GeoCaching on Charcoal Road With a Bonus Find!

Trail located in Upper Stevens Creek County Park and MidPen Saratoga Gap Open Space Preserve, west of Saratoga, CA.
https://www.mtbproject.com/trail/504886/charcoal-road

This trail climbs out of the Stevens Creek canyon, along the east side of Branch C, up to the Table Mountain ridge then connects to Charcoal Road that climbs the rest of the way up to CA-35 and the Saratoga Gap Open Space Preserve. Along with the dirt access along the Canyon Trail, rode about 12 mi / 20 km of dirt this ride. This trail is uphill-only for bikes.

The trail passes into the MidPen Open Space land then back into the County Park land on the climb. This makes an interesting legal question in regards to e-bikes. They are legal in the county park and prohibited in the Open Space preserve. You can't access the bottom of this one-way trail from the east without passing over MidPen Montebello Open Space land. A close look at the maps it appears you can ride down Grizzly Flat trail from CA-35 then if you ride the short section of Canyon Trail to the intersection with Table Mtn. trail, you can stay within County Park land. Then, on the way up, you have to pass through a ~3/4 mile section of MidPen Saratoga Gap Open Space land, where again e-bikes are not allowed, although I doubt there is any MidPen rangers patrolling this remote section of trail. There is a hiking-only trail, that I think is all within the county park, but bikes are not permitted there. This is one of the reasons why I don't have an e-bike as they are so hard to ride legally around here.

Found GeoCache 201 (GCJ5TT) on this ride.

After a couple of trips up onto Table Mtn. I've finally got a better mental image of how the trails and topography lay out. With a closer look at the GeoCaching map, I see there are at least 11 caches accessible off of Charcoal Rd. plus more off the hiking-only trail. Looks like I'll need to hit up this area a few more times.

As well as an Awaswas / Ohlone grinding rock used for processing acorns into flour:
http://www.ourcityforest.org/blog/2020/7/a-brief-history-and-guide-to-californias-native-oaks

Check out @storiesbyalex YouTube channel and web site for some excellent videos on the native culture in the Santa Cruz Mtns:
https://storiesbyalex.com/

More to come...
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