, steep grades, rolling ridge hiking, multiple trailheads and trails, historical sites, wildlife, views, and surprisingly uncrowded trails make it my regular go-to park when I want to sneak out for a quick hike. It’s even dog friendly! This loop, approximately 11 miles long with about 2200 ft of gain and descent, is one of my favorites when I have a half-day to sneak away.

Here is a link to the park map (pdf) with all of the features that I name below labeled.

Start at the Mockingbird Hill entrance in the northeast corner of the park. It’s easily accessible through a residential neighborhood and offers plenty of parking, restroom facilities, and a trailhead board with a generous supply of paper maps. Parking is free.

I always like to get my climbs out of the way at the beginning of a hike, so I prefer to hike this in a clockwise direction. Going the other way, you’ll end with a steep descent, and if your legs are anything like mine after ten miles of hiking you’ll prefer going up. So, start on up the Hacienda Trail. There is nothing spectacular or interesting about this trail at the beginning, but as you ascend (passing a few trail junctions), you’ll eventually find yourself at a high point with a view towards Mine Hill (the core of the park), The Cube on Mt Umunum in the distance, and Silicon Valley far below.

After about a mile you’ll reach the first major junction with the Cape Horn Pass trail. Follow this wide dirt road until it connects with the Mine Hill Trail, and continue along Mine Hill until you can connect to English Camp via the Castillero Trail. Although the view is obstructed by trees and bushes, there are some interesting plants along this stretch – check out the giant root systems on some of the trees bordering the road.

Take a break at English Camp. Built in the 1860s, English Camp housed a large number of miners and their families. The mines at Almaden Quicksilver produced mercury which was used during the gold rush to extract gold from the ore. Because of the high demand from the gold mines, the mercury mines at Almaden Quicksilver were actually the most profitable mines in California at the time. The remains of the mining operations can be found all over the park, not just here at English Camp.

Once you’re done enjoying English Camp, follow the single-track Yellow Kid Trail to Spanish Town. While Spanish Town doesn’t have the ruins like English Town, you will walk by the former main tunnel entrance with an sign that has a cool picture of what the busy town used to look like from where you’re standing.

This used to be a large community of Mexican, Spanish, and Chilean mining families

At the junction with Hidalgo Cemetery Trail stay straight and loop around the old Rotary Furnace until you connect with the Wood Road trail. Take time to check out the signs about this large ruin, and how they would extract the mercury from the cinnabar ore. This Furnace was in operation until the 1970′s!

Connect back to the Castillero Trail and follow it west until you reconnect with the Mine Hill trail. This stretch offers excellent views towards Mt Umunum and the Valley below. Stay on the Mine Hill trail for a little over two more miles, then turn off on the Cinnabar single track trail. You’ll descend to the New Almaden trail, which you then take east for several miles all the way back to the Mockingbird Hill parking lot. This stretch is completely different than the first half of the hike, offering dark and damp ravines with wildflowers galore.

Prepared for fire season along the Castillero Trail

Almaden Quicksilver is within a few minutes drive of one of the country’s largest cities, yet I can get away for a relaxing, uncrowded hike. I’ll nod hellos to other hikers and mountain bikers (speaking of which, they always seem to be courteous and slow in this park, thank you!) and continue on my loop. It’s an easy and quick getaway on a busy weekend when I want to squeeze in a hike, and this loop isn’t the only option. Take a look at the map and find a hike to suit your preferences – history, difficulty, wildflowers, solitude, views etc. Maybe I’ll see you out there someday!

Almaden Quicksilver 11 Mile Loop Hike

Thanksgiving 2011 Part 2: Crater, Lead Peak, Stateline, Rhodes Hill

On Monday morning we awoke to fresh snow covering the peaks that surround Eureka Valley. Clouds still hung around the ridges but they were slowly clearing out. While the guys picked up camp I took the opportunity to climb around the Eureka Dunes a bit. The overnight precip made the surface the perfect resistance for climbing up sand – instead of sinking I walked on the damp crust along the ridges until I crested a high point and found an amazing view stretching out in front of me.

After our lovely morning in camp we decided to visit the ruins of Crater and Last Chance Mines.

After wandering the ruins we followed a 4WD track up the ridge to the south. Parking just below the summit, we scrambled up the rocky ridge to the high point, Lead Peak. From the top we watched fighter jets from the nearby military facilities run laps through Eureka and Saline Valleys.

