Ron Horii's San Francisco Bay Area Parks, Recreation and Travel

San Francisco Bay Area
Parks, Recreation, and Travel
by Ron Horii

Ron in Santa Teresa County Park, pointing to the Santa Teresa Hills, picture by Mike Boulland 4/4/09

Note on Geocities migration: This is my new domain. Yahoo shut down its Geocities.com domain in October 2009. Many of my web pages, including this one, were on Geocities. If you have been automatically routed to this page, it's because all of my pages on geocities.com/rhorii will be routed here to this home page. Also, my web pages on geocities,com/santateresapark, bayareaparks, almadenqs, santateresahills, stpfriends, and some others will be dead, but I'm going to re-create them here eventually or migrate them to other sites. It will take a lot of time to rebuild the pages and reset the links. While the links below work, the links on the pages that they are linked to will need updating. Please be patient. Here are my old Geocities websites and their new locations:

www.geocities.com/rhorii moved to www.rhorii.com (here)
www.geocities.com/bayareaparks to www.rhorii.com/bayareaparks
www.geocities.com/santateresahills to www.rhorii.com/SantaTeresaHills
www.geocities.com/santateresapark to www.stpfriends.org/Santateresapark
www.geocities.com/stpfriends to www.stpfriends.org
www.geocities.com/almadenqs to www.newalmaden.org/AQSPark
www.geocities.com/gardenahs71 not yet migrated
www.geocities.com/lhstptsa not migrated
www.geocities.com/lhsgradnite not migrated

Welcome! My favorite hobbies and activities are photography, hiking, biking, computers, geocaching, travel, and travel writing. I've created a number of Web pages on travel and recreation in the San Francisco Bay Area and California. Here you will find links to pages with photos and information on parks, beaches, trails, history, and places to visit.

My Pages:

Bay Area Backpages - Visit my first webpages, once featured on TV, on travel and outdoor activities in the Bay Area. It has pages on parks, hiking, camping, biking, beaches, swimming, museums, playgrounds, views, and information about places in the Bay Area and other parts of California. There's also a technical section on scanners.

My Bay Trail Pages - The Bay Trail, when completed, will be a 400-mile trail along the shores of San Francisco Bay. Here are pictures and descriptions of the southern Bay Trail segments from just north of SFO to Oakland Airport, many of which I did for the official Bay Trail Website.

Santa Teresa County Park

Coyote Peak, Santa Teresa County Park

(Migrated from geocities.com/santateresapark.) Web pages on my favorite park in San Jose. The park covers nearly 1700 acres in the rolling, grass-covered hills guarding the southern gateway to the Silicon Valley. Santa Teresa Park webpages:

Friends of Santa Teresa Park

FOSTP president Mike Boulland leading a hike on the Stile Ranch Trail in Santa Teresa Park, 5/4/08

(Migrated from geocities.com/stpfriends.) The Friends of Santa Teresa Park (FOSTP) is the volunteer organization supporting Santa Teresa County Park. Find out what's going on in the park and what you can do to help make it better. This site is updated frequently with park and community news, developments, pictures, and volunteer activities. Santa Teresa Park volunteer events and community issues:

Geocaching

Geocaching class in Mt. Madonna County Park, 7/11/09

Geocaching in Santa Teresa Park - Geocaching is a hobby and recreational activity that has been growing in popularity. It involves using GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers to locate hidden "caches" whose GPS coordinates are published on the Internet. Santa Teresa Park is a popular place for geocaching.
Sam Drake's Geocaching class, Almaden Quicksilver, Wood Road Trail, 6/14/08
Sam Drake's geocaching class at Almaden Quicksilver, Wood Road Trail, 1/17/09
Sam Drake's geocaching class, Fortini-Mine-Stile Ranch Trails, Santa Teresa Park, 4/11/09
Sam Drake's geocaching class at Mt. Madonna County Park, 7/11/09
Sam Drake's geocaching class at Almaden Quicksilver, Wood Road Trail, 1/16/10

Almaden Quicksilver County Park

Mine Hill Rotary Furnace, Almaden Quicksilver County Park

(Migrated from geocities.com/almadenqs.) Website on one of the Bay Area's crown jewels. This park, in the backyard of the Silicon Valley, covers almost 4000 acres, with hiking trails through rugged, wildflower-covered hills filled with historical quicksilver mining relics.

New Almaden Quicksilver County Park Association

NAQCPA president Kitty Monahan at the dedication of the English Camp Map House, 10/10/09

The New Almaden Quicksilver County Park Association (NAQCPA) is the volunteer organization supporting Almaden Quicksilver County Park. See this site for pictures, events, and volunteer opportunities at the park. Park events:

Self-Running Slideshows (Windows only)

Instructions for slideshows: move mouse around the bottom of the page to see the controls to pause/play and step back/forward. Slideshow will loop. To stop, right-click, choose Exit option.

Online Slideshows

(Wait for pages to finish loading, enable Javascript if asked, scroll to bottom, hit play button to start, stop button to stop, click on links to exit):

Events in Other Parks:

Healthy Trails Hike, Uvas Canyon County Park, 2/21/09

Outdoor Photography

Ron teaching a photo class at the Bernal Ranch, Santa Teresa Park, 4/4/09, picture by Sam Drake

I've been been teaching classes on outdoor photography at Santa Teresa Park for several years. These are web pages associated with the class:

Outdoor Photography and Internet Publishing - Text from presentation foils for a class I gave on this subject.

