Bouquets of wild flowers bursting throughout the new Coyote
Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park give spring-time color to South
Valley’s soon-to-open natural wonderland. Set along the pastoral
hills southeast of Moorage Hill, Santa Clara County’s newest
recreational playground will hold its grand opening Saturday.
Bouquets of wild flowers bursting throughout the new Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park give spring-time color to South Valley’s soon-to-open natural wonderland. Set along the pastoral hills southeast of Moorage Hill, Santa Clara County’s newest recreational playground will hold its grand opening Saturday.
Workers this week have been busy putting the finishing touches on the brand-new county park. They’ve been placing signs along trails winding through the gently sloping terrain along the Diablo Range.
“It’s a great piece of land,” said Don Rocha, the county’s parks natural resource program supervisor who helped oversee development of the project’s $1.3 million first phase, which included clearing and building the 14 miles of environmentally friendly trails for hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers.
The park’s trail system was specially designed to preserve the natural setting and did not incorporate ranching or logging roads as other county parks have.
“This trail system gave us an opportunity to start with a clean slate,” Rocha said.
“After this, there’s an additional 20 miles of trail to build,” he said of the development’s second phase, which has no completion date set yet.
The new park adds more than 3,600 acres of prime terrain, including meadows and oak-covered woodlands, to the 916-acre Coyote Lake County Park. Combined, this gives South Valley the second-largest county park in Santa Clara County after Grant Ranch Park on Mt. Hamilton east of San Jose.
Nature lovers can find more than 200 species of wild flowers throughout Bear Ranch Park, said Senior County Park Ranger Chris Crockett. Trees include madrone, elderberry and buckeye. Golden eagles and burrowing owls make their home in the park.
“These are special-status species,” Crockett said, meaning they’re protected by law.
From a human settlement point of view, the park has a rich and colorful history, he said. The Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza passed through the park in 1776 while surveying what is now Coyote Creek.
During a tour Monday morning, Crockett pointed to a row of trees at the Bear Ranch entrance and described how renown South Valley settler Martin Murphy Sr., built a home at that location more than 150 years ago. Murphy purchased the land for $1,500 after leading wagon train pioneers over the Sierra mountains to California in 1846.
About 4.5 miles of trail along the park’s hill-top ridges have been incorporated into the partially completed Bay Area Ridge Trail, said Lisa Killough, Santa Clara County Parks Department director.
“It’s a spectacular piece of the Ridge Trail,” Killough said of Bear Ranch’s link to the 500-mile project that will one day circle the San Francisco Bay Area. “You get some great vistas looking at Coyote Lake and the Gilroy-San Martin area.”
This fall, with the addition of a park in Marin County, the project will have connected about 300 miles of ridge trail.
Grand opening events scheduled for this Saturday at Bear Ranch County Park include a nature run along park trails, a canine hike, an equestrian ride and a guided wilderness hike along the Bay Area Ridge Trail portion of the park.
But if May’s wet weather continues into this weekend, dedication plans will most likely have to be changed, Killough said.
“We’re talking about that right now. We don’t have any definite plans if it rains,” she said. “Obviously, rain will curtail some of the activities.”
Don Gage, a Santa Clara County Supervisor representing the South Valley region, said the Bear Ranch County Park will give area residents more recreational opportunities in the scenic outdoors.
“We don’t have anything in San Martin for people to do picnics and stuff like that, other than go to Coyote Lake or Anderson Reservoir,” he said. “It’ll be nice for the community there.”
The park’s first phase began in October 2004 as workers prepared new trails as well as constructed parking and restrooms at the Bear Ranch and Mendoza Ranch entrances.
The second phase will develop an off-leash area for dogs, and more horse and bike trails as well as an environmental education center at the Bear Ranch entrance.
The third phase, which will most likely start construction more than a decade from now, will include an 18-hole golf course and club house on land near the Bear Ranch entrance.
“As we get money, we will develop more trails and the golf course,” Gage said. “It’s a slow development.”
Holly Van Houten, executive director for the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, said she is thrilled by the span of ridge trail that will pass through Bear Ranch Park. The 4.5-mile section of trail represents less than 1 percent of the 500 miles the trail is expected to cover, she said.
“Every little bit counts,” she said. “We’ve been looking at that area to connect a trail to where we end right now at (Moorage Hill’s) Anderson Lake down to the Gilroy area. The ridge trail gives people throughout the Bay Area the chance to get up high and reflect on this beautiful area where we live and enjoy the outdoors.”
Eventually with public land acquisitions, the trail will cut across South Valley through the Gilroy area and connect to the Ridge Trail that’s now part of Mount Madonna Park along Hecker Pass, she said.
The county spent $11.6 million in 1997 to purchase the 2,968-acre Bear Ranch property from the children of Harvey Bear, a former Moorage Hill cattle rancher.
An additional $2.5 million in funding helped purchase the adjacent 711 acres of Mendoza Ranch from Russell and Carolyn Mendoza, now Lassen County residents.
Funding to develop the park came from Santa Clara County’s Park Charter Fund as well as a $200,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy and $200,000 from the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s grant for its Trails, Parks and Open Space Grant program.
