Getting Out: Each time I have traveled up Mount Hamilton, Joseph
D. Grant County Park called out to me as I passed, but I never
stopped. Set in Halls Valley at the base of Mount Hamilton, the
park looks so idyllic and inviting, it is easy to see why Joaquin
Bernal chose to put down roots there in 1839. Last Saturday, I
decided it was time to skip the climb up the mountain and explore
the valley down below.
Each time I have traveled up Mount Hamilton, Joseph D. Grant County Park called out to me as I passed, but I never stopped. Set in Halls Valley at the base of Mount Hamilton, the park looks so idyllic and inviting, it is easy to see why Joaquin Bernal chose to put down roots there in 1839. Last Saturday, I decided it was time to skip the climb up the mountain and explore the valley down below.
A forest of Black Oaks at peak color, backlit by the morning sun, bathed Mount Hamilton Road in warm yellow light on my morning approach to the park. As I paid my $6 use fee, the docent at the gate told me he would be giving a tour of the ranch house at 1:30. Not really my cup of tea, I thought, but if the timing works, I might check it out.
At 9,553 acres and with 51 miles of trails, Grant Park is the largest of Santa Clara County’s parks. Much of the park’s land climbs the hill above Mount Hamilton Road, but I chose to explore Halls Valley and the drainage of San Felipe Creek.
Most valleys etched in our nearby hills tend to be deep and narrow. Halls Valley is an exception. It is wide and spacious, offering a long view downstream that calls out for you to enter.
San Felipe Trail heads downstream on the west side of the valley. The fall colors of Black Oaks and Willows were a lovely foreground to changing views of Mount Hamilton beyond. Past Snell Barn, about a half-mile out, I left the trees and dropped to the open meadow of the valley floor. For the next hour, I enjoyed a special raptor show. A Northern Harrier, hidden in the tall grass, sprang up and took flight close by. I watched him drift across the valley floor, tracing the ground closely looking for unwary prey.
Then, as I crossed to the east side of the valley on Corral Trail, the big boys showed up. Skulking low like the harrier, I recognized a Golden Eagle drifting over the east side of the valley. Unaware of me, this huge bird looped and drifted without concern, perched for awhile on a fence post, then drifted off again. As he headed down valley and beyond the power of my binoculars, another immature Golden Eagle glided past closely overhead in the same direction. Not bad.
My return along Hotel Trail took me past the ranch house and reminded me of the tour the docent told me about. It’s nearly 1:30. What the heck.
Calling this dwelling a ranch house doesn’t do it justice. What an impressive house and grounds! I struck up a conversation with the one other person waiting for the tour. Here the mysteries of the house and its past residents began. The house is haunted — really haunted, he told me. A person with some background and “expertise” in hauntings, he told me of his recordings of distinct voices in the empty house and of being kicked in the shins when no one else was there.
The story of the Grant family has many chapters and dates back to the Gold Rush, but parts of it heightened an air of eeriness. One daughter, a beautiful socialite, had as many as seven murders to her name (including four trespassers shot on site and possibly her daughter). A marriage was arranged between a gay Grant daughter and a homosexual nobleman from England to maintain appearances. There’s more. Take the tour.
Whether for natural history or for human history, few parks call for a return visit more than Grant Park. I am sure that summer weekends are busy, but on a Saturday in November, I had it to myself.
