Puppy and poppies in spring.
Almaden Quicksilver County Park sits at the southern end of the city of San Jose in California and gets its name from Almaden Spain, the site of a large quicksilver (mercury) mine. The park includes the grounds of former mercury (cinnabar) mines and the townships of the miners who worked the mines for over a century.
The park is about 6.5 square miles in area and has over 37 miles of hiking trails, of which 30 miles are open to horses and 16.6 to bikes. Many of the trails pass through what remains of the park's mining history, including old mine shafts and furnace sites.
The trails at the north end of the park pass through lush woodlands of oaks, bays and buckeyes and wind their way in and out of canyons cut by seasonal creeks. The southern part of the park has trails that climb to exposed ridgelines with panoramic views of the Santa Clara Valley and the majestic Mt. Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Almost all the trails offer spectacular wildflower displays in the spring and colorful spreads of toyon and manzanita berries in the fall.