We ended our day east of the park outside of Goldfield, NV where we explored more ruins and set up camp at an old cabin with a view of the Sierra.

The next day was a resupply day in Beatty and Pahrump, but I still managed to squeeze in a short sunset hike up Rhodes Hill in southern Death Valley.

View from Rhodes Hill (Epaulet Peak in distance)

More Photos from Crater, Lead Peak (129)

More Photos from Rhodes Hill (31)

Memorial Day in the Eastern Sierra: Cerro Gordo, Centennial Canyon, Boxcar Cabin, Jack Gunn Peak, Mono Basin and Sonora Pass

I’ve been so busy lately I’ve had to neglect calipidder.com a bit. But we were able to squeeze out to 395 to pay a visit to some of our favorite country over an extended four day Memorial Day Weekend.
We drove out Friday night and met the crew at Fossil Falls BLM camp along 395 (about 20 mins north of Ridgecrest). Greeted by a sidewinder only a few minutes after stepping out of the car I was certain it was going to be one of *those* kind of trips.

On Saturday morning we headed to Centennial Canyon to hike a loop and check out the petroglyphs (sorry, no GPS track for this one).

We circled the wagons at Astro Artz cabin that night which was a smart move – we were tucked away and a bit protected from the wind that blasted us nearly all weekend.

On Sunday morning we drove up to Cerro Gordo. Robert, the new caretaker, showed us around a bit and then we hiked up to Cerro Gordo Peak. Note that the approach to this peak is on private land and you must obtain permission before passing through – see maps tab below for GPS route info.

Cerro Gordo (town) and Inyo Mtns as seen from hike to peak

After making a brief stop at the U2 Joshua Tree we headed out Saline Valley road.

U2's Joshua Tree, now fallen (natural causes)

Where we stayed at the Boxcar Cabin, a really well taken care of cabin that we were surprised to find available at 3 pm on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Lucky, too – some short little windy squalls passed through and it was nice to have a dry and warm place to hide away.

Monday morning we headed into Lee Mines and hiked Jack Gunn/Maltese peak before heading into Lone Pine for breakfast at the Alabama Hills cafe. I haven’t spent much time along Saline Valley road and want to come back and explore some more. Maybe next Thanksgiving.

After Lone Pine we all went our separate ways. We headed north along 395 and cut over to 120 south of Mono Craters to a nice campsite with a view of Glass Mountain. We checked out a few side roads for future reference information and settled in for what we thought would be a really cold night. It ended up being quite pleasant.

Tuesday morning was our first visit to Whoa Nellie of the season and I had the most incredible breakfast sandwich. I miss Whoa Nellie in the winter.

Being the Tuesday after a holiday weekend, we figured Travertine Hot Springs might be empty and we were right. We enjoyed a short soak after taking the rough road in – the conditions have deteriorated enough that it would be difficult getting a passenger car in. Maybe that’s why it was so quiet.

We drove home over Sonora Pass and there is still an insane amount of snow. I’m beginning to wonder if it will ever go away this year.

Additional Photos (178)

Cerro Gordo Peak

Jack Gunn/Maltese Peak

Photos

Cerro Gordo

Boxcar Cabin

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2010

Or, where the heck have I been?

I didn’t fall off a mountain somewhere. I’ve been out having fun and being generally too overwhelmed (in a good way) to keep up with my latest trips here on Calipidder, but I hope to remedy that shortly. I’ll be posting a few hike descriptions from our Thanksgiving and Christmas trips, mostly desert peaks but some other fun stuff thrown in as well.

The first half of our Thanksgiving trip was a bit of a weather adventure, driving across the Sierra on the front end of the big storm that closed Tioga Pass for the season. After nearly getting snowed in along highway 120 between Lee Vining and Benton, we headed into the Nevada desert and explored an area called “The Sump”, a fossilized swamp with lots of petrified wood and fantastic colorful formations. We also visited a similar area called Monte Cristo’s castle, soon to be Nevada’s next state park.

We kind of spinned our wheels the first couple days with the snow, but we got our trail legs a couple of days into the trip with a quick hike of Bullfrog Peak just west of Beatty, NV. We followed it up the next day with Anniversary Peak and Narrows in Lake Mead NRA. This was a terrific hike with lots to offer – look for the details soon.

