Stevens Creek Road, A Landslide and a Wrecked Car

As it exists today, Stevens Canyon Road is paved up to the gate at 1000 ft. elevation. Beyond that, there's limited motor vehicle access along with hiking, biking and equestrian access. About half way to the end, there's a slide area that's taken out the old road, blocking motor vehicle access.

There's a prominent band of Serpentinite rock in the middle of the slide area. It's a metamorphosed basalt, likely ancient seafloor material, that was subducted under the continental plate 50-100MYA at a depth of 30-50km. Since it's much less dense than the original basalt, it gets scraped off onto the continental plate and becomes part of the exotic terrane that forms much of the west coast of US. It eventually ends up on the surface. It's actually the state rock of CA. This Serpentinite rock gets pulverized by the fault movement. Add water and it flows like wet concrete.

Just past the slide area are several wrecked cars down below the old road. One is near the top and another one seems to be farther down. This area was acquired by the MidPen Open Space District around 1978. I suspect the road was gated at that time and also firearms prohibited. Seeing that the old car is riddled with bullet holes, it likely pre-dates that time. If anyone has any ideas on the make/model/year of this wrecked car, feel free to post that in the comment section below.

I think I'm finally getting a handle on how to get Open Camera working better on my phone to record videos out on the trail, especially in low light. Been working through many settings over the last year or so. The challenging part is the video on the screen while recording always looks great, but then when you put it on a big display, you can see the issues. I had been trying settings recommended on YT videos, but those seemed to make things worse. Finally went back to what seemed to work early on and go from there. Still have some things to try to get dialed in, but hopefully the video quality is improved.

Paper: ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGIC ANALYSIS OF THE MONTEBELLO RIDGE MOUNTAIN STUDY AREA:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6891657W/Environmental_geologic_analysis_of_the_Monte_Bello_Ridge_mountain_study_area_Santa_Clara_County_Cali#editions-list
Pg. 22 mentions a landslide possibly associated with the 1906 earthquake that may be the one visible today.

The "Slide" GeoCache seems to have fallen victim to it's namesake, likely in 2017. This was one of the first caches I looked for on my weekly bike rides in starting in 2018. Never found it and nobody has logged it for years and it's finally been archived.

More to come...
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