okay came up the grizzly flat Trail aways and I think this is where I can drop down to the creek
Channel at least I can get down to the bench that's above it I don't know how big of a drop
there is down there but you can see the Dry Creek bed is pretty wide open there so I hope I can get
in maybe right down there kind of between those two trees there there's sort of an opening down to
the creek Channel and I'm going to try to see what it looks like you can only see about a hundred
yards of the creek down here before you lose it because the Crete goes off that direction and
the trail goes off this direction and pretty soon you can't see the creek from the trails anyway I
wanted to take a look at that and then also today I picked up some new cycling tights so these are
more of a mountain bike style cycle clean pants there by zoik z-o-i-c not sure how you say that
yeah it does look like they pick up stickers they call those sock stickers hopefully though
they come off pretty easy though to my old Lycra cycling tights are pretty much shot they're like
12 years old so I thought well I need to get a new pair so I thought I'd try these and then the other
thing is I have a new Hill shade map that I just made of this area so I want to see how accurate
that is too okay yeah it's a pretty pretty steep hill it's a really soft soil coming down there a
lot of leaves and just loose stuff so hopefully I can get back up I might have to take a more angled
approach going up but yeah I got down here this is uh Branch C let's see that's Grizzly flat Trail
right up there and then it makes a switch back and heads off that way yeah so that's going Downstream
you can see how Brushy it gets right down there it's just almost impenetrable and then here it's
not too bad I maybe have about 15 minutes today that I can head up and then I gotta head back and
get out of here I was kind of thinking just see what this looks like down here you can see that
line there's a log over there and just right along there I bet you that's part of the old road and
let's go up there maybe over that big tree over the top of that so yeah maybe I'll head up this
way see how far I can get it's a little lumpier than it looked from above you're looking down
and it looks flat but you get down here and it's it's pretty lumpy but let's head up that way a
ways and see what it looks like oh yeah there's the creek down there and there's a bit of a bench
over here and I believe this is the old road right here there was that big tree that you can
see from below and it looks like the road actually came below that tree and then right through here
and then it keeps going wow I thought that looked like a road on the hillshade map it's really faint
you can see how the sides have just eroded down so there's really no sharp Road cut
or anything yeah so this road probably was around in the 1800s I'm guessing so let's
see how far up this road I can follow it okay it came up through there pretty nice and clear
and then all of a sudden you get into some downed trees here there's a couple of big trees that have
come down so I may have to drop back into the creek here and I think the Table Mountain Trail
is probably way up there here's my Hill shade map on Osmond and you can see that track right
there that goes right through the slider and I think that's the trace of the road that I'm on
I'm right about even with the big Switchback on the grizzly flat Trail it's basically right
above me ahead of the slider right there is on the table Mountain Trail you can see the faint Trail
going from the kind of the Northeast down to the south in the middle that's the single Track Trail
up there yeah let me drop back into the creek and see if I can go up any farther okay yeah there's
those big trees that were down over the road and they're down over the creek too luckily you can
go under them but then yeah it gets really really Rocky in here looks like it might open up again
a little farther up yeah I'm about out of time today I got to turn around and head back it's not
like hiking a fire Road it's pretty slow going you get a stretch a nice open Easy walking and then
you get into this these Mossy rocks which you have to really be careful on they are pretty slippery
I think I'm getting close to the edge of my first map but I've got a total of three
Maps horizontally to get to the upper end so that's another four tenths of a mile straight
go in here you can probably do a half a mile an hour in this sort of terrain like this so
yeah I don't have enough time today so I think I'm gonna call it quits here
and I can see how far up I got and how long it took me yeah and there's I hear water flowing
there's there's little bits of water still flowing down here it's it's mainly underground
but like through these uh little Cascades here there's little trickles of water still running
you can see all the ferns growing down here and yeah so this is Branch C of Stevens Creek and
this might be something I might want to do by driving up to the upper parking lot and then
hiking down Grizzly flat Trail and then hike up here like with some hiking boots and you know
good heavy pants and all that because in cycling shoes and cycling tights it's a little bit too
much I doubt many people have been down here for probably a hundred years I think there used to be
well I know there used to be a road that ran all the way up here
you know this used to be a way to get through the mountains right here I think they were
hauling wood up to the top of Table Mountain and there was probably some charcoal Kilns up
there because from Table Mountain up to Skyline Boulevard there's a road called charcoal Road
I think they used to make charcoal up here and
probably take it down to the Mercury or Quicksilver mines down at Almaden
if anybody anybody has any information on the this road going up Branch C of Stevens
Creek I haven't seen it on any any map it's not mentioned in any book that I can find but it is
on the hill shade Maps it is here I just don't know when it was built or when it was used whoa
that was a climb up there this Hillside is it's either super soft and you take a step
you know you step up and you slide all the way back down or there's parts that are just almost
as hard as rock and about the only way to get up those is you got to stop and and kickstep like you
do in snow and then you have to shoot for the top of every tree and then you can rest on the flat
spot and then make your way up to the next tree and and then luckily I could grab this thing at
the very top because this was super soft right here but yeah made it back up but yeah that's
probably as steep as that Hill that I was looking at I think last spring I was scoping out the hill
on the other side of this Ridge that drops down to Branch d and it's about that steep yeah that's
why I wanted to try to find an area that wasn't quite as steep over there because yeah I think all
of this is is about that steep you have to pick a route with a bunch of trees and then aim for
the upper side of every tree trunk so you can stop up there I think I might have done about
a fifth of a mile if I did that much anyway hope you enjoyed that and as always thanks for watching