On the Wednesday we headed into Panamint Valley to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with friends at the foot of the Argus Range. We did some fun 4×4 in our new truck (Tundra Rock Warrior), climbed several peaks, explored some really cool old mines, and played on the Panamint Dunes. As always, a great trip. And details on the hikes coming soon.

Christmas was a few days outside of Lone Pine where we snowshoed at the foot of Mt Whitney, photographed the Alabama Hills, and then went into an area called Cactus Flats to climb a really fun peak, do some 4×4, and visit some pictographs.

So, that’s where I’ve been. I’m not sure if things will ever slow down but I hope to catch up with trail reports here before heading off to the Outdoor Retailer Show in a few weeks!

I hope everyone had as fantastic of a holiday break as I was lucky enough to experience!

4 Comments
January 2, 2011
Miscellaneous
4x4, alabama hills, christmas, desert, lone pine, mines, narrows, panamint dunes, peak, pictographs, thanksgiving, whitney
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Cerro Gordo and U2′s Joshua Tree

I’ve been meaning to visit Cerro Gordo for a long time and it was with great excitement that we turned up the dreaded road on Saturday afternoon. I have heard that the road condition is anywhere from an easy Sunday drive to a 4WD nightmare. Truthfully, the answer lies somewhere in between, depending on the time of year, the type of vehicle you drive, and your experience driving on steep and narrow mountain roads. In our Trailblazer, we made it up the nicely graded but steep and occasionally very narrow 7-ish miles in less than 30 minutes, including a few stops for photos. Compared to many other roads we’ve been on it was quite an easy drive, but someone who has never driven in the mountains or on dirt could very easily classify it as a nightmare.

With the road condition report out of the way…what’s so cool about this place? Cerro Gordo (‘Fat Hill’ in Spanish) is the ghost of a once busy silver mine. Still private property, there are caretakers that live on-premise, still work the mines, do upkeep and maintenance, and watch over the remains of the town. For a quite reasonable donation, you can wander through the ghost town and even see inside some of the remaining buildings like the fascinating step into history that is the American Hotel. Please be aware that this area is still private property, and it is best to call ahead if you plan on stopping by.

2 Comments
December 3, 2009
Trip Reports
cerro gordo, ghost town, joshua tree, mine, mines, mount whitney, ruins, sierra, thanksgiving09, U2, whitney
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Dale Mining District 4×4 Geocaching Run

As part of our trip to the desert we decided to join the Southern California 4×4 Geocachers on a run. The target was the Dale Mining District, just north of Joshua Tree, and the run was suitable for our stock 4×4 (though it pushed its limits at times!) The district has a huge number of caches as well as some interesting mining ruins, so I knew it would be a fun day.

The Dale Mining district supported over 1000 people at its height in activity, mostly miners with some families. What was still left in the area was shut down during WWII to focus the equipment and manpower on other activities. There are mine shafts and old equipment scattered all over the hills and mountains, and we tried to see as much as possible during daylight. This was a 4×4 run for a reason – don’t try these roads in a sedan! We could barely make some of it in our Trailblazer. Know what you’re getting in to if you head out here, and go with a group – it’s not a good place to get stranded and AAA isn’t going to come get you.

I believe my total cache count for the day was 78, my total photos taken was 512, and miles driven was 90+. I’ve pared down the photos to 60 or so which can be found at the link below. Also included is a tpo file of our track.

Warm Springs Canyon

Our last full day of the annual Thanksgiving Trip to the desert was an adventure! We decided to do the run up Warm Springs canyon into Butte Valley, but instead of continuing through the valley and up towards Mengel Pass, we turned off towards Arrastre Springs to explore that area. The day was primarily spent on 4×4 road with regular stops to run around and explore interesting places. Two of the vehicles were 4×4 with good clearance. Our 4×4 was a bit lower and the road was pushing our clearance limits at times, and the fourth vehicle had lots of clearance but not 4×4. Everyone made it on the route just fine, with minimal white-knuckling.

The road from West Side road into Warm Springs canyon is washboarded but quite passable in any car. In fact, as you continue through the canyon the road is quite good for a while. We stopped at the first place of interest, the old Grantham talc mining area, and spent a long time exploring all the ruins in the area. We continued up the canyon and saw several people at Warm Springs so decided to leave it for our return down the canyon later in the day.

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