Hiking in the Bay Area: Sierra Azul open space reserve (Kennedy road, priest rock trail & Limekiln trails)

Summary

Location: Sierra Azul open space, Los gatos California
Date & Time: 06/23/2015 11:30 AM
Distance: 14.3 miles
Duration: 5 hours 40 minutes
Difficulty (1-5): 5, There is so much climbing up and down, it will make you crazy and kill your toes :)
Official web page: http://www.openspace.org/preserves/sierra-azul

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Story

We picked this trail as our final big preparation before trying to hike mount whitney in one week. The reason why we picked this hike is that it provides a lot of elevation.

The trail starts at Kennedy road in Los gatos, parking might be difficult since there there is only a few spots available but since we did this hike in the middle of a week we didnt had any problems to park.

The first part of the hike is a steady 4 mile climb up to the peak, total elevation gain is about 1500 feet and goes from about 800 feet to 2500 feet. After that we turned right on Priest rock trail and went down from the peak for about 1,5 miles. The descent part is really steep so make sure you have your shoes tied correctly or your toes will start to hurt really bad. My wife realized in this part that her shoes was not as good as she thought and we had to go to REI to buy new shoes for her the day after :)

Next part of this hike was to enter the limekiln trail and slowly start to climb towards the peak again. After been already walking for about 2.5 hours in the sun this slowly never ending ascending for 3.5 miles was a big challenge but still very nice. On this trail both me and my wife tried our new trekking poles for the first time and i can promise you that they really saved me on this part of the hike. Using the poles really relives the pressure from your legs and i was very happy for that since my stamina in the legs has never been good.

After getting back up to the peak you are going back into the kennedy trail and i really liked this part because it was going constantly up and down for 1.5 miles until you start to descend towards the end for 4 miles.

This hike was overall great but i can promise you that after a total of about 14 miles and 4000 feet total elevation change both me and my wife were exhausted but at the same time very happy. The views and the trail (fire roads in good condition) are awesome and even though most of the part is in the sun you will have some shady areas.

Now we are feeling that we are ready for mount whitney :)