Bay Area Outdoor Photography Gallery - Examples of some of my outdoor photographs, taken around the Bay Area.

Outdoor Photography Class Powerpoint presentation (4/2007, 21 MB).

HDR Experiments Part 1, Part 2, demonstration of High Dynamic Range photography, Part 3: sunset HDR pictures at Hellyer County Park.

My old Minolta SLR.

Colleges

UCSB

UCSB Summer - Pictures of my alma mater, UCSB, and of the beaches, parks, trails, and sights in the Santa Barbara area near the campus, taken in summer 2000.
California College Tours - information, rankings, pictures, advice, and links on Calfornia 4-year colleges and planning college tours.
Pictures of Stanford University.

Other Park Pages

Byxbee Park, Palo Alto Baylands

Spring Lake Regional Park, Santa Rosa - (May 2001) Guide to Spring Lake Regional Park in Santa Rosa and parks and attractions in Santa Rosa and Sonoma and Napa Counties.
Edgewood County Park - Spring 2001 pictures of the trails and wildflowers at Edgewood County Park in Redwood City, one of the best places in the Bay Area for wildflower viewing.
Portola State Park and Vicinity - Pictures and information about beautiful redwood-shaded Portola State Park and nearby parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains.,
Bay Area Parks - (Migrated from geocities.com/bayareparks.) Another former Geocities Website of mine hosting the following Web pages:

Arastradero Preserve - Pages on the 600-acre preserve in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains above Palo Alto.
Coyote Creek Trail South - Webpage with detailed descriptions of the south part of the Coyote Creek Trail from Hellyer County Park to Anderson Lake County Park
Coyote Creek Trail North - The partially-completed Coyote Creek Trail from Yerba Buena Road to San Francisco Bay, and plans for future developments.
Coyote Creek Trail Milage Notes - Detailed mileage notes and pictures on the completed south parts of the Coyote Creek Trail.

Ron Horii's Bay Area and Travel FAQS - (June 2001) Indexed archive of my replies to the Bay Area Backroads Message Board, with information on parks, travel, outdoor recreation, etc. and lots of links.
The Santa Teresa Hills and the Coyote Alamitos-Canal - (Migrated from geocities.com/santateresahills.) Pictures and descriptions of the Santa Teresa Hills in South San Jose and the Coyote Alamitos-Canal which runs below them.
Ravenswood (Bay Trail)
Port of Redwood City Bay Trail
Guadalupe River Park and Gardens
Guadalupe River Trail: 101 to Alviso
Lake Chabot Trails and Facilities
Los Alamitos Creek, Calero Creek, Guadalupe Creek & River Trail
Penitencia Creek Trail
Doan Ranch 11/22/08 Tour Part 1, Part 2
The Ghosts of Lexington (Lexington County Park) 12/7/08
Stanford Neighborhood and Trails
Stevens Creek Trail (Bay Trail Update, 2009)
Shoreline Park (Bay Trail Update, 2009)
Palo Alto Baylands (Bay Trail Update, 2009)
Ed Levin County Park, Monument Peak Trail 3/3/09
Harvey Bear Ranch-Coyote Lake Pictures, 3/10/07, 3/20-21/09, 4/18/09
The Albertson Parkway
San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, Santa Clara

My Work Used By Others

Bay Trail in Shoreline Park in Mountain View, used in Bay Nature Magazine, April-June 2009

I often get requests to use pictures or information from my websites. Here are some examples. If you'd like to use something from my websites, send me a note.

Pictures for Bay Area Action's (now Acterra) poster on Matadero Creek and pamphlet on invasive weed management, 2001
Pictures for the San Mateo County Convention & Visitors Bureau website, 10/01
Bay Trail Gap Analysis Plan, cover picture, 9/05
Picture of Coyote Hills used for display in ABAG's auditiorium, 3/06
Pictures for NOAA Coastal Ocean Program manual for Science-based Restoration Monitoring of coastal habitats, 7/04
Photo for the book Environment, The Science Behind the Stories by Scott Brennan, 12/03
Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign, picture for poster, 7/07
Bay Nature Magazine

Santa Teresa County Park, Apr-June 2007 (picture)

Article on Mt. Madonna, Jul-Sept. 2007 (2 pictures)
Jan-March 2009, picture of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, pictures at Coyote Ridge (1 in print version only)
April-June 2009, picture of the Bay Trail in Mountain View's Shoreline Park: "A Bayshore Getaway in Silicon Valley."

Bay Area Parent (interview for article on accessible hiking, 5/08)
Almaden Times Weekly

Education and the Environment Initiative public school curriculum, picture for 5th grade science unit on "Earth's Water", 3/08
Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), picture used for FOCUS program letterhead, 12/07
Pictures of the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens for a book on Hargreaves Associates by a professor at the Univ. of Penn, 2008
San Jose Mercury News article on Almaden Quicksilver Park (interview, 3/30/08)
Bay Area Ridge Trail (pictures on website)
Santa Clara County Parks Activities Guide (pictures, 2008-9)
City of Palo Alto Baylands Master Plan (pictures, 2008)
The Media Center: for intro pictures to a monthly community access TV program on Palo Alto's Community Environmental Action Partnership (CEAP), 12/08
My picture of Rancho San Vicente was featured in the Peninsula Open Space Trust's 2009 Annual Report (print only).
Numerous requests from students to use my pictures in their school projects.

Updated 1/21/10 by Ron Horii. E-mail me!