Stevens Creek Canyon: Above the Landslide

2 years ago
5

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. The old road continues to the first creek crossing as part of the Canyon Trail.

This was a hike downstream from the modern Canyon Trail creek crossing to the area of the landslide that seems to be associated with the San Andreas Fault. This section of the creek canyon is very spectacular and is mostly hidden from view from the road.

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.

Future plans are to access the upper wrecked car, possibly this winter. Then next fall, water levels permitting, will try to hike up the canyon from below and try to get to the lower wrecked car and connect up to where I ended this hike.

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 Never found it and nobody has logged it for years and it's finally been archived. The slide area on the south side of the canyon is composed of a lot of Serpentinite rock that gets pulverized by the fault movement. Add water and it flows like wet concrete.

About the USGS HTMC:
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past

View/download maps on the TopoView site:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
I used the 1895 Palo Alto quadrangle or the 1900 historical topo as listed in GaiaGPS along with the OSM topo map:
https://www.gaiagps.com/

More to come...
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